Tell Me Something

Jason draws figures as long, lean, and nearly expressionless as the stereotypes of Scandinavians would have them be. To magnify the characters' psychological opacity, they have dogs' and birds' heads. Jason renders their stories near-wordlessly, in rigorously square frames, almost always from a perpendicular perspective (no oblique angles for him), and in black and white, sparingly complemented, if at all, by subdued colors. Done exclusively in black and white, Tell Me Something is a story, framed by two petty crimes, of love found, lost, found again, and then come to naught. The narrative flashes forward and backward; the forward panels are set against a white surround, the backward against a black one. But that simple device--white equals now, black equals the past--is about the only interpretive aid Jason provides. One must really see each panel to get what's going on and grasp nuances. Some may lack the patience and concentration the book demands, but those who don't may return to it repeatedly, as to a favorite film, to see what they have previously missed. - Ray Olson