Last month we celebrated music we love in We Want Comics, the sorts of bands and artists who inspire whole worlds. And there’s one musical artist in particular who grabs my imagination, though you might think it strange. Well, maybe not strange exactly…
Alfred Matthew Yankovic is an American icon, entertaining audiences for almost half a century. His music has been widely released on records, cassettes, CDs, digital downloads, and streaming. He squeezed his accordion years before MTV existed, and he has toured for years since they stopped playing music videos. The dude is an institution, and he deserves to be celebrated through that most American of media: comic books. Here are just a couple of comic pitches that are worthy of the weirdness of Al.
UHF 2000
In 1989, Weird Al starred in what was essentially Weird Al the movie. Fran Drescher co-starred, along with Kramer from Seinfeld. (I know his name is Michael Richards). It’s a weird flick and there’s nothing quite like it. Al plays the straight man, a plucky dreamer who tries to start a television studio. The programming on Al’s fictitious network is patently absurd, but resonates with audiences in a way that threatens the regular suits who usually make television. The movie ends on something of an ambiguous note. Apparently, Weird Al, Kramer, and the gang get to keep making weird cult classic TV.
Smash cut to the 2010s. YouTube is watched by grandparents and teens alike. Netflix is getting into the original programming game. And the aging cast of UHF is still struggling as a plucky, beloved, cult favorite TV station. But they can’t keep this going forever. In the era of unboxing videos, makeup tutorials, and the YouTube algorithm guiding us towards radical politics, what weirdness will Al unleash on the world. That’s right, this is a comic series about a YouTube channel based on a fictitious TV station from a cult classic 1989 movie that no one watched. So all in all, very on brand for Weird Al.
Albuquerque
“Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block down the street from Jerry’s Bait shop- you know the place- well anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just… PEACHY!!!”
‘Albuquerque’ is an eleven and a half minute narrative epic off of Weird Al’s 1999 album Running With Scissors. It’s a story of love and loss and plane crashes and snorkel theft and donuts and grease fires and crazed weasels and sauerkraut. It’s huge. There are shocking digressions, catchy refrains, evocative characters, it’s got everything a story needs. And that’s it. A comic of the song. Just literally hand the lyrics of ‘Albuquerque’ to a talented artist and see what sort of pages they crank out.
The Saga Continues
While there have been many generations of classic Weird Al songs, it’s hard to understate the impact of ‘The Saga Begins,’ his 1999 parody of ‘American Pie’ and the still-in-the-theaters hit film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Years of nerd culture have not been kind to Episode I, but Al doesn’t have a negative word to say about it. Little Anakin, Jar-Jar, he embraces all of it in a strangely earnest telling of the story of the film. The rhymes are charming, and Al’s performance is impeccable. ‘The Saga Begins’ is a sort of follow up to another lovely Star Wars parody, the 1985 ‘Lola’ parody ‘Yoda.’
Both are brilliant, both play on a contemporary love for Star Wars that is unmarred by years of critical examination. There’s something pure about them. They are loving songs meant to convey nothing but enthusiasm for the movies. And frankly, Star Wars could use a little straightforward enthusiasm. So this comic is a blank check. Weird Al is scripting, it’s a “Star Wars” comic, only this time it’s about Rey and Finn and Kylo Ren. Maybe he’s just doing a silly adaptation. Maybe he sends them off on wacky adventures. Maybe there’s an entire issue of Poe serving up Twinkie weiner sandwiches. The point is, Al deserves a shot at distilling his love for the galaxy far far away into some sequential art.
Continued belowWeird Origins
Okay, you got me, I’m a huge Weird Al fan. He was the first concert I ever went to. Running With Scissors wasn’t my first album (that would be ahem, Big Willie Style) but I listen to it a whole lot. I was a little obsessed as a kid. And secretly hidden on the CD was a video file, a documentary about the origins of Weird Al. And it was… weird!
You get to see Al’s home life, somewhat idyllic but a little manic. His parents are loving, but kind of creepy. His grandfather, blues singer Blind Lemon Yankovic, keeps knocking stuff over and talking like it’s the 1920s. Al’s private security team keeps calling him by increasingly absurd nicknames. It’s clear that young Yankovic did not have a conventional childhood. That’s the perfect place to start a comic book series.
This would be in the tone of late 80s Saturday morning cartoons, but with something of an Adventure Time twist. On the one hand, it would be a credulity-straining adventure. Young Al would go on all sorts of missions around the world, maybe traveling through time, battling ghosts, going to the moon. If it could happen on Ducktales, it could happen to Al. But then, there’s something creepy and a little bit off about Al’s home life. Are his parents really his parents? What’s the story with his granddad? Why is he constantly surrounded by secret service agents? These questions, and more, will never be answered, but will lurk forever in the background.
The Polka League of America
We don’t just love Weird Al because of his music, or because he makes us laugh. We love him because he creates wonderful characters. Some of those characters are totally original, like the lounge singer that croons ‘One More Minute.’ Some of them are familiar parodies, like the fat dancer who’s borrowed Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ wardrobe. And some of them are legit real people, like Al dressing like Kurt Cobain in ‘Smells Like Nirvana.’ But what if all those characters came together to form an unstoppable super team?
This isn’t the kind of grand mythology you’d find in something like an actual “Justice League” comic. The Polka League of America would be a lot more like Superfriends in all its cheesy glory. Think about all the skills that Al’s different persona’s could bring to the table. The medical skills of the doctor in ‘Like a Surgeon.’ The hacking skills of the black hat who raps ‘All About the Pentiums.’ The genetic expertise of whoever made the clones in ‘I Think I’m a Clone Now.” The pure swagger of the rabbi who’s ‘Pretty Fly For a Rabbi.’ Put them all together and you have a near endless roster of larger than life characters, and applicable skills.
That’s the real strength of Al Yankovic. His songs don’t just replace the original words with sillier things that rhyme. He goes to the library and does the research. He commits to his act fully. He matches funny songs with funny visuals. And he chases weirdness with a big heart, hoping to inspire, to charm, to entertain. Weird Al has the heart of a superhero. A team of Weird Als would be the most powerful force on the planet.
