Jason's Lost Cat: A Lesser Work from a Superior Cartoonist

Loneliness in bright colors

I fondly remember the first book I read from Jason. It was in 2005 at the time when my interest in comics had started to fade. I went to the lesser of two comic book shops in Quebec City and was going to get yet another boring, tensionless, consequence-free, idiotic X-Men comic. I knew I had to read better stuff. I was a teenager back then and this was a time of personal growth for me. As much as I had enjoyed comics, I needed to see something, anything, better than the piles of crap pushed by the big companies. And I started browsing the small independent section of that store (one shelf) for anything of value, anything of importance. I found Hey, Wait..., by Norwegian cartoonist Jason. A 64-page graphic novel about loss, adulthood, loss of innocence and comics. It was minimalist and incredibly bold. It was what kickstarted my love of the medium. I began obsessing over the book, talking about it to everyone I knew. First the story struck me, then the structure of the story, then the layout, the use of space, the line work. It had a huge impact on me. I strongly believe that if you enjoy something, you can never be content with just having it, you have a burning desire to know all about it's inner workings; how it was made; by whom; and why and when; and how it relates to everything else you know. Hey, Wait... was the key to the comic book world I needed. It opened the door to better books and a greater appreciation of the art form. Years later, I still buy every book from Jason that comes out. It is a deeply personal experience for me, a sort of "going back to your roots" moment with every new page.

This is why I chose Lost Cat as the first Jason book I should talk about. Because Lost Cat, is a surprisingly disappointing read. Not content to simply have it on my shelf, I must channel this burning desire to look at it from multiple angles until I can decode it. Let's take a look at why this book in particular is such a letdown.

In Lost Cat, we follow Private Eye Dan Delon. As he finishes a very quiet day at work and heads home, he comes across a poster for a missing cat. As it turns out, the cat is nearby and he decides to return it to his owner. The owner, a woman around his age, answers the door and invites him in for a coffee. They sit and talk and this reveals their mutual sadness and desperation. In this moment, these two lost souls seem to find one another. They agree to meet again, leaving detective Delon enthusistically optimistic. Unfortunately, she never shows to their date, and worse yet, she has disappeared. Our detective investigates, and the woman remains very much in his thoughts. She becomes an echo; a vision of who he wishes she was. In his loneliness, he clings to to this woman, desperately so, as a way out of his misery. But loneliness follows him, and he cannot escape it. When our detective meets her again, it turns out she has a mysterious past and ulterior motives for being in the city. This revelation shatters his world. In the end, he'd rather fall into oblivion alone rather then face the flawed woman in front of him.

Jason developped a recognizable art style and it is in full force in this book. The characters are anthropomorphic animals. Dialog is sparse and used for dramatic or comedic effect. His style is minimalist, focusing on architecture, and small moments for the characters rather than the actions of the scenes. It works really well in this book as our detective is struggling with his loneliness. There are these long segments in which our protagonist stares at the void. He is alone in his apartment, he brushes his teeth, he sits and looks out the window. There aren`t many emotions or movement. It is slow moving and represents the dullness of everyday life and reflects on his state of mind really accurately. In most of his other books, the dialog is always used for a purpose, but in the case of Lost Cat, certain passages, mostly involving Detective Delon's parallel investigation, feel either redundant or unnecessary. This is one of the weaknesses of the book.

Why is this a lesser work? Because of it's inconsistency in storytelling. It feels as though the cartoonist had three separate ideas and tried to combine them all in Lost Cat. They feel disconnected. How about a detective who finds a lost cat? How about a H.G. Wells style Invasion of the planet by aliens? How about a detective on an investigation that goes sour? Th3se three main plots drive the book, but they don't mesh together well enough. The individual components taken on their own might work well, but they don't combine organically enough in the book. What we get in the end is a story about loneliness and trying to connect, desperately to anyone, or anything, no matter how deceitful. In this case, the woman turns out to be an alien and the vanguard for a global invasion. This big reveal doesn't feel earned, it just happens. I guess she is an alien? Thematically it fits, the woman disappeared and his world was destroyed, both mentally and physically. He always felt alienated and even though he has a chance to leave with her, she isn't who he wanted her to be. She's a lie and he cannot accept it. He'd rather be destroyed than be lied to. It should work, but it doesn't because this isn't a book about aliens, or destruction or lies. It's a book about loneliness and how difficult it is to find someone to be with. The two instances of foreshadowing feel tacked on as a last minute way to conclude the book. It robs the reader of the dramatic climax the book desperately needed.

Is it a bad book? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I think misguided may be more appropriate. Most of Jason's books have always integrated fantastical elements in their plots. It always seems to drive the story of our protagonist forward. Those elements are mostly integrated in the plot from the beginning. Frankenstein monster, time travel, pirates, zombie invasion, those are all included in the premise of the story and the characters transcend the basic premise of the genre. In The living and the Dead, a young man falls in love with a woman, but his efforts to court her are thwarted by the zombie apocalypse. When they are finally united, it feels earned, like the book was working towards it's goal the whole time. In Lost Cat, the sci-fi element feels like an afterthought. Almost like it was either forgotten on the first draft, or that it wasn't fitting properly in the story and was stapled on after the first draft. When we reach the end of the book, the pay off feels unearned. Thematically, it works, but narratively, it doesn't (if that makes any sense).

Yellow and Black

I rarely talk about the books themselves, the physical object. I will try to do so moving forward as, in some cases, it is important. Fantagraphics has done a tremendous job with this book. The hardcover format has a fantastic bright yellow cloth spine with bold black letters announcing the title. The primary colours on the front and back are black, white and some orange to add texture and depth to some images. The white font contrasts nicely with the black cover. The design of the cover is also great. It shows the detective opening the door and looking straight at the woman, but she is on the back cover. They are so close, yet worlds (or spines) apart. It also emphashizes the theme of loneliness as he cannot reach her. They are separated by an otherworldy yellow spine. It's a really nice looking book. Fantagraphics has been publishing them in this style for many years and it's absolutely gorgeous.

I wouldn't recommend the book to those who haven't read any other work by Jason. I Killed Adolf Hitler, Werewolf of Montpellier, You can't get here from there, and particularly, Hey, Wait... are all titles you should seek out first. If you've read some of his work before, you can find much to appreciate in Lost Cat, but remember that it may leave a sour taste. Jason is a true master of graphic storytelling, but this book is not his finest piece.

Finally, if you're interested at all, check out Jason's Blog Cats without Dogs. He posted as few process pieces around the time the book came out. Script and thumbnails, so go and take a look. Additionally, he has addressed some of the criticism he received from the book and answers some questions about Lost Cat

Book Club Report: A Discussion with Sam Alden on It Never Happened Again

Longing and Belonging

I'll always remember the day I was first introduced to comic books. One of my dearest childhood memories was walking (6 blocks exactly) to the independent video rental place near my family's house in Quebec City. It was a cold but sunny spring day and my grandmother took me there to get one comic book. She was over for the weekend and wanted to encourage me to read in English. My entire family is French. I went to a typical French school, and the English language was not commonly spoken in that part of town, or even in the town in general. She understood the value of learning a second language, even though she never learned one herself. She knew I enjoyed cartoons and figured that I would at least be interested in the medium of comic book.

I must have been no more than 6 years old at the time. We got there and I stared at a single spinning rack of comic books for a while. One comic book felt huge. There were so many to choose from. What was I supposed to pick with all of these 18 choices? I browsed and I picked a Batman comic. I will never remember which one it was, but I will always remember the feelings it evoked. Walking home, my grandmother holding my hand, the sun landing on my cold face and also importantly, the feeling of paper on my fingers. It was the first comic I remember reading and it became an important part of my life. I will always be grateful to my grandmother for it and to my parents who supported this addiction. It changed my entire life. 

This moment was a revelation, both important and fleeting. It happened once and my life was changed forever. I have been chasing down this moment for the past twenty years. Hoping to relive that first high, yet I have never been able to fully recreate it. I'm talking about this because this month, the Ottawa Comic Book Book Club read Sam Alden's It Never Happened Again, and Sam kindly agreed to meet with our group to discuss his book. 

Sam Alden by Sam Alden

Sam Alden is a 25 year old cartoonist and illustrator from Portland, Oregon. He has previously written web comics, comics and graphic novels, which include Haunter, The Man that Dances in the Meadows, Backyard, and many more. Hiw work is generally published online first and printed afterward. His comic Wicked Chicken Queen published by Retrofit Comics, won an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic at SPX a few weeks ago

Fleeting moments

It Never Happened again collects two short stories, Hawaii 1997 and Anime. The first is the story of a Young Sam Alden who is on vacation in Hawaii. He goes out one night to see the beach and the stars and meets a girl. The second is the story of Janet, a girl who feels out of place in her hometwon and plans to visit Japan, where her favourite fictional anime character lives to find her place in the world. The themes of longing and belonging are very much present in this book. The Young Sam will spend the rest of his life trying to find the girl, or some version of her, always yearning to recreate this moment. Janet wishes to recreate the experience of Kiki, or even become Kiki as best as she can. She is also looking for a place where she can belong, a goal she may never achieve as the anime paradise she wishes to reach is as fictional as her idol. 

Sam was kind enough to tell us the genesis of Hawaii 1997 and how it was a stepping stone to his current style of drawing. Drawn on notebook pages during a flight back to the U.S, this comic came to life as a sort of personal challenge and as a way to fight the boredom of air travel. The style that came through was, and is, still very distinctive and appealing and Sam embraced it. This took him away from his previous style, a sort of Craig Thompson emulation, and into his own distinctive creative style. We are all the better for it. This book shows Alden's style evolving. The use of pencils is so raw that, as a reader, you try to avoid touching it for fear of scratching or smearing the pencil marks. The look is fantastic and you can find stunning passages nearly everywhere. Of particular interest, when Young Sam puts his head underwater (above) or the map of the unknown town in Japan (below)

In Transit

Language also held an important role in the book. Janet's only silver lining in her otherwise bleak story is when she is complimented by a local man on her mastery of language. We were wondering if language had any influence on Sam's writing. It did in some ways, but not what we were expecting. Language in Anime serves to further reinforce Janet's feelings of isolation. She does not fit in her hometown, she does not fit in in Japan, and even worse, there, the foreign language isolates her from the community even more. This experience was similar to Alden's own trip to Japan when he was younger. The language barrier kept him at a distance from his environment, never quite fitting in. 

Isolation, and the search for a place where she belongs

We were also surprised to hear Sam talk about what influenced him to write this story: a similar trip to Japan with his then-girlfriend as a young adult. Nothing went as planned, not that he had planned much, and the whole fiasco became a real catalyst to the man he grew up to be. Writing Anime also forced Sam to adopt a different point of view on his experience. Our discussion then turned toward gender. By writing a female protagonist, Sam often wondered whether the characters felt true enough. In a way, he distorts his experience and projects them on a woman. In this regard can the text be read as true, as authentic? The group (which consisted that evening of over 80% of women) felt so. 

Haunting

The theme of longing are present, so is another recurring theme in Alden's work: Haunting. The community Backyard is haunted by the wolfchild, the woman is haunted by The man that dances in the Meadows. In this book, Young Sam will be forever haunted by the memory of the girl. Although it didn't appear that Sam did this consciously, the idea that people are haunted by memories, feelings and even their own mind is a recurring theme in Alden's books. The author did confirm that he does not believe in ghosts.

Finally, we were very interested in hearing about Sam's process in writing for the screen and for paper. He explained to us that he had always intended Hawaii 1997 to be printed. The movement of the kids running translates very well online as well, but that was not the primary goal. The pacing and movement also works on the page as it was intended. The Anime story was also conceived for the page and it truly shines this way. He constantly works to improve the layout and searches to find an optimal pace for the story, both for the online/Tumblr audience and for the page. His new webcomic Hollow tries to integrate those two elements. It will be interesting to compare the final results.

Gazing at the unreacheable wonders of the universe

We were lucky to have such an interesting conversation with a talented young comics author. Not only did it help us gain some perspective and knowledge on It Never Happened Again, it allowed us to learn much about his process and his thoughts on making comics. Much like Young Sam's search for an ineffable girl, or my quest for this very first comics experience, our group will keep looking endlessly for a similarly enlightening discussion on graphic novels. In the meantime, we will value our discussion with Sam and recommend everyone to seek out this outstanding work.