Jason: Neutrality Embraces Everyone’s Emotions

Welcome back to Creator Highlights, analyzing the techniques and styles creators employ to make their works stand out. Today we’ll be focusing on the works of Jason.

John Arne Sæterøy is a Norwegian cartoonist known for his minimalist style as much as his pen name. Jason’s stories almost always deal with anthropomorphic animals with simple faces that show little to practically no emotion. This is actually the art technique Neutrality; it’s where the character’s simple designs allow the audience to project themselves onto anyone in the story. Other examples include most manga characters as well as the use of stick figures.

The Influences of Jason

Which character are you projecting on?

Jason himself states that his influences came from the ligne claire style of Herge (creator of Tintin). This simple line work is characterized by using the same line width on everything in the panel and page. It’s what allows realistic backgrounds to share space with cartoonish characters. The idea is to give a cinematic style to a comic by giving it a flat aspect. Not to mention it looks like these characters could share space in everyday life.

Jason pushes the cinematic and empathetic elements further by limiting dialogue and captions. Everything that happens in Jason’s stories moves by the characters’ actions and the few times they do show emotion. More than that, all of the characters have the same faces wherever they go or what they do. This presents a sense of melancholy that each of the characters go through, making them feel complex and relatable; even in the more surreal and absurd aspects that come up.

For example, in Lost Cat a detective goes through the motions of his life showing longing for companionship after separating from his family and striking up a more than professional relationship with his client especially when things get weird. The client herself is one of the few Jason characters I’ve seen smiling for more than a few panels; which creates this need to find out more about her.

What Does it Help Create?

The need for attachment and satisfaction seems to even be a reoccurring theme for Jason’s stories. While each have different scenarios, including some rather funny ones like an island hosting an Executioner’s School; they each have a story about characters who want companionship in some form and goes through a journey of self-reflection. A decent chunk of them end on cliffhangers to leave the audience with a sense of uncertainty like the characters. This along with their simplistic designs almost feels like Jason is reaching out to his audience to actually feel a deep and general truth about life. While most stories just convey a sense of ideology; Jason’s works actually make the audience feel like they’re a part of the experience.

Thanks for coming. If you’d like check back for more updates. And remember to look between the panels.