Books of the year, Part 4: If this book were true, I'd be moving to Canada right now

Seth has been mixing fact and fiction in his comic books since the early days of Palookaville, when he convinced everyone that "Kayo" was a real cartoonist in "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken." In subsequent books like "Wimbledon Green" and "George Sprott," Seth went from a single fictional cartoonist to create entire worlds of parallel history, with TV stations, comic book publishers and other elements of pop culture that don't really exist, but seem like they almost, just barely could. And should.

"The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists" (or "The G.N.B Double C" for short) is his latest excursion into this fictional universe. Like "Wimbledon Green," it's a small hardcover and focuses on comic book history that never was (well, mostly). But like "George Sprott," it creates a complex world of its own, but one that's almost completely seen from a distance, with its best days far in the past.

The entire book is a tour of the GNB Double C building in Dominion (there were, as Seth points out, other branches) and, in a digression near the end, the vast Northern Archive Building located. The unnamed narrator (obviously Seth) takes us through the halls of the old building, pointing out galleries, lounges, ballrooms, studios and other locations, all rarely used now but once the site of decades of cartooning glory.

It's almost completely fiction (except for mentions of real cartoonists, like Canadian legend Doug Wright), but it's seductively believable. You know, for instance, that there never was a comic book called "Kao Kuk" about an Eskimo astronaut, but Seth's description -- especially the legendary issue 87, "The Death of Kao Kuk" -- is so evocative that you wish it really existed. As the story continues and the stories within the story get stranger and stranger -- "Canada Jack," the hero who walks everywhere and hangs out with Snoopy (yes, that Snoopy); "The Great Machine," a strange, foreboding art comic; and the description of Northern Archive itself, which seems almost mythical.

It's all impossible, of course, but Seth tells it all with such a sense of deadpan seriousness -- and, of course, a sense of underlying sadness -- that he makes you wish it was all real. I'd love to actually read The Great Machine, take the train through the snow to the Northern Archive, have a few drinks in The Forest Room (with its tree-like pillars) and hole up in one of the "monk-like cells" in the GNB Double C building and create a comic book. I read about a lot of fictional worlds, but there are few I've wanted to actually exist as much as the one in this book.

And, of course, being from Seth, the entire book is beautifully designed, with a gold-embossed cover and end pages filled with panels from "Kao Kuk" and "Canada Jack". There's even a model of the GNB Double C building in the opening pages, along with actual photos of the society's most prestigious awards. If you like comic books -- or if you ever did like comic books, the reality or the idea -- this book belongs on your shelf. It might not been the absolute best book of the year -- that Jaime story in Love and Rockets 4 is tough to beat -- but it was my favorite.