This gigantic 20-years-in-the-making body of work by Canadian cartoonist Seth has finally found its ultimate material form: a beautiful box set containing the 500 pages of the Clyde Fans series, originally developed through his Palookaville comics series.

An eerie, captivating atmosphere comes out of these pages. The storytelling feels seamless, as we follow a character during most of his life, through the lens of his memory. We see at play the private mechanisms of remembering, recollecting, seeking, classifying a vast bank of personal data, and how the process feels like one's struggle with a fluctuating puzzle. 

The story also bathes in constant vagueness, tainting the reading with a mysterious tantalizing ambiance, with a touch of supernatural. It stimulates us, as readers, to try and find meaning, to explore the dark zones and fill in the gaps in the story. 

Nostalgia, solitude, isolation, success and failure, work, one's attitude towards one's life and one's responsibilities: Seth's "picture novel" takes us in a wide emotional journey...

...and gives us powerful, evocative images of spaces and moments where we can linger dreamily, collecting with our eyes the various stimuli for the senses that can be found in these landscapes.

"Clyde Fans" is a unique, impressive body of work that takes us on a real journey and leaves us with a rich, intricate afterthought.