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They Live In Me
"Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted."
Published by Hollow Press in April 2017 first printing - limited at only:
500 copies (english edition) + 500 copies (italian edition)
off-set print
printed in an A4 format on 170g paper
32 pages + B/W cover (soft spine + hard frontcover and backcover)
stitched paperback binding
Published by Hollow Press in April 2017 first printing - limited at only:
500 copies (english edition) + 500 copies (italian edition)
off-set print
printed in an A4 format on 170g paper
32 pages + B/W cover (soft spine + hard frontcover and backcover)
stitched paperback binding
32 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2017
About the author
Jesse Jacobs
18 books129 followersJesse Jacobs was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, and now draws comics and things from his home in London, Ontario. He has worked on the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time and has appeared in the 2012 and 2013 editions of Best American Comics.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 15, 2018
two parallel stories (if a word as linear as "story" is even appropriate): in the first, a malevolent house contemplates its hatred of interlopers and plots to destroy them; in the second, a cheerful family is shown the house by a realtor - and gradually the family sickens, ages, and then dies, staying cheerful all the while. Jacobs clearly had a cheerful time as well when putting this together.
this is less a story and more a playfully macabre and creepily childlike mood piece that contemplates misanthropy and bourgeois cluelessness. mordant, acidic, straight-faced wit that is a perfect complement to the sometimes geometric, sometimes gruesomely biological, always surreal drawings on display. the book was created in another dimension and exported to ours, so don't expect anything that looks like it is taking place in our world.
moral
no man is an island or rock, but be warned: a house may be so.
April 13, 2019
They Live in Me is a beautiful twist on the suburban haunted house genre. And like others in the genre, They Live in Me expresses the anxieties that go along with settling down, buying a house, starting a family, etc. But Jesse Jacobs’ book takes those all-too-familiar worries about aging and mortality to new, fabulous, more cosmic heights.
Also, after reading They Live in Me, I think I can finally see Jacobs’ thematic through-line across all of his books: they are all about biological entropy. Over the course of each of his books, the natural world rises up with a vengeance, progressively taking over any feeble sense of “order.” Nature and its fantastical creatures grow increasingly sinister until, finally, some sort of inexplicably calm equilibrium is reached between the (often human) protagonists and their (often more nature-like) antagonists. Put that way, it sounds like Jacobs has found in his comics the perfect way to express life at its most cosmic and at its most mundane.
They Live in Me is another fantastic work by Jesse Jacobs.
Also, after reading They Live in Me, I think I can finally see Jacobs’ thematic through-line across all of his books: they are all about biological entropy. Over the course of each of his books, the natural world rises up with a vengeance, progressively taking over any feeble sense of “order.” Nature and its fantastical creatures grow increasingly sinister until, finally, some sort of inexplicably calm equilibrium is reached between the (often human) protagonists and their (often more nature-like) antagonists. Put that way, it sounds like Jacobs has found in his comics the perfect way to express life at its most cosmic and at its most mundane.
They Live in Me is another fantastic work by Jesse Jacobs.
December 1, 2021
This is another fairly typical Jesse Jacobs comic: its plot is slight, but it’s bursting at the seams with imagination and weirdness. In fact, despite its brevity, this comic may boast more great ideas than any of his others that I’ve read so far. The art is also brilliant, if less awesome than Crawl Space and Baby in the Boneyard; the style’s very similar to Safari Honeymoon, but with a lot more black – really a crazy amount of ink on each page, actually. There’s also plenty of Jacobs’s trademark twisted humour – perhaps a shade darker than usual – in this instance turned to a satire of the property market and attitudes towards housing. In short, this is another solid comic that I recommend any Jacobs fan to check out.
May 29, 2017
Enchanting. The contrast between the naive perseverance of these would-be homeowners and the quiet but intensely harsh aggression of the house itself is powerful. A perfectly haunting short story... Jacobs is at the height of his powers and still pushes upwards.
June 4, 2022
Whether a dark allegory for aging, a commentary on the North American housing market, or just a horror-comedy funnybook about an evil anthropomorphic house - and I think it capably does all three - They Live In Me turned me from someone skeptical of Jacobs' popularity to an appreciator of his work. Essentially perfect in premise and execution; an ostensibly simple, high-concept short story with plenty of sight gags and genre tropes that manages to be simultaneously light-hearted and horrifying.
Though I've never been a fan of Jacobs' trendy style (at least not the way he draws people), he designs his panel sequences with the sensibilities of an animator - there are several pages here whose panels could practically be cut out and made into flipbooks - and the disparity between the geometrically perfect environments and the kooky misproportions of the (human) characters that inhabit them is novel. With his deceptively simple, almost childlike style of drawing, I think Jacobs takes care to make it seem like what he's doing isn't very hard, since experts often make their craft look effortless.
I didn't expect to like this as much as I did.
Though I've never been a fan of Jacobs' trendy style (at least not the way he draws people), he designs his panel sequences with the sensibilities of an animator - there are several pages here whose panels could practically be cut out and made into flipbooks - and the disparity between the geometrically perfect environments and the kooky misproportions of the (human) characters that inhabit them is novel. With his deceptively simple, almost childlike style of drawing, I think Jacobs takes care to make it seem like what he's doing isn't very hard, since experts often make their craft look effortless.
I didn't expect to like this as much as I did.
December 8, 2021
This is alright. It feels a bit on the nose. Safari honeymoon was super unique with a lot to consider and a ton of ambiguity. This feels more like a dig at the housing market. Which is fine, but it just feels a bit constrained to the metaphor of the act of owning a house consuming your life. Also a nitpick but the weird binding of this book makes it tough to read and awkward on the shelf which is a touch frustrating.
January 9, 2022
At once horrifying and hilarious- the idea of a realtor whose purpose is to drain your life force with a super long and creepy house tour made me laugh, but Jacobs signature gross anatomy drawings overruled the inherent hilarity to turn the story dark and dangerous.
April 17, 2024
me en-can-to siempre Jacobs ademas de darnos un arte muy original y bello nos da historias tan profundas como sutiles, no puedo esperar a leer mas cosas de el, siempre sus libros son hermosos y necesarios XD
March 30, 2018
Not as good as Safari Honeymoon. But that's a high bar.
December 29, 2019
A macabre tale about a house that despised and consumed humans.
March 7, 2020
Amazing
June 7, 2020
Engraçadinho.
December 30, 2021
so much going on that i love in this despite it being very short
February 10, 2022
Delightfully bizarre and sinister!
March 5, 2024
placeholder for they live in flames, novel by an up and comer
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews