Customer Reviews

The Left Bank Gang

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Left Bank Gang's premise -- positing Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and James Joyce as struggling cartoonists in 1920s Paris -- is an intriguing one, and for the first half of his rather slim but not slight story, Jason humorously plays up the writer/cartoonist angle while clearly establishing each of his lead characters and their relationships to one another, before setting his real story in motion, a Rashomon-style tale of double and triple-crossing as the quartet come up with a plan to solve their respective financial and, in some cases, marital woes, real and imagined.

As in Why Are You Doing This? -- his enthralling Hitchkockian mystery with a big heart -- Jason's anthropomorphic characters and clean, European style make for an odd but effective complement to his cynical yet hopeful story, giving the whole affair a much more human feel than the more straightforward noir approach other less self-assured creators might have taken. Jason fans will be pleased, and newcomers will be intrigued by the discovery of an immensely talented creator with a solid backlist to explore further.

"The Left Bank Gang" is about Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound, and Joyce as they struggle in 1920s Paris to make a living as writers. Gertrude Stein makes an appearance as the sage advisor to Hemingway regarding his work - "Don't clutter up the panels with too many words, let the drawings breathe" - as all famous novelists are here presented as famous comics artists with their work as masterpieces of graphic art. Fitzgerald's drinking is highlighted as well as his turbulent relationship with his wife Zelda. The fun culminates with Hemingway's plan to rob a bank and the story is then told from the perspectives of all four novelists a la "Pulp Fiction". The story is brisk and entertaining with a final twist added to a tale told well by a master comics artist. If Hemingway were a legendary comic book writer and artist, Jason is his modern day equivalent. A must for fans of indie comics.

I've recently becoem a BIG fan of Jason. After a friend gave me a copy of "MEOW Baby", I knew I had to see more of this intriguing storyteller's work. I like them all, but prefer the more absurd story lines like this one or "I Killed Adolf Hitler"

All in all Thumbs up to Jason for another great yarn!

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!

I enjoy Jason's minimalist style and offbeat ideas, but as with "I Killed Adolf Hitler", this book seems like two different stories mashed together without any real connection.

The first half tells a "what if" story about Hemingway, Pound, Fitzgerald and Joyce as struggling cartoonists in 1920s Paris. It's fairly amusing in a high-concept sort of way.

Then, half-way through, the story turns into a heist story that borrows heavily (extremely heavily!) from Stanley Kubrick's classic movie "The Killing". It's not bad as a heist story, but it loses points for being extremely derivative.

Generally speaking, when an author tells a story in two parts like this, the events in one part are used to add some sort of meaning to the events of the other part. In this case, there doesn't seem to be any sort of connection between the two halves at all. The heist doesn't shed light on any aspect of the cartoonists' nature, and the fact that they're cartoonists doesn't enter into the heist story at all. Either half of the book could have been published as a stand-alone story without compromising its meaning in any way.

I like to consider myself not completely dense when it comes to literary analysis, but after two readings, I just can't figure out what the point is of putting two "stories" together without any discernible connection.