Meow, Baby! [Paperback]

Jason (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2006

A collection of short stories from Norway's greatest cartoonist.

After seven books that have ranged from tragedy (Hey, Wait...) to drama (Sshhhh!) to thriller melodrama (The Iron Wagon, Why Are You Doing This?), Jason unleashes his inner Scandinavian goofball with this big collection of hilarious shorter pieces. God, the Devil, mummies, vampires, zombies, werewolves, reanimated skeletons, space invaders, Death, cavemen, Godzilla and Elvis populate these most often wordless blackout gags, side by side with Jason's usual Little-Orphan-Annie-eyed, rabbit-and-bird-head protagonists-a "lighter side" of one of the best cartoonists of the new millennium.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Jason's short stories and gag strips demonstrate the comic side of a creator whose fascinating full-length graphic novels (e.g., Why Are You Doing This? 2005) are grim noir crime stories. The protagonists of Jason's funny stuff, like those of his graphic novels, are tall and thin with animal heads. They include a reanimated mummy, zombies, a vampire, a Frankenstein monster, an angel, a devil, a werewolf, and other monster and sf movie icons, whose eldritch auras suggest a noirishly oppressive atmosphere. Meanwhile, the comedy they play out, usually wordlessly, is the whimsical, fanciful, incongruous stuff of physical comedians from Chaplin to Gleason. Jason presents them in the deadpan, no-frills manner of Ernie Bushmiller's bedrock comic-strip classic, Nancy. Their antics should seem lame and warmed over, but the ludicrousness of them behaving as if monstrousness was just a job and they are otherwise ordinary guys and gals, subject to ordinary appetites and urges (head turned by a pretty girl, the mummy reacts all-too-masculinely), saves the day. Invariably. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

The use of animals as human stand-ins turns the tales into Aesop-like fables with a modern, existential twist. (Time.com )

One of the medium's finest storytellers. (Publishers Weekly )

Jason's work is poetry. Beautiful and frightening. Redemptive and hopeless. He is the Kafka and Keats of the comic world. (Sherman Alexie )

An economy of expression [gives] Jason's work a poetic edge. (The List )

Jason's short stories and gag strips demonstrate the comic side of a creator whose fascinating full-length graphic novels (e.g., Why Are You Doing This? 2005) are grim noir crime stories. (Ray Olson - Booklist )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (February 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560976950
• ISBN-13: 978-1560976950
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,006,953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Versatile anthropomorphic fun, August 1, 2006

By 

Tom Knapp "Rambles.NET editor" (Lancaster, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Meow, Baby! (Paperback)

The twisted mind of Scandinavian writer and artist Jason is difficult to fathom. My first exposure to his work was the haunting "Hey, Wait...," a tragic story of a single moment that changed everything. Next was "Why Are You Doing This," in which a pivotal moment in one person's life had disastrous results.

Bear in mind that Jason's characters are mostly anthropomorphic animals that, in another setting, would be cute and comical. In these books, however, they are just average people caught during a dark turn of the wheel.

"Meow, Baby!" evinces Jason's more light-hearted and comical frames. The book collects a series of short vignettes -- ranging from a few panels to a few pages -- in which a variety of characters (skeletons, zombies, mummies and vampires, Van Helsing, Elvis, aliens, cavemen, Godzilla, the Terminator and more -- all, of course, drawn in cuddly anthropomorphic style) live out their lives.

This book doesn't induce belly-busting laughter. It evokes smiles, chuckles and the occasional wince -- not just for the humor, but often for the sheer unexpectedness of the directions Jason takes his characters. After the wrenching sadness of his earlier books, "Meow, Baby!" is a refreshing demonstration of Jason's versatility. I already knew he had depth; it's nice to know he has breadth as well.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor

5.0 out of 5 stars Purr, May 17, 2010

By 

Sam Quixote - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meow, Baby! (Paperback)

The book is a lot thicker than Jason's books, being the size of about 3 of his usual sized books combined. It's a shame his publishers have temporarily stopped printing copies but I suspect as with the recent repub of Sshhhh! that it won't be long before we see this as well as "Tell Me Something" and "The Iron Wagon" being reissued.

Unlike a number of Jason's other books, this isn't a 48 page comics novella but rather an assortment of 1 or 2 page stories involving aliens, cavemen, Elvis impersonators, mummies, zombies, skeletons, and vampires to name a few. The tone is very light hearted and funny with running gags involving the Caveman whacking women over the head with a club and dragging them back to his cave, the Vampire looking for a change to his routine, the Alien abducting people, and the Zombie couple eating different people. Though it has no overall narrative it shows Jason's superb ability at telling a story within a few panels without words. Also included is a short story involving mummies.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

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

By 

Jason Oak Ritchie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meow, Baby! (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!