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Even the Giants
Jesse Jacobs bursts onto the comic scene with his first published work EVEN THE GIANTS. The work beautifully captures the isolation of the Great White North while also giving the artist a sequential canvas to explore and experiment. This book will be printed in three Pantone spot colors. Jesse's work has been nominated for the Doug Wright award and has won the Gene Day award.
80 pages, Paperback
First published June 7, 2011
169 people want to read
About the author
Jesse Jacobs
23 books136 followersJesse Jacobs is a Canadian cartoonist and illustrator based in London, Ontario.
Jacobs was born in Moncton, New Brunswick. Early in his career, he worked in animation, notably on the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time. He has also experience as a game developer, although his main arena remains comics.
Jacobs is known for his psychedelic and geometrical style of cartooning. A number of his short comics have been featured in various editions of Fantagraphics annual anthology Best American Comics from 2012 to 2018. Most of his longer books have been published by the Canadian small press publisher Koyama Press, such as By This Shall You Know Him (2012), Safari Honeymoon (2014) and the Eisner nominee (for best new album) Crawl Space (2017).
Jacobs was born in Moncton, New Brunswick. Early in his career, he worked in animation, notably on the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time. He has also experience as a game developer, although his main arena remains comics.
Jacobs is known for his psychedelic and geometrical style of cartooning. A number of his short comics have been featured in various editions of Fantagraphics annual anthology Best American Comics from 2012 to 2018. Most of his longer books have been published by the Canadian small press publisher Koyama Press, such as By This Shall You Know Him (2012), Safari Honeymoon (2014) and the Eisner nominee (for best new album) Crawl Space (2017).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
October 20, 2015
Of Chocolate Bunnies and Cheese Graters
A good little scientist must categorize, organize and systematize, of course, and so I have created a set of GR shelves that allow me to categorize, organize and systematize all the comic books I read these days. Call me crazy, but I find that kind of stuff strangely enjoyable. It makes me aware of the genres I have been indulging in, for example - good to know, right?
Anyway, so far so good. Problem is, this book stubbornly denies me that kind of pleasure: I cannot seem to find an appropriate shelf for Even the Giants. Which is a problem because... well, what on earth happens to a book without a shelf? Unthinkable! Crisis on Infinite Earths!! Wait a minute, I have an idea, this might actually work: as the title suggests, there are a few giants in the book, so how about "fantasy"? Admittedly, there are no elves or swords or anything like that, but what the heck, it will have to do. Even better, let's create a new shelf: "trippy." That actually hints into the right direction! Phew, there you go, categorized after all, mission accomplished... close one.
Sorry, you probably did not want to know all that, but I am afraid it is just about the only thing I have to say about this wildly surreal collection of one-pagers and fractured longer narratives. Let's see, there is a snow giant, a flying Inuit, Bela Lugosi, a stranded ship; and then there are lots of boxes filled with chocolate bunnies and telephones and cheese graters... Not to mention all those weird and scary holes in the ground! All I can say for certain is that the book's coloring, combining white with only a few shades of icy mint blue, is a perfect match for whatever the book is all about.
A good little scientist must categorize, organize and systematize, of course, and so I have created a set of GR shelves that allow me to categorize, organize and systematize all the comic books I read these days. Call me crazy, but I find that kind of stuff strangely enjoyable. It makes me aware of the genres I have been indulging in, for example - good to know, right?
Anyway, so far so good. Problem is, this book stubbornly denies me that kind of pleasure: I cannot seem to find an appropriate shelf for Even the Giants. Which is a problem because... well, what on earth happens to a book without a shelf? Unthinkable! Crisis on Infinite Earths!! Wait a minute, I have an idea, this might actually work: as the title suggests, there are a few giants in the book, so how about "fantasy"? Admittedly, there are no elves or swords or anything like that, but what the heck, it will have to do. Even better, let's create a new shelf: "trippy." That actually hints into the right direction! Phew, there you go, categorized after all, mission accomplished... close one.
Sorry, you probably did not want to know all that, but I am afraid it is just about the only thing I have to say about this wildly surreal collection of one-pagers and fractured longer narratives. Let's see, there is a snow giant, a flying Inuit, Bela Lugosi, a stranded ship; and then there are lots of boxes filled with chocolate bunnies and telephones and cheese graters... Not to mention all those weird and scary holes in the ground! All I can say for certain is that the book's coloring, combining white with only a few shades of icy mint blue, is a perfect match for whatever the book is all about.
July 11, 2012
I found this collection to be almost inexplicably delightful.
Then my husband liked it. He really liked it.
My oldest son pronounced it "pretty cool."
Then we all had a "deep" discussion about what the guys crawling in and out of holes were supposed to represent, and everyone agreed that my theory - "They are living in a giant cheese grater" - was a very good one.
Behold a world where even a gutted seal can be a work of art. Strange monsters chide the reader for hating Star Trek (even TNG.) Giant yeti-like creatures search for food and love. And cold, heartless, sterile machines of the future discuss the author's landlord:
Weird and whimsical, with a bittersweet ending.
What did I love the most?
When a man got stepped on by a giant foot, the sound effect was not just SPLAT, not just CRUNCH, but SPLAT & CRUNCH.
It's that attention to detail that really makes this book sort of special.
Then my husband liked it. He really liked it.
My oldest son pronounced it "pretty cool."
Then we all had a "deep" discussion about what the guys crawling in and out of holes were supposed to represent, and everyone agreed that my theory - "They are living in a giant cheese grater" - was a very good one.
Behold a world where even a gutted seal can be a work of art. Strange monsters chide the reader for hating Star Trek (even TNG.) Giant yeti-like creatures search for food and love. And cold, heartless, sterile machines of the future discuss the author's landlord:
well he pooped in my bathroom one time
the foulness of the smell
can not be expressed in words or drawings
Weird and whimsical, with a bittersweet ending.
What did I love the most?
When a man got stepped on by a giant foot, the sound effect was not just SPLAT, not just CRUNCH, but SPLAT & CRUNCH.
It's that attention to detail that really makes this book sort of special.
August 13, 2015
This is the first book by Jacobs, whose Safari Honeymoon and By This You Shall Know Him, I really liked. This one is simpler, but only because I followed the advice of Dov he found in this useful review by Hayley Campbell: http://www.tcj.com/reviews/even-the-g... to read Even the Giants as one narrative, and to read separately excerpts from his collection "One Million Mouths" that are interspersed throughout.
Giants is silent, involves two giants (or maybe they are Yeti?), who eat their way across the Arctic. Austere, quiet, contemplative, the comic seism to be about love, and also loneliness, and survival. The color is lovely. Campbell makes a connection to Renee French's The Ticking, which is good, too; she sees these as sort of surreal children's stories. I think they are not so much for children, though. They are allegories, maybe for all ages, but certainly for adults.
What to make of the pages he includes from "One Million Mouths"? He put them in there for a reason, so I don't think you can just ignore them, and he put them in a certain order. .. . even if that order is ultimately random, you have to deal with them in that order somehow. They are lighter, sometimes silly pieces, not silent, which would seem to sometimes be a commentary on the action, and sometimes they just seem to interrupt the Giants narrative. Jacobs is an experimental graphic artist maybe as much interested in alternative representation as narrative, so I am going to say these are narrative interruptions, noise vs the contemplative silence of Giants. Why? I dunno yet. But I liked the Giants story, and some of Mouths.
Giants is silent, involves two giants (or maybe they are Yeti?), who eat their way across the Arctic. Austere, quiet, contemplative, the comic seism to be about love, and also loneliness, and survival. The color is lovely. Campbell makes a connection to Renee French's The Ticking, which is good, too; she sees these as sort of surreal children's stories. I think they are not so much for children, though. They are allegories, maybe for all ages, but certainly for adults.
What to make of the pages he includes from "One Million Mouths"? He put them in there for a reason, so I don't think you can just ignore them, and he put them in a certain order. .. . even if that order is ultimately random, you have to deal with them in that order somehow. They are lighter, sometimes silly pieces, not silent, which would seem to sometimes be a commentary on the action, and sometimes they just seem to interrupt the Giants narrative. Jacobs is an experimental graphic artist maybe as much interested in alternative representation as narrative, so I am going to say these are narrative interruptions, noise vs the contemplative silence of Giants. Why? I dunno yet. But I liked the Giants story, and some of Mouths.
May 5, 2016
Essentially Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica in comic-book form, but not nearly as good. If that makes any sense. Maybe it's just that both are blue.
August 9, 2015
After finishing "Even the Giants" I read Hayley Campell's review in tcj http://www.tcj.com/reviews/even-the-g.... She talks about Jacobs' background in graphic arts and the influence on his aesthetic, which is interesting stuff. She recommends reading the book without the distraction of "One Million Mouths." I took up her recommendation and reread it, just focusing on the arctic narrative, and enjoyed it a lot more. It's basically a book with a narrative about giants and eskimos and some other creatures in the arctic interspersed with one-page comics from a series called "One Million Mouths" (I think) that are totally unrelated to that narrative, and related to each other, but not in a clear narrative way.
In the "Even the Giants" part of the story, we watch two giants, companions, eat their way through the arctic by munching on dogs, humans and other animals, including an orca whale. Sometimes humans attack them in defense, and in one of these attacks, one of the giants is wounded and perhaps that is why the other makes an interesting decision at the end of this short book.
This story is fantastical but it seems in many ways grounded in the mundane. Blood, guts, skeletons, the reality of hunger, cold, loss and loneliness. Especially interesting to me is one of the character's discovery of several pallet boxes full of goods. For some reason, he is not dressed for the cold and seems fine. He is looking for a shelter and perhaps food. He opens the pallet boxes and finds one full of hand held graters, another full of chocolate bunnies. He eats one. There is a two page spread about three quarters through the book where, on the left-hand page, many arctic bunnies are huddling near a sleeping giant to keep warm, and on the right-hand page, this human character is sleeping in the same position as the giant, next to a pallet full of chocolate bunnies.
I found myself thinking this book is allegorical, and to some degree about climate change, human destruction of earthly formations. It seems to pose a question about senseless human destruction and mass production versus the destructiveness inherent in natural processes. It is also a book that sets creaturely love against the violence of every day life.
In terms of rating, I felt frustrated by the organization of the book and if I hadn't gone back and read just the Even the Giants story, I probably would have rated it a 2 or a 3. But the giants story is quiet, thought-provoking, uniquely textured, provocatively floaty. It's a sad story with a sly, ongoing humor. I would have been happy reading the One Million Mouths comics in a whole different book. (Or maybe not at all. Still deciding how I feel about them. Not necessarily my cup of tea.)
In the "Even the Giants" part of the story, we watch two giants, companions, eat their way through the arctic by munching on dogs, humans and other animals, including an orca whale. Sometimes humans attack them in defense, and in one of these attacks, one of the giants is wounded and perhaps that is why the other makes an interesting decision at the end of this short book.
This story is fantastical but it seems in many ways grounded in the mundane. Blood, guts, skeletons, the reality of hunger, cold, loss and loneliness. Especially interesting to me is one of the character's discovery of several pallet boxes full of goods. For some reason, he is not dressed for the cold and seems fine. He is looking for a shelter and perhaps food. He opens the pallet boxes and finds one full of hand held graters, another full of chocolate bunnies. He eats one. There is a two page spread about three quarters through the book where, on the left-hand page, many arctic bunnies are huddling near a sleeping giant to keep warm, and on the right-hand page, this human character is sleeping in the same position as the giant, next to a pallet full of chocolate bunnies.
I found myself thinking this book is allegorical, and to some degree about climate change, human destruction of earthly formations. It seems to pose a question about senseless human destruction and mass production versus the destructiveness inherent in natural processes. It is also a book that sets creaturely love against the violence of every day life.
In terms of rating, I felt frustrated by the organization of the book and if I hadn't gone back and read just the Even the Giants story, I probably would have rated it a 2 or a 3. But the giants story is quiet, thought-provoking, uniquely textured, provocatively floaty. It's a sad story with a sly, ongoing humor. I would have been happy reading the One Million Mouths comics in a whole different book. (Or maybe not at all. Still deciding how I feel about them. Not necessarily my cup of tea.)
August 5, 2012
This brilliant debut is a series of interconnecting arctic stories featuring an eskimo, an ice-locked cargo ship, and a pair of gigantic, god-like monkey/yeti creatures, interspersed with wickedly funny stories of everyday modern-life: landlords, bad roommates, and more. Then there's the recurring pair of dudes wandering through a menacing, psychedelic otherworld, all with the underlying theme of nature's brutality and our search for warmth within it. The artwork is mesmerizing, and the writing is understated when necessary, dryly bitter as needed, and impeccably pitched.
January 22, 2013
This collection of perplexing and mysterious little stories is EXACTLY what I look for in indie comics. It's like a glimpse into a strange little world all its own, all in white, teal, and shades of icy mint blue. It collects a series of mostly unrelated one-page comic strips called "One Million Mouths," interspersed with a longer landscape of connected stories taking place in the frozen North, with Eskimo, sled dogs, giant wendigo/snow monster creatures, a ship with little bristly men, and a stowaway belowdecks with crates full of chocolate bunnies, telephones, and cheese graters. The one-page strips are delightfully detailed and bizarre, and the longer story with the giants is dynamic and affecting. It's like it creates its own language or something. I loved it.
October 31, 2020
This book essentially consists of three elements, which are first worth considering separately.
The main feature, which probably deserves the "Even the Giants" title, is a 43-page silent narrative with an Arctic setting and a cast consisting mostly of Inuit and yeti-like giants. There's some darkness to it, but it's also quite sweet and whimsical. It has a very simple story, but also a lot of thematic depth: it gently explores existential themes surrounding power, survival and interpersonal relationships. Overall, it's quite touching and thought-provoking.
In addition, 8 pages are dedicated to one-page strips about two guys hanging out in a world punctuated by countless inexplicable holes in the ground. This is weird and trippy, and also consistently hilarious, with its two characters quickly established as very different personalities with brilliant comedic chemistry. There's no overarching narrative or anything like that, just pure fun and oddness.
The book's final component is 20 standalone single-page... things. Some of these are comic strips, but others are just Jacobs's random thoughts accompanied by bizarre, seemingly unrelated images. A few of these fall flat, but some are absolutely brilliant — either laugh-out-loud funny, or unexpectedly resonant. Most importantly, these pages allow Jacobs to do whatever he wants with his drawings, and the results are often amazing — utterly bizarre images reminiscent of the doodles in my high school notebooks, in the best sense possible.
The unusual thing about this book is that the three parts don't follow one after the other, but instead are interspersed together. Some other reviewers have suggested that the one-pagers detract from the main feature, and that the latter benefits from being read on its own. Having tried that as well as reading the whole book cover-to-cover, I strongly disagree. While each part is good on its own, it's together that they really shine. Although they're very different, the textless, more serious longer narrative is somehow balanced out by the more text-based, craziness of the one-pagers, resulting in a more rounded and enjoyable reading experience.
I've only recently discovered Jacobs, having read Safari Honeymoon a few weeks ago, and I'm already a big fan. In both Safari Honeymoon and Even the Giants, Jacobs demonstrates an enthralling mix of raw imagination, dry humour, thoughtfulness and artistic talent. I look forward to reading more of his work soon.
The main feature, which probably deserves the "Even the Giants" title, is a 43-page silent narrative with an Arctic setting and a cast consisting mostly of Inuit and yeti-like giants. There's some darkness to it, but it's also quite sweet and whimsical. It has a very simple story, but also a lot of thematic depth: it gently explores existential themes surrounding power, survival and interpersonal relationships. Overall, it's quite touching and thought-provoking.
In addition, 8 pages are dedicated to one-page strips about two guys hanging out in a world punctuated by countless inexplicable holes in the ground. This is weird and trippy, and also consistently hilarious, with its two characters quickly established as very different personalities with brilliant comedic chemistry. There's no overarching narrative or anything like that, just pure fun and oddness.
The book's final component is 20 standalone single-page... things. Some of these are comic strips, but others are just Jacobs's random thoughts accompanied by bizarre, seemingly unrelated images. A few of these fall flat, but some are absolutely brilliant — either laugh-out-loud funny, or unexpectedly resonant. Most importantly, these pages allow Jacobs to do whatever he wants with his drawings, and the results are often amazing — utterly bizarre images reminiscent of the doodles in my high school notebooks, in the best sense possible.
The unusual thing about this book is that the three parts don't follow one after the other, but instead are interspersed together. Some other reviewers have suggested that the one-pagers detract from the main feature, and that the latter benefits from being read on its own. Having tried that as well as reading the whole book cover-to-cover, I strongly disagree. While each part is good on its own, it's together that they really shine. Although they're very different, the textless, more serious longer narrative is somehow balanced out by the more text-based, craziness of the one-pagers, resulting in a more rounded and enjoyable reading experience.
I've only recently discovered Jacobs, having read Safari Honeymoon a few weeks ago, and I'm already a big fan. In both Safari Honeymoon and Even the Giants, Jacobs demonstrates an enthralling mix of raw imagination, dry humour, thoughtfulness and artistic talent. I look forward to reading more of his work soon.
December 21, 2016
I love to visit GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) in Brisbane. They have some amazing stuff. But there's always sections of the museum that are just a bit too weird for me -- things that, I don't know -- are supposed to be symbolic or some shit like that. This book would fit in perfectly in one of those sections. It was fucking weird .
But you'll notice I gave it 2 stars. One page did make me chuckle. The art was weird, but a good weird. And I like the title.
(PS: I wasn't surprised at all to learn that the author/illustrator has worked on Adventure Time. I love Adventure Time, but again: sometimes just a little too weird.)
But you'll notice I gave it 2 stars. One page did make me chuckle. The art was weird, but a good weird. And I like the title.
(PS: I wasn't surprised at all to learn that the author/illustrator has worked on Adventure Time. I love Adventure Time, but again: sometimes just a little too weird.)
August 9, 2016
I love that this is in arctic blue/black&white, not just grayscale. It adds to the feel. It's a weird book, but the main story is enthralling. I found myself oddly sympathetic toward, well even the giants.
December 1, 2012
Though largely wordless, the loosely interconnected stories in this collection fuse together to create an amazingly robust narrative. The sum total is grotesque, intricate and mazelike. Probably my favorite "graphic novel" I've come across so far.
August 29, 2011
Eskimos and giant yeti-things, packing case, ten thousand mouths. Strange and good.
November 1, 2014
I haven't enjoyed a comic this much in quite a while.
September 29, 2011
read this at a bar. it's funny and bittersweet, like most things I read and love.
June 9, 2023
Jesse Jacobs revels in the absurd, and Even the Giants is no different. There are various nonsensical stories in this book, each barely tying to one another but yet seamlessly transition from one scene to the next. If there is to be a unifying theme, I suppose it would have to be about loneliness and isolation. One of the main stories features a pair of giants living in a bleak Arctic wasteland, eating whatever they can find from livestock, to pets to even the local populace. Though the giants interact with one another, there is a sense of separation between them. They don't quite seem to connect with one another, despite partaking in similar activities. Jacobs handles this story perfectly without any words and just lets his masterful sense of sequential layouts do all the work.
However, not all the stories quite landed, despite them being a visual treat. A few of the other stories are verbose to the point of taking away from the great sense of design on each page. While they all play into the absurdism of the central narrative of the giants, they also barely seemed to make much sense either. Thankfully, Jacobs' cartooning is unique and refined enough to carry the story to the finish line in an enjoyable enough way.
However, not all the stories quite landed, despite them being a visual treat. A few of the other stories are verbose to the point of taking away from the great sense of design on each page. While they all play into the absurdism of the central narrative of the giants, they also barely seemed to make much sense either. Thankfully, Jacobs' cartooning is unique and refined enough to carry the story to the finish line in an enjoyable enough way.
May 10, 2017
I’ve tried in the last year to read everything that Jesse Jacobs has traditionally published, and this book was definitely one of the odder ones (and that says a lot). It was a very fast read, and has a webcomicy quality to it (not a knock against it). It lacked the gravity that some of his other work did, though, so while I recommend reading it, I wouldn’t pick this one up first.
January 27, 2018
A little like Hilda and the Trolls if the trolls ate Hilda and Twig. A little like a less sophisticated Crawl Space minus the washing machines.
May 24, 2018
The illustrations are captivating in their creativity and complexity. I enjoyed the interconnected storylines in the book.
September 10, 2016
"Even the Giants" is not only what you expect from Jesse Jacobs, but what you want: weirdness, strangeness, gods and monsters acting with the privilege and entitlement of human beings (showing us how tragic, funny, terrible we can be).
Two things bother me about Jesse Jacobs' "Even the Giants." One, it's out of print. And two, it was printed so small. I am of the opinion that Jacobs' work is always better when it's bigger. Find this book and buy it!
Two things bother me about Jesse Jacobs' "Even the Giants." One, it's out of print. And two, it was printed so small. I am of the opinion that Jacobs' work is always better when it's bigger. Find this book and buy it!
September 19, 2016
So bizarre and awesome. Was surprised to find a happy and funny ending after so many creatures simply being eaten by giants. It was impressive how the separate stories completely came together at the end without written words! At many points I was delighted by how I felt like I had read so much but there are actually such few written words among the drawings. And the words that are there are poetic, bizarre, dark treats. Also it oddly made me want to be a vegetarian even more (though I'm still not one).
September 15, 2015
Jesse Jacobs' two more recent books - By This You Shall Know Him and (especially) Safari Honeymoon - are brilliant. While pleasant to read, with some very cool art, this one is definitely more a glimpse of a young artist grasping at a bunch of disparate ideas and styles as he seeks out his path - definitely more recommended for folks who already like his work and want to see how it developed. Otherwise, go check out his other books first!
November 29, 2014
Yeeah, this just wasn’t for me. Too weird, not a strong enough visual story for me to be motivated to follow it or to unpack it. A few of the drawings were beautiful, but mostly this edged to much towards disturbing for me to enjoy it. The colours were beautiful though, using only white, icy blue and a darker blue.
October 4, 2011
1.5 stars. I didn't hate it, but I didn't think it was good either.
April 10, 2013
This just wowed me. Simple colors highlight the beautiful illustrations and I really thought there must be a deeper meaning.
July 8, 2013
3.5 stars, but it was so goofy-weird that I'm bumping it up to 4.
February 4, 2014
What a weird little book of comics!
August 13, 2016
Charming and odd.
January 1, 2015
A funny little book featuring giants, eskimos, holey planets and other manner of weird creatures & scenes in a set stories that defy convention.
October 5, 2019
ReRead 5 October 2019
March 29, 2017
Cool art and pretty damn funny!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews