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I did not know, but recently found out that "It's a good life, if you don't weaken" is the title of a graphic novel by some guy named seth.
not sure if the writer heard the song, or the band read the book.
or maybe just coincidence? anyone know?
or has anyone read it?
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This book came out in 2003. IVL is 2002 I believe.
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from the inside cover of the graphic novel:
"The story presented here was originally serialized in issues Four thru Nine of the comic book series, Palookaville.
Entire contents copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2003 by Seth(G Gallant).
2nd softcover edition: April 2003. Printed in Canda."
It's a decent read. To me it seemed that the author was a little self-involved which started to become annoying towards the end, but maybe I just didn't "get it".
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I believe the line "It's a good life if you don't weaken" also appears in a Graham Greene short story, not sure which one. My mom was reading a collection of his stories and she pointed it out to me. I'll try and find the title.
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My name's Seth.
I wrote nothing of the sort.
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then it is settled lol, hip one, seth zzzzzzero
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thanks for the info, it's a good life if you don't weaken is my favourite hip tune.
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I believe Gord said in the notes in the IVL website that a female friend of his used to say it a lot.
Cheers,
John
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From: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://hipmuseum.com/good.html">http://hipmuseum.com/good.html</a><!-- m -->
"It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," is a graphic novel by a singularly named artist known simply as Seth. It tells the sad story of a forgotten 1940's cartoonist named Kalo. The phrase itself was first brought to the attention of the band by one of their staffers, Molly Lorimer, who, as Gord once explained it, was fond of using the phrase when discussing life on the road.
The best summation of the original graphic novel I could find come from the fine folks over at raintaxi.com, and goes a little something like this: "The serious comic book artists of today have a strange lineage to face. Superheroes, gag strips, and pornography are not the tradition most artists want looming over their work, but these genres form the backbone of American comics. Most artists, sooner or later, find themselves addressing the peculiar legacy of their medium. Alan Moore and Frank Miller revised and rewrote the superhero genre; Kim Deitch (the brilliant Waldo cycle) and Dan Clowes (Ghost World, Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron) turned the kitsch of their childhoods into moody, nightmarish fantasies. But Seth's It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken confronts the emotions behind the pervasive nostalgia. His dominant influence is the gag cartoon of the '50's: the New Yorker style of Peter Arno and his contemporaries, in which cultured urbanites lightly mocked their own class. Seth's style instantly conjures up the understated gentility of those artists, their spare, curved lines and solid gray shading. It makes sense, then, that It's a Good Life is the semi-autobiographical story of Seth's attempt to track down Kalo, an obscure cartoonist who published one New Yorker cartoon and a handful of others. But what we learn of the deceased Kalo shows a man for whom cartooning was a potential career but hardly an obsession; every person Seth interviews about Kalo knows little to nothing about his cartoons."
