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Tell Me Something, Jason by Jason Gelt The first-name-only Norwegian artist Jason's graphic novella reads like a stylized storyboard for a silent film noir that might have been produced by Disney -- if Jim Thompson was the head of production. The stark Tell Me Something is brief at 48 pages, but yet still moves effortlessly between two separate time periods and two distinct story lines. Plus, it is a well-worn tale. A young pair's romance and marriage is thwarted by a meddling, callous father who despises his prospective son-in-law's ambition to become a poet. The lovers are separated until, years later, fate reunites them. Although they are both burdened by frustrated, unfulfilled lives -- he's become a petty thief, she's ensnared in an abusive marriage -- their romance is immediately rekindled, and the pair escape the country to begin a new life together. But as with the best noir, bitterness and retribution loom, but Jason transforms this clichéd terrain with a simple yet effective drawing style. Tell Me Something features scant action -- and only seven lines of dialogue -- yet Jason manages to communicate a palette of rich emotion within this artistic confine. It helps that his characters are animals with wide, blank eyes, each skillfully delineated: The lovers and the bitter father are crows, the brutish husband is a dog, and the hitman is a narrow-eyed wolf. Meanwhile, their actions and features are communicated with the simplest of strokes: Surprise is three squiggles (and a few sweat drops) around the head; hunger is three squiggles near the belly; love is a silent embrace. The starkness accentuates the artist's sardonic, deadpan delivery, injecting a healthy dose of humor. Even though Tell Me Something is tragic, some of its finest scenes are executed with slapstick precision. Sure, mixing humor and tragedy is an old strategy. But Jason breathes life into the stand-by, combining hijinks with grit. Drug use, spousal battery, murder. Not your usual animal comedy. The result is a mature work bristling with vitality. It's hard to not to be captured by Tell Me Something's doomed trajectory. Which makes Jason's newest narrative quite the left-field mediation on loss, love and revenge. |
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Ben
Watts
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