The Iron Wagon [Paperback]

Jason (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

One of Europe's most celebrated cartoonists updates a turn-of-the-century mystery novel.

Exactly three quarters of a century ago, Agatha Christie stunned the mystery-novel world with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, an Hercule Poirot novel whose final twist was greeted as either a brilliant trick or an appalling cheat. (More recent films and novels such as The Usual Suspects, Angel Heart, and Fight Club have used variations, but none has bettered the original.)

As it happens, a Norwegian mystery writer who signed his work Stein Riverton beat Dame Agatha Christie to the punch by about 20 years, using exactly the same trick in his 1908 novel The Iron Wagon. An evocative murder mystery set in the Norwegian countryside, it, like all good murder mysteries, is a stew of passion, buried past crimes, revelations, and sharply defined characters who remain ambiguous to the very end. This novel has never been translated into English.

Now, using a striking two-color drawing style and re-casting the story with his iconic animal characters from his previous graphic novel Sshhhh!, the acclaimed Norwegian cartoonist Jason has adapted The Iron Wagon into an original graphic novel that will appeal not only to fans of his work but also to mystery fans who will finally have a chance to experience Riverton's clever story. Surprisingly, this turn-of-the-century mystery thriller dovetails neatly with the concerns and obsessions of Jason's other comics (including the landmark Hey, Wait..., called the second best comic of 2001 by Time.com), and becomes a case of two wildly disparate craftsmen separated by a century merging their sensibilities for a unique work.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This spare, eerie graphic novel is based on a 1908 novel never translated into English that is as seminal to the Scandinavian mystery as Agatha Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd is to the English. A young man vacationing in a resort town becomes involved in a homicide when he finds the corpse of another fellow, his rival for a young townswoman's attention. He isn't entirely surprised by the discovery, for beforehand he had heard the creaking wheels of an iron wagon that, he was told, were last heard before a mysterious death. The investigating detective soon seems to spend inordinate time with the protagonist, and the latter, when alone, begins to see the dead man, or his ghost. Norwegian artist Jason's rendering of the characters as elongated, nearly expressionless, animal-headed figures and use of only burnt sienna, black, and white increase the somberness of proceedings that become as psychologically oppressive as a heavy Ingmar Bergman film, such as Persona or Hour of the Wolf. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Jason's work will haunt you long after you've put it down. (Ain't It Cool News )

Norwegian artist Jason's rendering of the characters as elongated, nearly expressionless, animal-headed figures and use of only burnt sienna, black, and white increase the somberness of proceedings that become as psychologically oppressive as a heavy Ingmar Bergman film, such as Persona or Hour of the Wolf. (Booklist )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560975415
• ISBN-13: 978-1560975410
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,340,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Iron for the soul, May 17, 2010

By 

Sam Quixote - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Iron Wagon (Paperback)

The Iron Wagon is a graphic novel based upon a book by Stein Riverton, a Norwegian writer, which was published in 1909 but has never been translated into English. Jason creates the early 20th century without effort and the scenery of blank mountain scapes, spindly night forests, and open empty fields crossed by a dirt path, are beautifully drawn and wonderful to see. I've gone back to the book several times just to look at the individual panels.

Not having read the original novel I couldn't say how faithful an adaptation it is, however the story and contains a lot more dialogue than usually appears in a Jason book. It is a murder mystery story in the style of Agatha Christie (and contains a famous plot device used in one of Christie's most famous books), where a game keeper in the countryside of Norway is murdered walking home in the dark. An odd sound is heard and the story of the Iron Wagon, a ghostly apparition of a wagon and its driver who met with a grisly fate, is revealed. Is the death of the game keeper due to a ghost or is an earthly solution more likely? Why does the dead gamekeeper return each night to one of the hotel lodgers' rooms? And is that the last of the murders?

I can't recommend this book more but then I'm biased as I love all of Jason's books. He's a fantastic cartoonist and is becoming, rightfully, more famous. Strangely though some of his best books have gone out of print, The Iron Wagon being one of them. Let's hope with his readership growing Fantagraphics bring this one back (as well as Tell Me Something and Sshhhh!).

5.0 out of 5 stars Jason Comics, March 19, 2007

By 

Jason Oak Ritchie - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Iron Wagon (Paperback)

I'll have to say that this artist has a way with the graphic art form that I feel few others have demontrated thus far in the genre. The sincerity conveyed through simplicity in order to portray a wonderful series of elements that characterise the human condition is refreshing...not to mention that zombies, mummies and monsters in general NEED to be in our lives!

4.0 out of 5 stars Great example of what comics can do, July 10, 2006

By 

Stefan Jones (Suburbs of Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Iron Wagon (Paperback)

I've read several of Jason's books. Perhaps "read" is the wrong word; they are generally almost wordless, relying on his spare, precise drawings of highly "schematic" anthropomorphic animals. Most are tales of hurt, alienated people.

"The Iron Wagon" is quite a departure. It is a word-heavy comic book version of a Norwegian mystery story, set at and around a resort hotel where the lead character is vacationing. There's a murder, than another; a detective comes to town and digs up family secrets and odd local legends.

Overall, a satisfying tale that, though populated with talking rabbits and birds, has a charming turn-of-the-century flavor.