Short Apology from Seth

By BK Munn
Earlier today, I roused myself from my fever-induced hibernation, crawled out of my igloo, and made my way by icebreaker downtown, where rumour had it a unique presentation by the cartoonist Seth was unspooling in front of a select audience in the back corner of our local bookstore.
To be honest, I was going to the drugstore but had to pass by The Bookshelf on the way and seized on the opportunity to check in with one of my favourite local artists, and one who rarely appears locally to promote his work. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover not Seth but his mechanical doppelgänger in the form of a puppet show, digitally recorded and playing on an endless 6-minute loop from inside a magical-seeming portable projection device.
The film,”The Short Apology of Albert Batch“, is an excerpt from the recent Seth doc by Luc Chamberlain and depicts the death and short afterlife of fictional Dominion cartoonist Albert Batch, told with puppets, animation, and voiceover (and with puppet cameos by George Herriman, Charles Schulz, Doug Wright, and Robert Crumb).
The projection box was built by artist Aaron Senitt and the event was orchestrated by the Guelph Film Festival.