Graphic Novel Of The Month

The Last Musketeer (Fantagraphics): That damn Norwegian strikes again. Jason is building up an immaculate library of works, his latest is another in the series of ostensibly simple anthropomorphic adventures. But... look closer and you find his typical intensely emotive lines, sweeping drama, and commentary on the human condition. More than anything, I really enjoy the way he experiments with different genres and time periods in each successive work. You have something like The Left Bank Gang, which chronicles Hemingway, Joyce, Fitzgerald, and Pound in Paris and all of the embedded social commentary of that era's literature, he then deftly moves onto something like Why Are You Doing This? and plays with Hitchcockian mystery, suspense, and voyeurism. Finally, we arrive at this book which is an interesting hybrid of Ming The Merciless from the pulpy Flash Gordon era and add a dash of the trinity of French Cavaliers. It's getting boring reviewing Jason's work, in the best way possible. As usual, this is excellent; not to be missed. Our highest, Grade A+.