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A review by jekutree
The Left Bank Gang by Jason
5.0
Rereading this for a third or fourth time now, it really is one of my favorite comics.
I love the first half of the book, it sets up the characters perfectly. These short vignettes really get you up to speed with all their characters and their relationships to each either. It tells you everything you need to know without feeling like an exposition dump, the brevity it all is genius as well. What Jason accomplishes here in the first half is great. The details within the way the characters act and speak characterizes them perfectly, down the Hemingway using a pen over a brush.
The second half is fantastic as well. The different POVs of the robbery work really well. I think it could come off as gimmicky for some, but for me it was very effective. The whole heist scene is shown in full by each character so the whole thing is built in the reader’s mind as we learn more information as it goes. You’ll see an action in one person’s POV that pays off in another. Since reading this the last time I got around to seeing the movie Jackie Brown which has a heist with different perspectives very similar to this. I think it’s a thing both of them borrowed from novels given a visual form. That being said, I love both sequences.
The whole premise of the story is genius too. All these famous early 20th century authors re imagined as cartoonists living together in Paris is clever enough, but having them all be broke enough to rob a bank together is incredible. Jason executes it perfectly too. His signature deadpan storytelling with tons of silent sequences and sparse dialogue brings this story to life excellently.
I love the first half of the book, it sets up the characters perfectly. These short vignettes really get you up to speed with all their characters and their relationships to each either. It tells you everything you need to know without feeling like an exposition dump, the brevity it all is genius as well. What Jason accomplishes here in the first half is great. The details within the way the characters act and speak characterizes them perfectly, down the Hemingway using a pen over a brush.
The second half is fantastic as well. The different POVs of the robbery work really well. I think it could come off as gimmicky for some, but for me it was very effective. The whole heist scene is shown in full by each character so the whole thing is built in the reader’s mind as we learn more information as it goes. You’ll see an action in one person’s POV that pays off in another. Since reading this the last time I got around to seeing the movie Jackie Brown which has a heist with different perspectives very similar to this. I think it’s a thing both of them borrowed from novels given a visual form. That being said, I love both sequences.
The whole premise of the story is genius too. All these famous early 20th century authors re imagined as cartoonists living together in Paris is clever enough, but having them all be broke enough to rob a bank together is incredible. Jason executes it perfectly too. His signature deadpan storytelling with tons of silent sequences and sparse dialogue brings this story to life excellently.