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Popdose catchup-- The Werewolves of Montpellier

Werewolvesofmontpellier


This is a couple of week's old but I forgot to post it here.  Over at Popdose, I wrote a bit about Jason's The Werewolves of Montpellier:

Jason never lets you get close to his characters.  In this book, like in most his other books, he never easily lets you into the story.  He draws every panel from practically the same viewpoint.  Once he establishes a scene, he rarely shifts to give you another view of the room characters are in or follows a character as they walk out of a panel.   He never moves any closer or farther away from his characters.  Sven and all of the other characters remain visually constant to us, never changing.   They never get closer or move away.  Jason keeps his images very 2-dimensional and has no use for any kind of dramatic depth to his drawings.  Add in the fact that all of Jason’s characters are animal-like men and women- cats, dogs and birds- and it almost feels like Jason does everything he can visually to hold his readers at a distance and to never let them fully into his story.

You can read the full review here.

Jason has become one of my favorite storytellers.  There's an odd sameness about his books.  He's a wonderful cartoonist but it's like he doesn't care about actual cartooning.  With all of his characters looking the same, he's more concerned about how the story is being told than about the story.  That actually frees him up to create some of the most absurd stories around.