{"id":26158,"date":"2022-07-13T12:21:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T12:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=26158"},"modified":"2022-07-13T12:21:42","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T12:21:42","slug":"lost-cat-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2022\/07\/13\/lost-cat-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Jason<\/strong>, translated by Kim Thompson<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-68396-009-6 (HB\/Digital)<\/p>\n

A global star among comics cognoscenti, coining numerous major awards from all over the planet, Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterr\u00f8y. Born in Molde, Norway in 1965, he\u2019s been an international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn<\/em><\/strong> (Pocket Full of Rain<\/strong>) won that year\u2019s Sproing Award (Norway\u2019s biggest comics prize). He won another Sproing in 2001 for his series Mjau Mjau<\/em> and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels.<\/p>\n

The stylised artwork is delivered in formalised page layouts rendered in a minimalist take on Herg\u00e9\u2019s Claire Ligne<\/em> style: solid blacks, thick outlines and settings of seductive simplicity – augmented here by mesmerising hints in earth-tones enhancing the hard, moody, suspenseful and utterly engrossing appreciation of the ambience of France\u2019s Cinema Verit\u00e9 movement.<\/p>\n

Jason\u2019s work always jumps directly into the reader\u2019s brain and heart, using beastly and unnatural repertory players to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a soft but relentless quest for answers.<\/p>\n

That you don\u2019t ever notice the deep stuff because of clever gags and safe, familiar \u201cfunny-animal\u201d characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist\/storyteller he is. This would be a terrific yarn even without Jason\u2019s understated art, but in combination with his dead-on, deadpan pastiche of The Big Sleep<\/strong> and other movies, the result is outrageous narrative dynamite.<\/p>\n

This gem sees the artist\u2019s return to full length tales (160 pages) after some years producing shorter album-style pieces, and in Lost Cat<\/strong> he lends his uniquely laconic anthropomorphic art-stylings to a surprisingly edgy, delicious tale of lost loves, scurrilous misdeeds and uncanny sinister secrets.<\/p>\n

This a scarily evocative romantic puzzle with its roots in Raymond Chandler mysteries, tipping a slouched hat to Hollywood Noir, B-Movie sci-fi and psychologically underpinned melodramas, with Jason\u2019s traditionally wordless primal art supplemented by sparse and spartan \u201cPrivate Eye\u201d dialogue, enhanced to a macabre degree by solid cartooning and skilled use of silence and moment.<\/p>\n

This sly and beguiling detective story opens as seedy shamus Dan Delon<\/em> – a specialist in tawdry divorce cases – sees a poster about a lost cat and, upon accidentally encountering the missing moggy, returns it to solitary, sombre yet oddly alluring bookshop proprietor Charlotte<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The two lonely people enjoy a coffee and stilted conversation before Dan departs, but in his head his calm, pleasant night with the quiet lady continues to unfold\u2026<\/p>\n

Life goes on, but even after taking on a big case – tracking the lost nude painting of a rich man\u2019s long-gone inamorata – Delon just cannot get Charlotte out of his mind. Despite knowing better, he inserts himself into the woman\u2019s staid, sedate life and slowly realises that their pleasant evening together was a complete tissue of lies.<\/p>\n

Moreover, his grail-like quest for the truth leads the dowdy gumshoe into deadly danger and shocking revelations of Earth-shaking consequences\u2026<\/p>\n

Utilising with devastating effect that self-same quality of cold, bleak yet perfectly harnessed stillness which makes Scandinavian crime dramas such compelling, addictive fare, Lost Cat<\/strong> resonates with the artist\u2019s favourite themes and shines with his visual dexterity, disclosing a decidedly different slant on secrets and obsessions, in a tale strictly for adults which nonetheless allows us to look at the world through wide-open young eyes.
\nAll characters, stories and artwork \u00a9 2013 Jason. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jason, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-68396-009-6 (HB\/Digital) A global star among comics cognoscenti, coining numerous major awards from all over the planet, Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterr\u00f8y. Born in Molde, Norway in 1965, he\u2019s been an international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lost Cat”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[75,63,125,105,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-comics","category-european-classics","category-humour","category-mature-reading","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-6NU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26158"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26162,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26158\/revisions\/26162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}