CBR Live! Archive
The gloriously weird world of Seth Fisher
- by Greg Burgas
- in Comic Reviews
Seth Fisher is one of those artists whose work I will buy no matter who wrote it or what the story is about. He was that brilliant.
Case in point. In this comic you get ... (and you can click them to get even more detail) ...
Wild (and occasionally three-dimensional) sound effects ...
Wonder Woman, Bo Peep, and the Pope grooving in a bar ...
Escher-like hotels ...
Flying heads with erasers on top of them ...
Evil heads spearing our hero with its nose ...
Samurai eggs ...
Octopus (and other kinds of) soldiers ...
A samurai octopus ...
And, of course, general weird shit ...
The comic, in case you're wondering, is Willworld, the Green Lantern graphic novel from 2001. Given that it's a Hal Jordan story written by J. M. DeMatteis, you can pretty much anticipate a lot of what's going to happen, but Fisher elevates it to utter brilliance. It's a good book made great by the art.
Fisher's death is still a strange event that I don't feel I can comment on, but it's not controversial to say that the comics world lost one of the most interesting artists ever. If you see the name "Seth Fisher" on a comic, buy it. It will not disappoint at all.
- Posted on June 1, 2008 @ 03:50 PM






14 Comments
Bill Burns
June 1, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Like you, I'll buy any Seth Fisher book. The only sad thing is that there's so little out there compared to what there could have been.
Bill Reed
June 1, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Seth Fisher was too brilliant for this world.
Chickeninja
June 1, 2008 at 6:47 pm
It's a shame he never got a chance to work with Morrison. Can you imagine the brilliance they would have produced?
Lugash
June 1, 2008 at 6:59 pm
There was a column on him some months ago, and thinking about that I picked up Batman Snow last week. You can write a column about him everyday for the next 6 years and I don't think it would explain him as well as that back cover.
BizarroBeachHead
June 1, 2008 at 7:05 pm
The only work of his that I've read is the Fantastic Four/Iron Man series he did with Zeb Wells. And it was pretty brilliant. I made it a point to seek out his other work...but never did. Much to my shame. I think it's high time I remedy that.
Da Fug
June 1, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Haha! I was wondering why in the heck Snow didn't look like JHW III (am I the only one who ALWAYS gets him confused with Tony Harris?). I just saw his name on the cover and figured he drew it and Seth inked it. I guess now I know why those little cartoon bats are all over the place in Snow: Seth Fisher
I will have to check out more of his stuff.
On kind of another note, do writers come up with the spelling and use of sound effects? I guess the ones in the above samples aren't too bizarre and they certainly fit the art. But man, are there some weird ass ones in Snow. The sound effects were so distracting I didn't know how seriously to take the story. Couple that with the little cartoon bats and other animals and I was prepared for the thing to veer into slapstick comedy.
Lucion
June 1, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I have to give a huge thanks to the writer of the post Lugash mentioned. After reading that I picked up Green Lantern: Willworld, Fantastic Four & Iron Man: Big in Japan, The Flash: Time Flies, Batman: Snoa, and Happydale: Devils in the Desert. All are excellent and a great joy to just stare at all the tiny details in the art. There is magic on each and every page.
It is indeed sad that we won't be seeing any more of his wonderful art.
chris
June 2, 2008 at 10:51 am
It was always a joy working with Seth. I miss him to this day.
One project I didn't see anyone mention is "Vertigo Pop! Tokyo." It was one of his favorites. I don't think it's collected though, so you'll have to hunt down the four individual issues.
Danielle Leigh
June 2, 2008 at 10:54 am
wow, what wonderful stuff. Thanks for introducing his art to me (& to those of us on the blog who never knew him.)
If we want to pick up some of his stuff where do you suggest we should begin?
Paul1963
June 2, 2008 at 11:41 am
The sound effects in "Batman: Snow" were so off-the-wall and so obviously the work of the artist himself that I assumed at the time that Fisher had put them in himself.
Greg Burgas
June 2, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Danielle: This is a good place to start, although Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan, which is (I'm pretty sure) his final work, is excellent, as it allows Fisher to really cut loose with the monsters and has even more extremely cool sound effects than this does!
Da Fug
June 2, 2008 at 8:16 pm
So now I'm confused. Are there bizarre sound effects in ALL Seth Fisher's stuff? If so, that would seem to answer my question as to who does sound effects in comics (at least in Seth's case). Is it normal practice for the artist to come up with sound effects? What about the letterer? I always thought that, at least in terms of full scripts, the writer chose there panel placement and spelling. Sounds like a case for Comic Questions Answered
Jon H
June 3, 2008 at 10:47 pm
There's a Seth Fisher wallpaper file available this week at tor.com
TOR is a science fiction/fantasy publisher, and they post two wallpapers every week. This week one is Fisher's painting Robot Tessellation.
Vicki
July 9, 2008 at 9:37 pm
There ARE wierd sound effects in all Seth's work. But not all the sound effects are his. The answer to your question, Da Fug, is that Seth put in the more interesting and nonstandard sound effects. The ones like those that are pictured at the top of the page are all Seth's, but the letterer put in some others.
For example, in Big in Japan, issue 2 page 8, there are a lot of sound words. The words BOOM BOOM are partly covered by the explosions, and though they are standard words, Seth did draw them in. On the bottom of the page a giant hand hits the wall with a resounding WPAK, written in 3-D letters: Seth's of course. But at the top of the page the monster says GRRRRAAARRRRGH!, and that was put in by the letterer.
This is Seth's mom writing. I'm pretty familiar with his work. If you want to see more of his original pages, look at his website, http://www.floweringnose.com and go to where it says NEWS. I write a blog on it where I post a piece of his art 4 or 5 times a week, and tell a little about it. There is quite a bit about sound effects.