A blank-eyed, silent meditation on young love thwarted and re-kindled. If we can have graphic novels, we can surely have graphic novellas, and this latest book from the acclaimed Norwegian cartoonist Jason is a prime example of a tight, self-contained volume that tells one complete, satisfying story in a compact 48 pages. Tell Me Something picks up the stylized anthropomorphic characters of Jason's earlier works (Hey, Wait... and The Iron Wagon), as well as the challenge of all-pantomime (or almost) comics of Sshhhh! to weave a yarn of young love thwarted and re-kindled. Switching smoothly between two time periods, alternating moments of tenderness and sadness with slapstick and irony, Tell Me Something is a virtuoso technical achievement as well as a funny and sad tale of romance and treachery. New readers will find themselves astonished at how deeply they come to identify with Jason's stylized, blank-eyed menagerie of characters, while those who shed a tear at Hey, Wait... will be somewhat prepared for the emotional wallops contained in this slender but perfect book in which every single line counts, and words are not needed.
Jason
