Werewolves of Montpellier

Jason
Werewolves of Montpellier

Fantagraphics, 2010

Artist and author of no less than a dozen graphic novels Norwegian Jason in his work almost always uses the same scheme: a lonely and somewhat suffering hero lives, dying of boredom, a woman who seems not with the hero, but always has feelings to him, hidden under the animal skin (all Jason’s heroes are personified animals), their meeting, longing. The author seems not enough satisfied with just drama (rather melodrama), because of that he always makes his short novels thrillers, adding criminal component. At this time, the werewolves are called to stir the surface of the novel.

Boring hero that does not dissolve in a haze of uneventful life (though later he explains that it pushed his case from his youth), at night changes into werewolf and travel on the roofs of houses, climbs in the window, plundering tenants. Werewolf mask serves him like a cover and a scare track just in case, if the apartment owners suddenly would catch him for the crime. After one of the burglaries his picture, where he jumps from roof to roof falls in the newspaper. Fake werewolf did not think that the city has a clan of real werewolves that do not welcome the appearance of an impostor. They ask the weary robber to leave the city.

«Werewolves of Montpellier» is a sad and even somewhat funny novel about the fact that loneliness is not hiding under the mask. Is this novel better or worse than other works of Jason? Probably not. Despite repeated methods in his books, novels are utterly worth reading. If you have a werewolf friend, buy him this book. If you don’t, buy two.