 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 and Quarterly . It appeared in collected form in September 1996 from the same publisher . Seth said his mother used the title phrase when he was growing up . On the cover , Seth labelled the work " a Picture @-@ Novella " ; this allowed him to avoid the term ' " graphic novel " and instead use " an antiquated @-@ sounding term " . He has used the term on all his later book @-@ length works of fiction . 
