Over the last few years, Norwegian cartoonist Jason has developed quite a following, but due to the combination of little time, fewer dollars and lots of other intriguing comics, Jason’s work has continued to escape my experience. Thankfully, with the assistance of the New York Public Library, I’ve finally been able to rectify my oversight of Jason’s work, by taking his delightful I Killed Adolf Hitler out.

The plot is perfect in its simplicity: a paid killer travels back in time to assassinate Adolf Hitler, fails the job, and Hitler returns to the future. And somehow, it all ends up as a love story.

Jason delivers the entire story with a totally straight face, which suits the dead-pan comic timing nicely. There’s a killer and his girl and their awkward conversations, a time machine that needs 50 years to charge for a single trip, and just enough gun play to keep things spicy. The clean eight-panel grid pages keep the storytelling focused on the narrative, and the elegantly anthropomorphic character designs underline the subtle absurdity of the plot.

I Killed Adolf Hitler is a fun, silly and slightly creepy comic, a love story wrapped around a time travel paradox, dressed up with gun fighting.  In short, it’s a perfect comic book, and I’m very happy that I can find more work by Jason at my local library.  Hopefully you can too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Features, It Came From the NYPL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.