I Killed Adolf Hitler

by Jason, Fantagraphics

Jason is that rarest of birds, an artist with bona fide indie “cred” (for God’s sake, he’s even European) who also has a mainstream-friendly esthetic. His stories revolve around gunfights and zombies and love, which is pretty much what I assume primetime TV looks like nowadays. I Killed Adolf Hitler is about a contract killer who goes back in time to kill the Fuhrer, and if that’s not a zillion-dollar movie idea, I don’t know what is. Against all odds, the book is great, probably Jason’s best work since his American debut Hey Wait…

The book starts in what must be a deliberately off-putting way. In the first three pages four characters are introduced, three of whom look almost exactly alike; the fourth delivers a monologue about masturbation. It’s probably not how I would have chosen to start a story, but things get much better from that point on. The unnamed protagonist is an assassin, in a world where this is apparently legal and pretty normal, and an unnamed scientist hires him to target Hitler (the only character in the book, incidentally, with a name). The scientist has, of course, invented a time machine for this purpose, and he explains, “I completed this machine fifty years ago, but it’s taken me this long to get it fully charged. If you fail, we’ll have to wait fifty years to try again.” This probably makes no sense, but what do I know about time travel? and it sets up the rules of the narrative. Of course, things go wrong, and it’s a hunt for Adolf Hitler across time. The plot is ingenious, and it would be criminal to spoil its surprises. It’s also grandly melodramatic, in a way that fulfills the promise of the campy title as characters willingly sacrifice their entire lives for a strange obsession, vengeance against a mass-murder who hasn’t even done it yet.

As is often the case with Jason’s work, events can turn unexpectedly sweet, but without sacrificing a sense of irony. The book ends with two lovers reminiscing, “That was a long time ago,” but of course it wasn’t a long time ago. It was something like a week. All that time travel, you know.

I’ve seen copies of Mjau Mjau, Jason’s Norwegian comic book, that contain radically different art, with, you know, people, but all his work translated in America so far has been in a distinctive style: his characters are all heavily stylized and iconic anthropomorphic animals. This doesn’t leave much room for facial expressions, and part of Jason’s deadpan delivery stems from the fact that his characters are hard to read. What does a dog look like when he’s lonely, or scared, or happy? It’s also hard to judge character’s ages, and, as stated previously, the characters can look a lot alike. Most of the time the art is not a problem, as the cold, distant, generic look of the characters supports the tone of Jason’s stories; and if there are times it’s just plain confusing, this may be a tradeoff we just have to endure. Because, despite these mild complaints, Jason’s art is always charming, his compositions static but never boring, like John Stanley’s. Also Jason actually draws all his panels, even though it would be very easy for anyone with such an iconic style to photocopy the art, a commitment I, for one, appreciate.

And the similarity in appearance of the characters gives Jason the opportunity for some dry humor, as Hitler disguises himself by the simple expedient of shaving his mustache. “Is that him?” a woman asks as she walks the streets, searching for Hitler. “Is that him? Is that him?”

My one big complaint with the book is that it’s 48 pages long, the size of a $3.99 annual, and it costs $12.95. Sure the paper is nice, and the cardstock cover has cute little endflaps, but that’s still more expensive than going out and photocopying the entire book. I realize that Fantagraphics is mimicking the albums these comics are published as originally, but “that’s the way they do it in Europe” is never a good excuse in my book. I would very much like to see Fantagraphics collect five or six of these short comics and publish them as an omnibus, something with a page count that’s not just embarrassing.