CREDIT: Dark Horse Comics
Rating: 4/5 – Dark & Thought-Provoking, Not Your Average “Funny Animal” Comic.
by ComicSpectrum EiC Bob Bretall.
Jaybird is the debut work of Finnish siblings Jaako and Lauri Ahonen and won the 2013 “Comic Book Finlandia” prize. It was released to US comics shops via Dark Horse Comics on September 3rd and will be available at mass-market distributors like Amazon starting September 16th. I mention Amazon because this is the kind of thing that is great but is definitely not going to be on the racks at most comics shops in the US unless you asked them to get a copy for you. This is a 128 page HC telling an original story with a retail price of $19.99 from creators who, while wonderful, are not ones that comic shop owners will have heard of and recognized as “hot” comics creators. This will be a great book to gauge you LCS’s “indie cred”. Ask them about it. If they have heard about it, have a copy in stock, or offer to order you a copy, you’ve got a good shop. If you’re met with a blank stare and “Huh? Never heard of it.” then you know you’d best be finding another shop or turning to on-line retailers for your indie comics fix.
Jaybird tells the story of a scared little bird living in a big house, caring for an infirm mother, and terrified of the “bad birds” in the world outside, encouraged in this fear by his mother who tells him of the terrors that lurk beyond the confines of their home. You can check out a 6-page preview on the Dark Horse site, go take a look. Now. Back? Good. You saw only 1 page with dialogue out of the 6 page preview and that’s very indicative of the book. Dialogue is sparse, but the visual storytelling carries you along, like watching a silent movie, in many parts of the story. The details in the art; from the numerous pictures on the walls to the furniture covered in sheets to Jaybird’s stark bedroom (a single mattress on the floor of a room notable for it’s absences of pictures) and the dust and cobwebs combine to give a real sense of mood to the oppressive mansion that is Jaybird’s home. The main storyline combines this with flashes of narrative featuring the “bad birds” mother warns about to create an unsettling whole. These flashes are told in a secondary art style that is highly abstracted, angular and very unsettling. The “bad birds” seem to be wearing WWI-era German uniforms/helmets and this brings some key insight into the isolationist allegory of the Jaybird story.
Jaybird is something very different. I’ve read it twice now and it made me think of the surface story and also try to pick up the implied story under the surface. It was psychologically unsettling, and that was a good thing. You don’t think of a story featuring a plump little bird as the protagonist as having the ability to evoke that kind of emotional reaction, but it does. I don’t get an opportunity to read many European comics, but when the “good stuff” is translated and presented for an American audience, I’m very happy to have read them. I applaud Dark Horse for making this available to the American comics audience. It’s a dark, sombre work that really made me think, and that’s something that doesn’t always happen when I’m carried along by an action-packed slug-fest. This is definitely worth a try for anyone seeking to expand their reading horizons beyond standard comics fare, it won an award for a reason.
Reviewed by: Bob Bretall
(bob@comicspectrum.com)
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