Jason Bücher

Stellen Sie sich vor, wir könnten die Dienste eines Auftragskillers völlig legal in Anspruch nehmen, wie die eines Arztes oder Anwalts. Stellen Sie sich ferner vor, ein Wissenschaftler würde einen dieser Mörder beauftragen, durch die Zeit ins Jahr 1939 zu reisen, um Adolf Hitler zu töten. Was, wenn nun Hitler dem Attentat entginge und seinerseits in die Gegenwart reiste – den Killer in der Vergangenheit zurücklassend? Kaum vorstellbar, wie Jason dieses Dilemma auflösen will. Gut, dass wir es in „Ich habe Adolf Hitler getötet“ nachlesen können, in dem der Norweger mit trockenem Humor sämtliche Register seines erzählerischen Könnens zieht.

Paris, die 1920er-Jahre. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound und James Joyce verbringen ihre Tage in zähem Kampf mit dem weißen Blatt Papier. Nachts hängen sie in Cafés herum oder im Salon von Gertrude Stein und schwadronieren über die Frauen, die Kunst und die Herausforderungen ihrer Arbeit. Denn Paris macht seinen Gästen das Leben schwer. Und jungen Comic-Zeichnern wie ihnen erst recht…

„Hier auf dem Weg ist es einfach, man muss nur fragen: 'Woher kommst du?' und schon geht das Gespräch los.“ Der Jakobsweg ist eine 800 km lange alte christliche Pilgerroute nach Santiago de Compostela. Zu seinem fünfzigsten Geburtstag beschließt auch der norwegische Zeichner Jason, den Weg zu gehen. Leitmotiv von Jasons Erzählung ist die Schwierigkeit, allem vielbeschworenen Gemeinschaftsgefühl zum Trotz mit anderen Reisenden in Kontakt zu treten. Seine Begegnungen enden regelmäßig in Oberflächlichkeit, alle sympatisch wirkenden Menschen haben am Ende des Tages an ihrem Tisch leider keinen Platz mehr frei… In seinen gnadenlosen Reflexionen über das Trendthema Wandern, seine Mitreisenden und sich selbst, erweist sich Jason einmal mehr als Meister des trockenen Humors.

„Hey, warte mal…“ erzählt die traurige Geschichte der Sandkastenfreunde Jo und Björn, die einen magischen Sommer voller Abenteuer und erster Schwärmereien erleben. Doch ein einziger Moment verändert alles und bringt ihre unbeschwerte Kindheit ins Wanken.

Blogger Jason Y. Ng has a knack for making the familiar both fascinating and funny. This collection of 36 essays examines some of the pressing social issues facing Hong Kong. It takes us from the gravity-defying property market to the plunging depths of old age poverty, from urban streets to beckoning islands, from the culture-shocked expat to the misunderstood Mainland Chinese and the disenfranchised domestic worker. The result is thought-provoking, touching and immensely entertaining.

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...," which was the first 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, and the story becomes the summary of lives lived, wasted, and lost. Jason's sparse dialogue, dark wit, and supremely bold use of "jump-cuts" from one scene to the next make "Hey, Wait..." a surprising and engaging debut."Sshhhh!" is one of Jason’s virtuoso silent performances, the cradle-to-grave life of one of his bird-headed characters. A sharp suite of short tales, ranging from funny to terrifying to surreal to touching, all told entirely in pantomime. Jason's clean, deadpan art style hides a wealth of emotion and human complexity, leavened with a wicked wit.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.

This 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 new stories lead off with “Emily Says Hello,” a typically deadpan Jason tale of murder, revenge and sexual domination. Then, the wordless “&” tells two tales at once: one about a skinny guy trying to steal enough money to save his ill mother, and the other about a fat guy murderously trying to woo his true love. The reason we follow these two parallel stories becomes obvious only on the very last page, in Jason’s inimitable genre-mashing style. “Early Film Noir” can best be described as The Postman Always Rings Twice meetsGroundhog Day. But starring cavemen. And finally, “You Are Here” features alien kidnappings, space travel, and the pain and confusion of family ties, culminating in an enigmatic finale that rivals Jason’s greatest twists. Funny, poignant, and wry, Low Moon shows one of the world’s most acclaimed graphic novelists at the absolute peak of his powers.

2002 Harvey Award Winner, Best New Talent: this superbly evocative story by the award-winning Norwegian cartoonist is a tale of childhood friendship and tragedy, and the terrible lingering aftereffects thereof. One of Europe's most exciting young cartoonists makes his American debut. This superbly evocative graphic novella by the award-winning Norwegian cartoonist Jason (his first appearance in the English language) starts off as a melancholy childhood memoir and then, with a shocking twist midway through, becomes the summary of lives lived, wasted, and lost. Like Art Spiegelman did with Maus , Jason utilizes anthropomorphic stylizations to reach deeper, more general truths, and to create elegantly minimalist panels whose emotional depth-charge comes as an even greater shock. His sparse dialogue, dark wit, and supremely bold use of "jump-cuts" from one scene to the next (sometimes spanning a number of years) make Hey, Wait... one of the most surprising and engaging debuts of the year. Black-and-white comics throughout

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, the longest story of the book (and the only one to be printed in color well, a color), tells the tale of a love triangle involving Frankenstein, Frankenstein's Monster, and The Monster's Bride: Jason cleverly alternates between totally silent sequences involving the three characters and scenes in which Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant discusses the day s events with a fellow hunchbacked assistant to another mad scientist. (You didn't know they had a union?) Tell Me Something is a brisk (271 panels), near-totally-silent (just a few intertitles) 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. Almost Silent is a perfect starting point for a new reader wanting to know what the fuss is all about, and a handsome, handy, inexpensive collection for the committed Jason fan.