Seth presents the fictional book as a work of autobiography and features figures from his life such as his friend and fellow cartoonist Chester Brown.

The minimalist artwork draws from the styles of the early New Yorker cartoonists, rendered in thick brushstrokes with heavy blacks against a greyish-blue wash.

The story unfolds with a nostalgic and melancholic tone, and several wordless scenes take the reader on a tour of Southern Ontarian city- and landscapes.

[1] Self-revelatory autobiography was a prominent genre in alternative comics in the early 1990s, drawing influence from the works of Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Art Spiegelman, and others of the earlier underground comix generation.

[3] Friends of his appeared in them, most prominently fellow Toronto-based cartoonists Chester Brown and Joe Matt, who also featured each other in their own autobiographical comics.

Seth begins a relation with a woman named Ruthie, whom he first spots while conducting a search at the Toronto Reference Library.

After two years of no progress Seth finds out that Kalo had run a real estate business in Strathroy that his daughter inherited on his death in 1979.

He learns that Kalo spent years as a cartoonist in New York and gave up cartooning for real estate after returning to Strathroy and marrying.

It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken was serialized in issues #4 (December 1993) through #9 (June 1996) of Seth's comic book Palookaville, published by Drawn & Quarterly.

[23] Seth's renders with a simple and organic brushline, and gives attention to buildings, landscapes, weather conditions, and other background details.

[21] In a self-referential twist, the character of Seth at one point discusses his love of the New Yorker style with Chester Brown, while the story itself is drawn in such a manner.

[31] Though it avoids sentimentalism,[32] a strongly nostalgic and melancholic tone pervades the narrative[33] as the Seth character searches for peace and meaning in his life.

[35] Seth navigates the city on foot—cars, bicycles, and public transportation rarely even appear–as he talks with friends or rifles through used book shops.

For literary theorist Barbara Postema, the character fits the archetype of Walter Benjamin's flâneur—the wandering urban pedestrian out of touch with his own time and obsessed with the past.

Seth dreads the future and allows his memories of childhood to dominate his thoughts,[37] but recognizes and criticizes his own obsessions: "There's something in the decay of old things that provokes an evocative sadness for the vanished past.

[42] A male-centred viewpoint dominated English-language comic books throughout the 20th century and, with few exceptions, placed women in subordinate roles as victims, helpers, or sex objects.

The intelligent Ruthie provides a love interest that nevertheless manages only to feed Seth's self-absorption: he is attracted to her physically and also to her bookishness, but she takes second place in his life to his obsession with Kalo, whose real name she discovers for him.

He has a withdrawn personality averse to risk-taking; he declares himself a "true adherent of avoidism", and quotes the character Linus from Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts: "No problem is so big or so complicated that it can't be run away from."

[43] To comics scholar Bart Beaty, Kalo's giving up cartooning for familial duties provides the protagonist an opportunity to evaluate his own life: his failed romances, his obsessive collecting, and his relationship with his family—in particular his mother, whose home is an emotional safety zone for him.

[48] As a mother who has outlived her son yet does not mire herself in the past, Mrs Kalloway provides an unsentimental contrast to how Seth views and deals with the world.

[49] In the middle of its serialization, reviewer Kent Worcester called It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken "one of the very few essential exemplars of the potential of the medium".

[24] On its publication, It's a Good Life became a primary inspiration, after Art Spiegelman's Maus, on the cartoonist Chris Ware's efforts and thoughts on the potential for the graphic novel form.

[56] Since the book's publication, Seth has achieved a particularly high level of critical and popular recognition compared to other Canadian cartoonists.

[62] The Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip titled a song after the book on its album In Violet Light, released in 2002.