{"id":5538,"date":"2010-09-22T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2010-09-22T06:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=5538"},"modified":"2010-09-25T15:08:05","modified_gmt":"2010-09-25T15:08:05","slug":"werewolves-of-montpellier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/09\/22\/werewolves-of-montpellier\/","title":{"rendered":"Werewolves of Montpellier"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Jason, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-359-0<\/p>\n

Jason, is secretly John Arne Saeterr\u00c3\u00b8y: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an overnight international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn<\/em> (Pocket Full of Rain<\/em>) won that year’s Sproing Award<\/strong> (Norway’s biggest comics prize).<\/p>\n

He won another Sproing<\/strong> in 2001 for the series Mjau Mjau<\/em> and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels. Now a global star among the cognoscenti he has won seven major awards from such disparate regions as France, Slovakia and the USA.<\/p>\n

Now his latest novella is released, rife with his signature surreality; populated with cinematic, darkly comic anthropomorphs and featuring more bewitching ruminations on his favourite themes of relationships and loneliness, viewed as ever through a charmingly macabre cast of bestial movie archetypes and lost modern chumps.<\/p>\n

Here he focuses on the hollow life of expatriate Swede Sven, a purposeless artist who has gravitated into a stagnant, romance-lite existence in a provincial French town. Sven fritters away his days just like his close friend Audrey – another listless intellectual looking for the right lady to love.<\/p>\n

The only thing that quickens his pulse these days is the occasional nocturnal foray over the rooftops: burglarizing houses dressed as a werewolf. Unfortunately, Montpellier already has a genuine lycanthrope community and they don’t look kindly upon gauche parvenus intruding into their world\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

This post-modern short-and-spooky fable unfolds in Jason’s beguiling, sparse-dialogued, pantomimic progressions and has resonances of Hitchcock’s bubbly comedy-thrillers quirkily blended with Bergman’s humanist sensibilities. The enchantingly formal page layouts are rendered in his minimalist evolution of Herg\u00c3\u00a9’s Claire Ligne<\/em> style, solid blacks, thick lines and settings of seductive simplicity augmented here by a stunning palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.<\/p>\n

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, always probing the nature of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153human-ness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by using the beastly and unnatural to ask persistent and pertinent questions. Although the clever sight-gags are less prominent here his repertory company of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153funny-animal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d characters still uncannily depicts the subtlest emotions with devastating effect, proving again just how good a cartoonist he is.<\/p>\n

This comic tale is best-suited for adults but makes us all to look at the world through wide-open childish eyes. Jason is instantly addictive and a creator every serious fan of the medium should move to the top of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Must-Have\u00e2\u20ac\u009d list. While you’re at it, make room there for Werewolves of Montpellier<\/strong> too\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n