What would happen if F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce all worked as cartoonists who one day decided to rob a bank? And what if in the world in which they lived comic books had become the top form of literature?

Well, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Norwegian artist/writer Jason – Yes, one name only – dreamt up this scenario for his 2006 graphic novel The Left Bank Gang, published by Fantagraphics Books. The result is a highly entertaining look at the highs and lows of the creative life and the challenges of keeping up with talented peers. Jason has also given us a fascinating glimpse of what it must have been like to have been a struggling artist in 1920s Paris, where this tale is set.

In Jason's book, Hemingway, Joyce and the rest are depicted as walking, talking animals, dogs, cats and birds toting suitcases and slaving over drawing boards. Don’t take this to mean, though, that these artists aren’t rendered as real people with real doubts and insecurities along with sometimes crushing vanity and huge egos. Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of these artists’ lives will instantly be able to recognize the character traits that made Hemingway, Ezra Pound and the others into celebrities.

The most interesting twist here is that Jason’s characters live in a Paris where comic books have become the literary form of choice, not novels, short stories or plays. It’s an interesting thought, and leaves the reader wishing that comics did engender more respect today.

Check out The Left Bank Gang for a highly entertaining read, one that's part look at the artists' life and part caper thriller. You’ll be impressed not only by how well Jason juggles his multiple writer characters, but by how deftly he gives each of them unique personalities. This is definitely one independent graphic novel worth reading.