Acclaimed Cartoonist Jason’s Travelogue, On the Camino, Walks into New, Mixed Territory
Art by Jason
Writer/Artist: Jason
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: May 24, 2017
What, exactly, is the problem with On the Camino, the new book by acclaimed Norwegian cartoonist Jason? Here are some possibilities. It appears to be autobiographical, relating a 500-mile walking tour of/pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago, a pedestrian road that concludes in Galicia, in northwest Spain. It is a single story that takes up 192 pages, much longer than usual for Jason, who tends to work either in collections of stories or in shorter single-narrative graphic novels. It’s also published in spartan black and white, not color. It also falls, maybe, on the boring side, although whether this issue results from the subject matter or the execution is up for debate.
But On the Camino is not a bad book. As far as nearly-200-page, probably autobiographical, sparely drawn stories about walking pilgrimages go, it is totally readable, and one can respect Jason for trying something different. Most of his stories feature people behaving violently toward one another, whether literally or emotionally, and reacting to that violence in a stoic manner. This book is far gentler, which is probably the point. It’s more about trying to be mindful, as one walks, rather than intellectualizing the process. And it’s about failures to connect with others. Jason encounters many other tourists on the road, often not knowing if he’ll see them again. Sometimes he tries to talk to them. Mostly, he eats, sleeps and walks alone, ruminating on why he doesn’t try to interact with others.