Oof, somehow I don’t believe I’ve posted any of Jason’s work here before, who is in fact 59yo John Arne Sæterøy from Norway, who lives in Montpellier, off The Mediterranean.

So what can I say about “Jason?” I find him a fascinating BD+ creator, one who started as a fairly traditional comics artist, but quickly developed a unique visual style featuring lean, upright pseudo-animal figures, universally drawn with rather hauntingly empty eyes and spare expressionism.

I find there’s a strong minimalism to his disciplined art that inclines the reader to focus on the dialogue, plot, and thought experiments going on. For make no mistake-- Jason is all about dry wit, subtle satire, thoughtful pauses, understated surrealism, pure nonsense, and sly commentary on the human condition. Altogether, there’s really nothing quite like it from what I’ve read in comics.

His recent 2022 book contains 12+ stories in which he really lets his experimentation fly, altho of course, always within his disciplined framework of art & narrative. Across his other books, he also tells more conventional stories that span the entire album, sometimes in collaboration.

Now, out of his two-dozen or so works, I’ve really only read ONE that dragged for me, i.e. the travelogue On the Camino, a non-fiction work about his frankly unremarkable days hiking a famous trail in Spain.

Below are a couple highlights from Upside Dawn stories that should give you a taste of his work:

These are from the chapter Woman, Man, Bird.

SPOILER ALERT: The setting is a blind dinner date, and I think it pretty clear it’s about how we can so easily talk past each other, only superficially connecting. Jason sure has a load of fun with the premise, as all this stretches on for something like 14 gonzo pages(!) oO

These are from Perec, P.I.

SPOILER ALERT: The idea here is that the dialogue gets cut off in each panel, leaving the reader to imagine what’s next. I thought it a really cool idea, altho it kind of blows up in the end, shifting to a different, less interesting premise.

This all brings to mind the idea that Jason, through these short stories, is often establishing narrative templates that (he or) other creators could possibly use and expand upon in their own works. In fact, I find there’s something of a creative lineage here that flows somewhat from Yves Chaland’s work on Freddy Lombard, such as Comet of Carthage, which might be said to flow somewhat from Pop Art legend Roy Lichtenstein’s work.

Actually, I think there are other counterpart creators in the States who belong in such a discussion, such as Dan Clowes, Charles Burns, and others. They stand out to me because they allow a sort of wild, ‘Indie / Alt’ energy in their stuff, but tend to express it in a rather formal, flawlessly-clean style.

Anyway, let’s wrap things up by taking a look at the full Seal VII story. AFAIK it borrows a premise from the 1957 Swedish movie, The Seventh Seal, which I haven’t seen yet. This was really the first story in the UD book that I liked from beginning to end. See what you think:

-----> https://imgur.com/a/VZu1eC4 <-----