Review: SEEDS AND STEMS by Simon Hanselmann

SEEDS AND STEMS

Seeds and Stems. by Simon Hanselmann. Fantagraphics, 2020. 360pp. $29.99.

It is fitting to talk about Simon Hanselmann after having recently reviewed Comic Art in Museums since Hanselmann is the perfect example of a contemporary cartoonist on display within rarefied museum walls. Last year, was the show, Simon Hanselmann: Bad Gateway (April 12-Aug 11), in Seattle at the Bellevue Arts Museum. 2019 also had shows in Spain and France. Well, it’s all very fascinating since the adventures of Megg, Mogg and Owl are not rarefied at all–in fact, they are downright scatological! It’s material that would make the original ’60s underground comix creators proud. What is most compelling about Hanselmann’s work is how fiercely uninhibited it all is. A world where a witch is in a sexual relationship with a cat and a werewolf is perpetually engaged in drunken orgies with vampires is not something that just suddenly pops out of nowhere. It comes from a determined mind. A mind that takes creative risks and likes to work on the razor’s edge.

From Simon Hanselmann: Bad Gateway, BAM, 2019.

Simon Hanselmann is a serious artist making some of the most surreal and irreverent art: original, driven and purposeful. Seeds and Stems is the latest book with Fantagraphics; it collects numerous short works by Hanselmann and it helps explore the creative process. Much of it springs from work that originally appeared as minicomics. Hanselmann became a big name only a few years ago, circa 2013, around the time of a newspaper-format comic with Floating World Comics. Fans quickly grew from Hanselmann’s Girl Mountain  on Tumblr. Megahex, from 2014, certainly cemented his reputation. You can read my review here. It was zines, then webcomics, books, then more zines. Seeds and Stems collects minicomic work going as far back as 2009, with most of the book covering 2016 up to 2019.

From Simon Hanselmann: Bad Gateway, BAM, 2019.

If you enjoy rummaging through B-sides and learning about the creative process, then Seeds and Stem will be most satisfying. The world of minicomics is, at its core, the entry point for emerging new talent but it can also serve as an ongoing platform for established artists. Minicomics, as the name implies, are rather humble home-made projects. That’s not to say that a minicomic is to be dismissed as amateurish, although many an aspiring cartoonist would fit that profile. To some degree, you can think of them as comparable to an open mic night at a comedy club. Minicomics are very flexible, open to being very experimental and even treated more like a sketchbook than finished work. So too with young comics on stage not bothering with appearances and reading material right off their phone. That said, minicomics can also be highly polished works all to themselves. With that in mind, you are in for a treat with this collection.