The Living and the Dead

Jason
The Living and the Dead

Fantagraphics, 2006

In this novel (2006) a native of Norway the cartoonist Jason does not change itself not a bit: the hero again is a loser; a quiet life in the novel is broken by otherworldly forces, again; the dream of a not available woman; again all the people are animals-like. But this time - and this is for the first time - the usual ingredients, put together as if in the same proportions, do not formed into something that can give pleasure to the reader.

Sad dishwasher from one of cafe, whole life of his stretches from change to change, each time returning home, dreams of a thin prostitute, but only a thick one flirts with him: he does not have enough money for a thin. The girl has not a too sweet life: her pimp beats her, and at home every day a cold bed waits for her. It is obvious, they should finally fall in love with each other, and zombies suddenly began to climb out of their graves help the man and the girl with that.

Besides this romantic story, there are no more in this book. The novel ends so fast (only 50 pages) that there is no question of any details in person relationships. The appearance of zombies is not given any more or less intelligible explanation, so this is just a pretext to bring the single characters together. The final becomes apparent about to the 20th page, which is quite strange, considering how Jason in his other works made a plot more complicated closer to the end. Nothing of the kind: even heroes have no charming in this graphic novel.

It's quite sad, but probably true: even the most talented authors should have sometime failures. This is such a case.

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.

I Killed Adolf Hitler

I Killed Adolf Hitler

By Jason

Fantagraphics, 2007

n a world where murder is committed by contract legitimately very often, to be a professional hitman is extremely boring. One of these killers in the law every day in his office accepts clients who desire to remove from this world their brothers, husbands, tesch, chiefs, and in the evening, after let someone put a bullet in the back, drinks beer alone at the bar, and at home, also absolutely one, prepars a simple dinner. When, after similar orders (changing only faces of clients and nothing else) he receives a tempting offer to kill Hitler, and, hoping to dispel the boredom, he is sent in time machine, the charging of which one should take 50 years, to Nazi Germany to kill Fuhrer. But things go awry.

Norwegian cartoonist Jason, whose books, like cakes, comics publisher Fantagraphics released one by one, in his works is correct one way: it is rather minimalist design, sparing of visual effects. Jason`s heroes look like animal species, but people inside. "I Killed Adolf Hitler" is a very dense novel, read all 50 pages at one go. Jason adds to the fantastic world a time travel, alternate history and elements of thriller, he also achieves the degree of melodramatic and sentimental, when they have not syrup, not drown in sugar. Down Führer, shaved his mustache, to the second plan, the author shows the return of old feelings between world-weary hitman and his former wife and does it so skillfully that even Hitler would have moved by.

As a result, at the end of the book all the sticks shoot (yet they had not shot in the book where the main character is a professional assassin), the time machine is used for the second time, and Hitler - yes, the title had not deceived. Almost.

The Left Bank Gang

The Left Bank Gang

by Jason

Fantagraphics, 2008

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway in Paris, brought together in the 20s. They go to the boxing fights, play ping-pong, drink in restaurants, discuss problems in their personal lives and fight. This could be perceived as a realistic novel, if not for one "but": four literary giants in the world, created by Jason, are not writers - but the artists drawing the comics. In this alternative history Dostoevsky has mentioned, too, as the author of graphic novels. Finally, when the four friends get tired of a dull life in Paris, which also does not apportion the writers money, they decide to go on a desperate step - to rob a bank.

All writers in this graphic novel are animals, as in all the books of Norwegian artist and author of many books, now published in English by Fantagraphics, Jason. And beside that it is a funny novel (Fitzgerald and Hemingway here, for example, in the literal sense measure, hum, their genitals), then it becomes even funnier when you look like two dogs speak, who, in general, perhaps the biggest writers of the XX century. Jason could not help but dilute the rather slow and boring, as the life of writers in Paris, story, dropping his heroes in a risky business, in which woman has been implicated.

The author shows a robbery rather complicated, but effectively, showing events on behalf of each of the characters individually. «The Left Bank Gang» is a modernist thriller, but with one flaw: painted four writers, and then let them into the criminal case, Jason eventually did not use the big names of his heroes. No connection between the first part, with life in restaurants and talk about comics, and the second one, the actual robbery. As it turns out that putting in place of writers even sailors of Sebastopol, nothing would not has changed in the book.

It is, nevertheless, a very exciting book. If mentioned masters of words were alive, they would not have minded to such stories about themselves.