{"id":34580,"date":"2025-12-23T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T09:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=34580"},"modified":"2025-12-22T14:34:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T14:34:22","slug":"what-i-did-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/12\/23\/what-i-did-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Did"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\" \"\"
\nBy Jason<\/strong>, translated by Kim Thompson<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-414-6 (HB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Absurdly Enchanting Comics Capers\u2026 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

This book includes<\/em> Discriminatory Content<\/em><\/strong> included for dramatic, comedic and ironic effect.<\/em><\/p>\n

Born in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne S\u00e6ter\u00f8y is known by enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume<\/em> Jason. The shy & retiring auteur first took the path to cartoon superstardom in 1995, once debut graphic novel Lomma full ay regn<\/em><\/strong> (Pocket Full of Rain<\/strong>) won Norway\u2019s biggest comics prize: the Sproing Award. From 1987 he had contributed to alternate\/indie magazine KonK<\/em><\/strong> while studying graphic design and illustration at Oslo\u2019s Art Academy.<\/p>\n

From there he took on Norway\u2019s National School of Arts and, on graduating in 1994, founded his own comic – Mjau Mjau<\/em><\/strong>. Constantly refining his style into a potent form of meaning-mined anthropomorphic minimalism, Jason cited Lewis Trondheim, Jim Woodring & Tex Avery as primary influences. He moved to Copenhagen, working at Studio Gimle alongside Ole Comoll Christensen (Excreta<\/em><\/strong>, Mar Mysteriet Surn<\/em><\/strong>\/Mayday Mysteries<\/strong>, Den Anden Praesident<\/em><\/strong>, Det Tredje Ojet<\/em><\/strong>) & Peter Snejbjerg (Den skjulte protocol<\/em>\/The Hidden Protocol<\/strong>, World War X<\/strong>, Tarzan<\/strong>, Books of Magic<\/strong>, Batman: Detective 27<\/strong>). Jason\u2019s efforts were internationally recognised, making waves in France, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Germany and other Scandinavian countries as well as the Americas. He won another Sproing in 2001 – for self-published series Mjau Mjau<\/em><\/strong> – and in 2002 turned nigh-exclusively to producing graphic novels. He won even more major awards.<\/p>\n

His breadth of interest is wide & deep: comics, movies, animated cartoons, music, literature art history and pulp fiction all feature equally with no sense of rank or hierarchy. Jason\u2019s puckish, egalitarian mixing & matching of inspirational sources always and inevitably produces picture-treatises well worth a reader\u2019s time. Over a succession of tales he has built and re-employed a repertory company of stock characters to explore deceptively simplistic milieux based on classic archetypes distilled from movies, childhood yarns, historical and literary favourites. These all role-play in deliciously absurd and surreal sagas centred on his preferred themes of relationships and loneliness. Latterly, Jason returned to such \u201cfound\u201d players as he built his own highly esoteric universe, and even has a whole bizarre bunch of them \u201cteam-up\u201d or clash\u2026<\/p>\n

As always, visual\/verbal bon mots unfold in beguiling, sparse-dialogued (or even, as here, silently pantomimic) progressions, with compellingly formal page layouts rendered in a pared back stripped-down interpretation of Herg\u00e9\u2019s Claire Ligne<\/em> style: solid blacks, thick outlines dominating settings of seductive monochrome simplicity augmented by a beguiling palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.<\/p>\n

A master of short-form illustrated tales, many Jason yarns have been released as snappy little albums perfect for later inclusion in longer anthology collections like this one which gathers a triptych of his very best. The majority of tales brim with bleak isolation, swamped by a signature surreality. They are, as warned, largely populated with cinematically-inspired, darkly comedic, charmingly macabre animal people ruminating on inescapable concerns whilst re-enacting bizarrely cast, bestial movie tributes<\/p>\n

This sterling hard cover compilation gathers \u2018Hey, Wait…\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Sshhhh!\u2019<\/em> and \u2018The Iron Wagon\u2019<\/em> which first appeared in Mjau Mjau<\/em><\/strong> between 1997 & 2001, and if you\u2019re keeping score, the reviews and illustrations are taken from the 2018 second edition…<\/p>\n

The volume opens with an eerie and glorious and wildly funny paean to boyhood friendships – in the manner of the movie Stand By Me<\/strong> – as young Bjorn <\/em>and Jon<\/em> enjoy a life of perfect childhood until a tragic accident ends the idyll and reshapes them forever. Life, however, goes on, but for one of the lads it\u2019s an existence populated forever onwards with ghosts and visions…
\n\"\"
\nJason\u2019s work always jumps directly into the reader\u2019s brain and heart, using the beastly and unnatural to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a soft but relentless quest for answers. That you don\u2019t ever notice the deep stuff because of the clever gags and safe, familiar funny-animal characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist he is…<\/p>\n

\u2018Sshhhh!\u2019<\/em> is a delightfully evocative romantic melodrama created without words: a bittersweet extended tale of boy-bird meeting girl-bird in a world overly populated with spooks and ghouls and skeletons but afflicted far more harshly by missed chances, loneliness and regret.<\/p>\n

These comic tales are strictly for adults but allow us all to look at the world through wide-open young eyes. This is especially true of the final tale in this collection – a slyly beguiling adaptation of a classic detective story from 1909, but enhanced to a macabre degree by the easy cartooning, skilled use of silence and moment and a two-tone colour palette.
\n\"\"
\nAs you\u2019d expect of a classic \u201cScandi-crime drama\u201d \u2018The Iron Wagon\u2019<\/em> is a clever, enthralling and deeply dark mystery yarn originally written by Stein Riverton, and has the same quality of cold yet harnessed stillness which makes the Swedish television adaptations of Henning Mankell\u2019s Wallander<\/strong> so superior to those English-language interpretations. Here, the stylised artwork is delivered in formalised page layouts; solid blacks, thick lines and settings of seductive simplicity are augmented here by stunning Deep Red overlays to enhance the Hard Black and Genteel White he usually prefers.<\/p>\n

In the coastal retreat of Hvalen a desperate author is haunted by ghosts and nightmares. However, the townsfolk are all too engrossed with the death of the game warden on the Gjaernes Estate to notice or care. The family seems cursed with constant troubles. First the old man was lost at sea, now the murder of Warden Blinde<\/em> just as he was betrothed to Hilde Gjaernes<\/em> blights the farm. People are talking, saying it\u2019s all the fault of the long dead grandfather who lost his fortune and life dabbling with weird inventions…<\/p>\n

Even now, sensitive souls still hear his accursed Iron Wagon roaring through the night, presaging another death in the village…<\/p>\n

Luckily there are more sensible folk abroad to summon a detective from Kristiania (Oslo), but Asbj\u00f8rn Krag<\/em> is not the kind of policeman anybody was anticipating and as the young writer becomes enmired in the horrific unfolding events, he realises that not only over-imaginative fools hear things.
\n\"\"
\nIn the depths of the night\u2019s stillness he too shudders at the roaring din of the Iron Wagon…<\/p>\n

Moody, suspenseful and utterly engrossing, this would be a terrific yarn even without Jason\u2019s superbly understated art, but in combination the result is pure dynamite.<\/p>\n

This collection – despite being \u201cmerely\u201d early works – resonates with the artist\u2019s signature themes and shines with his visual dexterity. It\u2019s one of Jason\u2019s very best and will warm the cockles of any fan\u2019s heart.
\nAll characters, stories, and artwork \u00a9 2010 Jason. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Today in 1900 cartoonist Otto Soglow<\/strong> was born; he\u2019s most revered for The Little King<\/strong> strip. Someone else utterly neglected by modern comics publishers is wartime patriot and Anglo-Canadian creator Jon Stables<\/strong> AKA Jon St. Ables<\/em><\/strong> (get it?) who carried most of the creative workload at Maple Leaf Comics until it closed down in 1946. As he was born in 1912, he had to find other artistic outlets until his death in 1999. And he did.<\/p>\n

A year earlier (in 1998, okay?) we lost the astounding Joe Orlando<\/strong>. The editor who saved DC in the late 1960s through his horror comics revival was also a superb illustrator, gag-guy and story-man, as you could see in Judgment Day and Other Stories<\/a><\/strong> or any of the superb DC horror comics editions we\u2019ve covered over the decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jason, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-60699-414-6 (HB\/Digital edition) Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Absurdly Enchanting Comics Capers\u2026 9\/10 This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic, comedic and ironic effect. Born in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne S\u00e6ter\u00f8y is known by enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume Jason. The shy & retiring … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “What I Did”<\/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":[262,75,239,104,66,125,105,225,148,296,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropomorphic","category-crime-comics","category-drama","category-graphic-autobiography","category-horror-stories","category-humour","category-mature-reading","category-mystery","category-romance","category-school-stories","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8ZK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34580","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=34580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34587,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34580\/revisions\/34587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}