Book Review: It’s a Good Life if you don’t weaken and The Book of Bunny Suicides.
by Carmen Nge


Told in a spare, minimalist style, It’s a good life if you don’t weaken is a graphic novel that exploits its full potential as an aesthetic medium without compromising on the development of character, the creation of mood and the painstaking build-up of anticipation. Yet, in the end, it is a book that heightens our sense of suspense without capitulating to tired formulas and cliches in its denoument, and all the while, it visually engages us with a rich tapestry of images that stick in the mind long after the story is done.

Selected as one of the 100 Best Comics of the 20th Century by the editors of The Comics Journal, It’s a good life if you don’t weaken is the Canadian cartoonist Seth’s (née Gregory Gallant) homage to a time past, to a golden yesteryear where things were less complicated, slower paced and honestly lived. The novel is a semi-autobiographical tale about Seth’s quest to track down an obscure cartoonist from the 1930s: Kalo, who published only a handful of cartoons and with one notable work for the New Yorker—the very one that initially piqued Seth’s interest in the cartoonist. In the course of scouring used bookstores, libraries and antique shops in search of Kalo’s elusive works, Seth reveals his personal obssession with comics and cartoonists, as well as his reclusive, depressive personality.

In an interview with The Comics Journal, Seth explains that the title of his book is a quote from his mother, who often used the line on him as a child. Being able to live “a good life” is, thus, derived from an inner strength that refuses to cave-in to the all the negative forces around us. The character of Kalo—who never appears in the book but is only made known to us through his cartoons and stories told by others—is such an individual. As a cartoonist living through post-Depression era New York and then World War II, Kalo finds himself immersed in the ebb and flow of the magazine publishing world, eventually giving it up for a life in the real estate business when the demand for his work as a cartoonist goes into decline. He leads a life of quiet acceptance when he returns to Canada and devotes his full attention to his family without drawing ever again.

The irony of Seth’s investigation into Kalo’s life is that he becomes enamoured with a man who chooses a path that Seth can never imagine for himself. As a single man residing in the anonymous sprawl of Toronto, Seth is not responsible for a wife and children and need only care about and for himself. His personal priorities and private obssessions take precedence over any relationship he might have. The book adeptly captures this solitary, ruminative life of a pensive cartoonist in a beautifully drawn, two-colour palette.

Printed on thick yellowing paper, reminiscent of faded newsprint but without the latter’s fragility, It’s a good life if you don’t weaken is a volume that has all the heft of literary seriousness and all of the carefully composed craft of visual poetry at its most lyrical. Using bold, strong lines that harken back to vintage New Yorker panels, Seth creates a wistful world that plods along placidly amidst the stark and barren landscape of winter. It is a world that is melancholia in excess. Seth adroitly captures the empty cold feeling of urban life with an eye for the panorama of cityscapes—Toronto is depicted as a city crowded with people who move about anonymously and Seth’s only escape is the park, amidst snowdrifts and the fluffy white quiet of winter.

The power of Seth’s visual storytelling is most evident in sections of the book that are all images and no words. Through the rendering of quiet walks in the park, the mundane banality of working class domestic living with his mother and brother or the gradual passing of winter into spring and autumn, Seth manages to depict the everyday, the ordinary and the unspectacular with unpretentious care. It’s a good life if you don’t weaken is a graphic novel that pays attention to life lived with very little drama because Seth seems to understand that this is the kind of life most frequently lived and least often told.

Andy Riley’s The Book of Bunny Suicides is a lesson in contrast. If It’s a good life if you don’t weaken is a book that expands and expounds on the literary and artistic potential of comic books, then The Book of Bunny Suicides is most certainly a comic book that reminds us of how essential it is to laugh at cartoons. Quirky, whimsical, and most definitely macabre and scandalous (for bunnies, of course!), Riley’s bare bones line drawings are conventional cartoons with a decidedly wicked twist.

A scriptwriter for TV and film, Andy Riley cowrote the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award-winning Robbie the Reindeer, as well as the soon to be released new Disney animated film Gnomeo and Juliet. His cartoons, however, are anything but Disney-esque.

Furry, fluffy, cuddly bobtailed bunnies are given the royal treatment in this gruesome feast of bunny deaths. These woffly-nosed innocents are lined up for self-slaughter in the most inventive ways possible. From being impaled on light sabers to having their brains drilled by wine-bottle openers, these bunnies not only plan and execute their own suicides but they also make references to numerous historical figures while doing so—from Benjamin Franklin to Hitler, from Darth Vader to Pacman. They intend to impress upon us the fact that they not only make history by enacting their suicides en masse but they are also part of history in small (and not so small) ways.

Andy Riley firmly embeds his bunnies in our world; these are not Thumper lookalikes who warm their way into our hearts Disney fashion. These are bunnies who fought alongside the navy during World War II; they were there when American space shuttles were being launched into space; in fact, they watched Noah load his ark while they enjoyed a good tan in the sun. The genius of Riley is his ability to infuse his serious-faced bunnies with a lot of human-ity; after a while, we begin to wonder if these cute creatures may not be a surrogate for our own screwed-up history and lives.

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This review was published in the April 2004 issue of Options2, The Edge