Books by Jason
Why Are You Doing This?
by Jason
Imagine a long-forgotten, never-produced Alfred Hitchcock "wrong man" thriller screenplay discovered, adapted, and filmed by a modern minimalist like Jim Jarmusch, and you'll have some idea of the unique flavor of this graphic novel.
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Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories
by Jason
An anthology of masterful shorts from the creator of I Killed Adolf Hitler.
This multifaceted anthology―our 12th Jason graphic novel―wraps up Fantagraphics' near-complete collection of Jason's oeuvre (minus just a few pieces of juvenilia) by printing selections from Jason's early-1990s work, including his remarkable calling card, the novella-length thriller Pocket Full of Rain, which has never before been published in English.
Like a number of his initial stories, Pocket is actually drawn with realistic human beings instead of blank-faced animal characters―a true revelation for Jason fans. In fact, this book showcases three distinct styles: his earliest "realistic" drawing style (used to unsettling effect in some particularly creepy stories), an intermediate "bighead" cartoony style that still features humans (used for both humor and drama), and the "funny-animal" style he's now best known for.
Readers who like Jason's anthropomorphic style won't be disappointed, though, as the book includes a number of tales done in that fashion, featuring (among other things) Death, a guy waiting for a bus, and croquet-playing nuns; over 40 "daily strip" format gags; a trio of hilarious parodies of other pop media work including Corto Mjautese and an elaborate riff on Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk done Jason style; and much more.
Also included are a color section featuring Jason's painted covers for his original Norwegian magazine Mjau Mjau, color strips and illustrations, and more. Plus―God cheating at Trivial Pursuit.
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I Killed Adolf Hitler
by Jason
2008 Eisner Award Winner: Best U.S. Edition of International Material; 2008 Harvey Award Nominee: Best Single Issue or Story: A hitman is hired to travel back in time to kill Hitler in 1939... but things go very wrong. Hitler escapes to the present, leaving the killer stranded in the past. This surprising thriller unfolds with Jason's wickedly dry humor. In this full-color graphic novel, Jason posits a strange, violent world in which contract killers can be hired to rub out pests, be they dysfunctional relatives, abusive co-workers, loud neighbors, or just annoyances in general ― and as you might imagine, their services are in heavy demand. One such killer is given the unique job of traveling back in time to kill Adolf Hitler in 1939... but things go spectacularly wrong. Hitler overpowers the would-be assassin and sends himself to the present, leaving the killer stranded in the past. The killer eventually finds his way back to the present by simply waiting the decades out as he ages, and teams up with his now much-younger girlfriend to track down the missing fascist dictator... at which point the book veers further into Jason territory, as the cartoonist's minimalist, wickedly dry sense of humor slows down the story to a crawl: for long patches absolutely nothing happens, but nobody can make nothing happening as riotously entertaining as Jason does... and finally, when the reader isn't paying attention, he brings it together with a shocking, perfectly logical and yet completely unexpected climax which also solves a mystery from the very beginning of the book the reader had forgotten about. As always, I Killed Adolf Hitler is rendered in Jason's crisp deadpan neo-clear-line style, once again augmented by lovely, understated coloring.
48 pages of full-color comics
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I Killed Adolf Hitler
by Jason
In this graphic novel, a hitman travels back in time to kill Adolf Hitler in 1939... but things go spectacularly wrong.
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The Last Musketeer
by Stuart Gibbs, Jason
A unique mash-up of Alex (Three Musketeers) Dumas and Alex (Flash Gordon) Raymond.
After his existential thriller (Why Are You Doing This?), his Parisian famous-writers crime caper (The Left Bank Gang), and his time-travel story (I Killed Adolf Hitler), Jason's fourth full-color album may feature his loopiest premise yet.
Set in the present, The Last Musketeer stars the by-now centuries old (for no explained reason...and it doesn't matter) musketeer Athos, who has been reduced to a suavely dressed but useless near-panhandler trading on his now almost extinct fame. (Aramis has forsaken his musketeering ways, and Porthos...well, Porthos isn't around any more. Don't ask.) All this changes when one day the Martians attack Earth. Suddenly there is a need for swashes to be buckled, and Athos leaps back into the fray with a vengeance. Robots, evil alien emperors, beautiful alien princesses, rayguns vs. swords, treachery, secret corridors, insanely cool-looking robots...The Last Musketeer is vintage sci-fi adventure with a unique twist from an internationally acclaimed cartoonist.
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The Last Musketeer
by Stuart Gibbs, Jason
Before they were legends, they were friends.
All for one and one for all!
On a family trip to Paris, Greg Rich's parents disappear. They're not just missing from the city—they're missing from the century. So Greg does what any other fourteen-year-old would do: He travels through time to rescue them.
Greg soon finds out that his family history is tied to the legendary Three Musketeers. But when he meets them, they're his age, and they'll only live long enough to become true heroes if he can save them. To rescue his parents, Greg must assume the identity of a young Musketeer in training and unite Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—but a powerful enemy is doing everything possible to stop him.
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The Left Bank Gang
by Jason
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce walk into a Parisian bar. Set in 1920s Paris, The Left Bank Gang is a deliciously inventive re-imagining of these four literary figures as not only typical Jason anthropomorphics, but graphic novelists!
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The Living and the Dead
by Jason
by Jason
This George A. Romero-esque zombie comedy is the middle installment of Jason's "horror trilogy," begun with the Frankenstein monster love triangle of "You Can't Get There From Here." Jason's elegant deadpan style somehow manages to make the gruesome gore and splatter effects almost... charming - and yes, it is a sweet love story at heart. If you read only one book in which a zombie devours a baby this year, read this one!
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Almost Silent
by Jason
Almost Silent packages four original Jason graphic novels - three of them out of print since mid-2008 - into one compact, hardcover omnibus collection. (As the title indicates, this volume favors Jason's pantomime works.)
“You Can't Get There From Here” tells the tale, in color, of a love triangle involving Frankenstein, Frankenstein's Monster, and The Monster's Bride. “Tell Me Something” is a brisk near-totally-silent (just a few inter-titles) graphic novelette about love lost and found again, told with a tricky mixture of forward- and back-flashing narrative. “Meow, Baby” is a collection of Jason's short stories and gags, and finally, “The Living and the Dead” is a hilariously deadpan (and gory) take on the traditional Romero-style zombie thriller. All of these yarns star Jason's patented cast of tight-lipped (or -beaked) bird-, dog-, cat- and wolf-people, and show off his compassion and wry wit.
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Werewolves of Montpellier
by Jason
Lycanthropy, recreational burglary, and romance in idyllic southern France! After an omnibus collection of earlier books (Almost Silent) and a new collection of short stories (Low Moon), Jason returns with another full-length, full-color graphic novella―his first since the 2008 Eisner Award-winning The Last Musketeer.
Sven, a semi-aimless Scandinavian artist who has ended up in Montpellier, France on a futile romantic pursuit, enjoys nocturnal raids into other people’s homes, disguised as a werewolf. The way he figures it, the disguise will give him an extra few moments’ advantage vis-a`-vis any startled home owner if things get ugly...but he hasn’t taken into account the existence of a society of real Montpellier-based werewolves who do not take kindly to this new pretender. So while Sven spends his days playing chess and poker with his friends, sketching his way through his picturesque chosen hometown, and coping with romantic dilemmas―both his and those of his best friend, the Breakfast at Tiffany’s-obsessed Audrey, who has girl troubles of her own―little does he realize that a genuine threat to his life, and for that matter his humanity, is closing in on him.
Werewolves of Montpellier is a lycanthropic thriller, a romantic comedy, and an existential drama―basically, your typical Jason book. Beware the full moon! 48 pages of color comics
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Low Moon
by Jason
The acclaimed graphic novelist Jason returns with his most eagerly awaited book yet, thanks to the inclusion of the title story, the world's first (and likely last) chess Western. Originally serialized in 2008 to a huge audience in the New York Times Sunday Magazine “Funny Pages” section, “Low Moon” made Jason's 2008 appearance at the MoCCA Arts Festival in Manhattan the talk of the prestigious show, catapulting the Norwegian star to a higher level of mass appeal. This 216-page hardcover book features five yarns - all brand new with the exception of the aforementioned "Low Moon,” which is collected into book form for the first time. The volume also includes deadpan, genre-warping tales of murder, revenge, and strained relationships.
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Athos in America
by Jason
Athos in America takes its title from the lead story, a prequel of sorts to the graphic novel The Last Musketeer, in which the seemingly ageless swashbuckler turns up in a bar in 1920 New York and relates the tale of how he went to Hollywood to play himself in a film version of The Three Musketeers. Another tie-in with a previous Jason story occurs in “The Smiling Horse,” in which the characters from the story “&” in Low Moon attempt to kidnap a woman. Also in this volume: “The Brain That Wouldn’t Virginia Woolf,” a mash-up of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, told in reverse chronological order; the Bukowski pastiche “A Cat From Heaven” in which Jason works on his comic, has a reading in a comic book store, and gets drunk and makes a fool of himself; the dialogue-free (all the text occurs in thought balloons) “Tom Waits on the Moon,” in which we follow four people (one of them a scientist working on a teleportation machine) until something goes wrong; and “So Long Mary Ann,” a prison-escape love-triangle story.
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Good Night, Hem
by Jason
Ernest Hemingway stars in three interconnecting short stories in this graphic novel.
Paris, 1925. Our story begins when Hemingway meets Athos, the last Musketeer, who, together with several more friends of Hemingway, travel to Spain's Pamplonafor the fiesta. Festivities and complications ensue.
Paris, 1944. The second story starts the day after the liberation of Paris when Hemingway, now a war correspondent, decides enough is enough, and takes action to end the war for good. With a group of adventurers and resistance fights, he parachutes into Germany to do just that.
Cuba, late 1950s. Our literary lion is in his twilight years, writing his memoirs, remembering his first and second meeting with the seemingly immortal Athos.
Mixing fact and fiction, Jason has imaginatively recreated one of America's greatest and most controversial writers of the 20th century.
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If You Steal
by Jason
Jason’s latest collection of full color comics indulges in his light and playful side, consisting of eleven wildly off-kilter stories that mix incongruous elements of pop culture and a variety of genres, pastiches and mash-ups in a delightful soupcon of graphic storytelling. Frida Kahlo is a hired killer. Santo, the Mexican wrestling film star, faces his ultimate challenge. The rise and fall of Chet Baker—told in six pages. Night of the Vampire Hunter. The last word on the JFK assassination conspiracies. A non-linear heist story that also somehow includes images by Magritte. A big bug story based on 1950s black-and-white films. And what would Van Morrison’s Moondance album look like if it was a horror comic? All as foretold by Nostradamus, of course. And all told by Jason, whose sly and elusive meanings are hidden beneath a beguilingly deadpan style.
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What I Did: Hey, Wait... / Sshhhh! / The Iron Wagon
by Jason
A matching volume to 2009’s Almost Silent, What I Did collects three of Jason’s acclaimed 1990s graphic novels into a handsome, definitive omnibus format. “Hey, Wait...,” the first (and the most critically acclaimed) of Jason’s books to be translated to English, tells the story of two childhood friends. A dreadful event midway through the story changes their lives forever. Sparsely told as a series of brief vignettes, “Sshhhh!” is one of Jason’s virtuoso silent performances, the cradle-to-grave life of one of his bird-headed characters. And the one Jason fans have been waiting for is the long-out-of-print “The Iron Wagon,” an ingenious, atypically (for Jason) talky murder mystery set in early-20th-century Norway, adapted from a classic Norwegian novel by Stein Riverton―albeit starring Jason’s patented blank-eyed animal-headed characters and told in moody two-color panels.
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On The Camino
by Jason
Northwestern Spain, observed with the eye of an artist, chronicling both the good (people, conversations) and the bad (blisters, bedbugs) he encountered on his journey. Full of quiet incidents, odd encounters, small triumphs, and the occasional setback, On the Camino is the first implicitly autobiographical long-form work by a master cartoonist.
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