Upside Dawn

Plot

A dinner date devolves into a Dadaist farce. Death decides his victim's fate over a high-stakes game of chess. Kafka is ensnared in a confounding bureaucracy of his own imagination. Spock beams down to 1920s Paris to live a double life as an avant-garde painter. Hitchcockian thrillers, literary adaptations, and homages to classic EC comics abound. Dinosaurs! David Bowie! Vampires! Elvis! Welcome to the cosmic gumbo of Upside Dawn.

Norwegian cartoonist Jason is beloved for his signature dry wit, deadpan humor, and elegantly minimalist style. His newest compilation of short comics stories leans into the playful and experimental, as he mixes and matches genres, mashes up low and high brow culture, from Star Trek to Georges Perec, and leads readers through dizzying twists and turns — in sum, a beguiling collection for both stalwart Jason fans and the blissfully uninitiated.