Since this is the first column of this run, a bit of an introduction is in order:
Let’s face it: we all get songs stuck in our heads. Whether it is your beloved favorite track, an overplayed radio hit or even a jingle some mom and pop shop commissioned some most likely incompetent marketer to create, it happens. The way audio imprints on our lives and our memories is in a lot of ways unique to the medium. Some choose to embrace this, making music a cherished art form in their lives. Others choose to spurn the obvious connection, claiming music is nothing but audio static to be avoided. Finally, a third category of people exists, apart from the other two. These people not only enjoy music…not only collect it with an often times obsessive compulsive fervor that would give pause to even the most seasoned sports fan or longbox diver…to these dedicated few, music has become such an indelible part of their lives that is has become as necessary as the air they breathe and the water they drink. Music then ceases to be about genres or scenes or production values…it ceases to simply be an art form to be consumed and becomes the lifeblood of their creative spark.
Audiophiles…Phonomancers…vinyl dorks…whatever you choose to call them, ultimately all labels come to say the same thing: music is so much more than music to them.
Similar, in fact, to the tendencies of most comic readers in this day and age…wherein their medium, their creative spark becomes just as much a part of their lives as music does to the audiophile…taking their energy and enthusiasm from inked lines and snappy scripting instead of a good beat and copious amounts of guitar wailing.
I happen to take my muse from both places and it’s the inherent connection between the two that I will be exploring with this column. Welcome to Soundtrack to Your Geekout, Multiversity’s very first comics/music hybrid column.
Here’s the deal: each week I’ll pick one book (or trade) that came out and pair it up with a track/record/band that I am digging at that point that in my mind serves as a satisfactory soundtrack to a page/scene/character contained in said book (or maybe even the whole book.) Will the tracks and books line-up perfectly every time? Probably not. Will I really just be using the framework provided by the column to whore out books and records I enjoy for no reason other than I can? Almost assuredly…but I will try to stick to this concept whence I am able…because its a good idea (and if you disagree…then seriously, why are you still reading?) Will you (the readers) agree with my choices 100% of the time? Definitely not…but I don’t care…since there’s at least a 65 to 70% chance if you actually GET what I am trying to do you’ll discover a new record/new comic through this column and the intertextual connections it makes…and THAT is the real point of this.
So, after that lengthy introduction, let’s get to this week’s match-up…
There were a lot of decent books this week, amongst them Uncanny X-Men, Brightest Day and Sweet Tooth, however the one that gets the geekout nod this time is iZombie #1 by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred.
The book was already reviewed pretty well by our very own David Harper, so I’ll spare you a retreading of the issue’s play by play. However, I will say that as a debut issue it more or less hit all the proper marks it should have, most notably its $1.00 cover price. Vertigo and Image are really good about giving out cheap tastes to the books they really believe in…they did it with Sweet Tooth and Joe the Barbarian and again, this time with iZombie. They most certainly have perfected the “grab em early and don’t let go” method of publishing (ever notice how all the first volume trades both companies put out are 10 bucks (or less) but generally have more then 10 dollars worth of content in them? This is not a coincidence.) It manages to introduce its protagonist and her delightfully grim supporting cast impeccably well, in addition to introducing its (surprisingly Chew-esque) modus operandi toward the end of the book. Thematically it manages to split its time between traditional horror/suspense and straight sitcom surprisingly well, and does so in a really sleek, stylized and bleeding-edge chique kind of way (as opposed to a hokey Munsters kinda way.) Now granted, a LOT of that effect is a result of the art itself. Like many of my fellow Multiversity staffers, I’ve long been a fan of Allred’s work (since little impressionable 14 year-old Josh picked up a little book called X-Force #116), and he was certainly firing on all cylinders this time around. His lines were crisp as hell and they fit the classic pulp meets sitcom feeling the book was almost certainly going for, brought into even fuller effect by the coloring of his wife Laura. All in all, the entire package made for an entertaining read that, while not leaving me salivating for more, pretty much guaranteed my support for at least this first arc.
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This week’s soundtrack pick to go along with iZombie is a pretty easy choice…and not only because a copy of it was passed to me an hour before I sat down to write this…that record being the brand new full length from Providence’s Sage Francis deceptively (or creatively, depending on how you view it) titled Li(f)e. Gritting his teeth in the east coast hip-hop scene over the past decade, Mr. Francis continually balked at traditional hip-hop convention by, amongst other things, performing with a live band sporadically throughout his career and opting to release many of his releases on an established Punk Rock label (Epitaph, for those not in the know.) His newest release (steaming on his MySpace right now and out on CD and LP(!) this coming Tuesday, May 11th) sees the return of a full band and the result is one of the most impressive hip-hop hybrid records of the year. Rather than the heavier leanings of Sage Francis tracks of times past, the record opens with a distinct Americana vibe that it maintains throughout, as Mr. Francis opts to deliver his signature rhymes over bits of twang and acoustic guitar this time around (as opposed to the usual distortion and constructed beats and grooves.) The effect creates a vibe that, while still very much KRS-One inspired hip-hop, could very easily draw parallels to such “talk-sing” folk heroes as Woody Guthrie or even Johnny Cash makes me very much yearn for a Drag the River/Sage Francis double bill.
Now, for the kicker: how these two bits of mixed media connect. Again, this one is easy: the rambling, introductory tone of the book fits perfectly with the meandering swagger of the record, specifically its opening track “Little Houdini.” Both have a kind of bleeding-edge cool air to them that creates a similar vibe of smooth nostalgia and barbed intrigue. We’re just as much drawn into the ongoing story of Gwen Dylan in iZombie as much as we are the true life tale of fugitive Christopher Daniel Gay as spat by Sage Francis in that opening track. One thing is for sure: both certainly make me want A) a beer and B) a long dirt road to drive down (though not simultaneously…not yet anyway.)
Recap:
iZombie #1
Written by Chris Roberson
Art by Michael Allred
Published by Vertigo Comics
OUT NOW! (go buy it!)
Li(f)e by Sage Francis
Out May 11th on Anti-Records and available everywhere quality records are sold.
(wait a few days, THEN go buy it!)
Joshua Mocle is a self-proclaimed Phonomancer until which time as he becomes deputized by Lords Gillen and McKelvie (give it time…) To catch his rants that don’t explicitly have to do with comic books (as they deal primarily with punk rock, burritos and baseball) check out thoughtgrenade.
