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New Pets
In an 80-page volume, one of the most intimate and visionary stories created by Jesse who for the umpteenth time drags us into a grotesque world building full of bizarre creatures and extravagant situations, but this time in full-colour process!
A story that starts from a simple and adolescent context; a group of kids, from any provincial town, are intent on competing in the purchase of these new… modular pets!
An horror story of love and respect...
A story that starts from a simple and adolescent context; a group of kids, from any provincial town, are intent on competing in the purchase of these new… modular pets!
An horror story of love and respect...
80 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2023
About the author
Jesse Jacobs
22 books145 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).
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 21, 2025
KEVIN!!!!!
June 14, 2026
Years ago, I stumbled across Safari Honeymoon and By This You Shall Know Him at my local bookstore. I thought they were brilliant. I kept looking for other Jesse Jacobs books but never saw any. I recently thought to look him up and found that his publisher (Koyama) went out of business a few years ago. I ordered this from his new publisher in the UK. I'm glad I did. What a brilliant and weird little graphic novel. I'm glad this is on my bookshelf. What a little treasure.
June 16, 2026
Jacobs’s best work yet (that I’ve read). You can tell he had a lot of fun drawing this. Can’t wait to share this with friends.
July 16, 2023
Jesse Jacobs' newest (and longest) work published by Hollow Press is a regaling story about a small town that gets caught up with trendy new "designer" pets. It has the near perfect juxtaposition of creepiness with hilarity to make this one of the most engaging reads I've had this year.
The book opens with a detailed graphical description of the Portuguese man o' war, an aquatic colonial organism made up of numerous suborganisms. Jacobs parallels the makeup of the Portuguese man o' war to the mammalian cells making up humans, suggesting that humans are in a sense still colonial organisms. This hook sets the stage for the rest of the book where we follow a kid who yearns for the trendy designer pets that many of his friends have recently acquired. These pets are completely alien in appearance - grotesque and bizarre in a way only Jacobs can successfully pull off - are composed of numerous alien subspecies. They can easily fall apart and re-assemble into new shapes, making them exciting creatures to interact with. While the story has a completely absurd tinge to it, Jacobs expertly weaves in themes like collectivism into the narrative.
Jacobs' signature psychedelic and absurdist style is just as sharp as it has always been, but his ability to fold in deeper ideas into the bizarre concepts is what makes his work as a cartoonist really stand out. Fans of Jesse Jacobs won't be disappointed with this one, and hopefully a future bigger print run of this will earn him the larger audience his other books have deserved.
The book opens with a detailed graphical description of the Portuguese man o' war, an aquatic colonial organism made up of numerous suborganisms. Jacobs parallels the makeup of the Portuguese man o' war to the mammalian cells making up humans, suggesting that humans are in a sense still colonial organisms. This hook sets the stage for the rest of the book where we follow a kid who yearns for the trendy designer pets that many of his friends have recently acquired. These pets are completely alien in appearance - grotesque and bizarre in a way only Jacobs can successfully pull off - are composed of numerous alien subspecies. They can easily fall apart and re-assemble into new shapes, making them exciting creatures to interact with. While the story has a completely absurd tinge to it, Jacobs expertly weaves in themes like collectivism into the narrative.
Jacobs' signature psychedelic and absurdist style is just as sharp as it has always been, but his ability to fold in deeper ideas into the bizarre concepts is what makes his work as a cartoonist really stand out. Fans of Jesse Jacobs won't be disappointed with this one, and hopefully a future bigger print run of this will earn him the larger audience his other books have deserved.
August 28, 2023
Jesse Jacobs likes drawing weird cartoon creatures, and he does it exceptionally well. He’s exhibited this in much of his previous work – most prominently in the excellent "Safari Honeymoon" and in my personal favourite of his comics, "Crawl Space" – and it’s once again on full display in “New Pets”. As always, his wild imagination and stellar cartooning make this comic a joy to behold, the titular critters wonderfully occupying Jacobs's trademark grey area between cute and creepy. In fact, I think this might be his best-looking comic yet, thanks in particular to the absolutely gorgeous colours.
However, I do have to admit that the story here is quite thin, and it treads very similar narrative and thematic ground to "Crawl Space". Indeed, it's probably fair to say that the plot is little more than a pretext for Jacobs to draw some cool shapeshifting monsters. That said, the story is fine – there's nothing really wrong with it, except perhaps an excess of exposition – and at the end of the day, I'm here to see some cool imagery, and on that front "New Pets" delivers in abundance.
However, I do have to admit that the story here is quite thin, and it treads very similar narrative and thematic ground to "Crawl Space". Indeed, it's probably fair to say that the plot is little more than a pretext for Jacobs to draw some cool shapeshifting monsters. That said, the story is fine – there's nothing really wrong with it, except perhaps an excess of exposition – and at the end of the day, I'm here to see some cool imagery, and on that front "New Pets" delivers in abundance.
March 21, 2025
The new pets are strange and a hype right away: they're cute (alegedly), soft and can do anything a pet can do and much more. This is somehow Jabobs' most straight-forward narrative. Again, with fun and creatively weird art, however the strength is in the weird story; it's about pets, what could go wrong? It's great.
August 11, 2023
I'm a fan of Jacobs' art and particular brand of odd (which is bright and grotesque and calmly frightening). This one is definitely more marveling at the art than the story, where I felt like his Crawl Space was stronger story wise. Still very worth checking out if you like Jacobs' stuff!
August 22, 2023
Big fan of Jacobs and this one didn’t disappoint.
September 19, 2023
I just love everything Jesse Jacobs does.
January 5, 2024
"We too are walking collections of living things, harmonious assemblages of beings."
÷
June 7, 2024
A unique story that could only be told through comics. For followers and fans of the long.furby.fam account on Instagram.
July 4, 2024
a visual masterpiece
April 16, 2025
3.4 stars rounded down. Creepy and beautifully trippy illustrations from Jesse Jacobs.
March 1, 2026
The quintessential visual treat.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews