Reading Through 2021 24: Seeds and Stems, by Simon Hanselmann

Seeds and Stems, by Simon Hanselmann

reprinting stories from the 2010s, published 2020

Is Simon Hanselmann the most successful indie creator out there right now? He's prolific, self-promoting, and it seems like his work is all over. If he's not the most successful, he's one of them at least. I've enjoyed his work since his days over on Tumblr and have got each of his books through Fantagraphics, so it was an easy choice to pick up his newest release, Seeds and Stems.

Without the slip cover

Upon getting it, I was a little disappointed. The page count is higher than his other books, but the book is a smaller size. Putting them next to his hardcovers, it's not a huge difference, but it feels like a pocketbook rather than a small book.

I like his work a lot, but I just had some apprehensions with this one. The size, but also it's a collection of odds and ends, leftovers, or seeds and stems as a disappointed stoner might say in the days before legal weed. The book collects work from anthologies and minicomics from the past decade. A lot of it is single color printing on colored paper, not the full color of his other books. One of the earlier appearing strips was originally printed as a poster, and man, my old eyes couldn't read it. Chris Ware makes tiny writing, but it's intentional. This is just shrunk down for economics. 

Actual printed size

But I burned through this book. I really, really enjoyed it. Maybe more than his longer stories in the other books. I don't know what it was. Probably because everything is so short, if you're not enjoying one story, you're quickly onto the next one. The thing this reminded me of most was those fat comic strip collections that were so popular in the 80's. I'd read a Calvin and Hobbes or Bloom County collection, and just lose myself in them. With this, it's 350 pages, and I probably read 70 pages at a time. That's a lot for me.

I relate to the choice of drugs, but yeah, drug rut, that's a real thing

There's a sitcom quality to it, but it's also got a newspaper comic strip vibe as well. The characters are constant, the setting is constant, and there are lots of jokes. Probably that's a major part of Hanselmann's success, that these strips are, despite the depression, drug use and fistings, very digestible. These are peak Megg, Mogg, and Owl strips. For the majority of these, he's in the zone. 

Hanselmann is always good with his silent panels and reaction shots

Personally, I relate to a lot of these strips. I spent a few years on the sofa like Megg, Mogg, and Owl. They watch How I Met Your Mother and Young Sheldon, I watched the Simpsons and Everybody Loves Raymond. The type of depressive antics of that lifestyle, you can't even tell what you honestly enjoy and what you ironically enjoy. There's just extreme boredom and a wish to escape it. Hanselmann has made a thousand pages capturing this weird nichey lifestyle and I'm all there for it.

He uses a variety of page colors in the book. It's an interesting production value

I don't know that I recommend this book above any of his other collections. It's good, there's a lot in it, but the others are good too, and lots are in them too. It's like those old newspaper strip collections. Some folks will want to own each and every one, but probably most people will be satisfied with a book or two. This one is as good as any of the others. I laughed.