David Bowie is one of the great musicians of the late 20th century, but more than that, he is also one of the best stories of that era. His constant reinvention, intriguing partnerships, provocative statements, and string of unbelievable records make for a fascinating story. Mike Allred, Steve Horton, and Laura Allred tell the story of Bowie’s first decade, which sees David Jones become David Bowie, flops, modest successes, and life changing superstardom in “Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams.”
Written by Mike Allred and Steve HortonCover by Mike and Laura Allred
Illustrated and lettered by Mike Allred
Colored by Laura AllredIn life, David Bowie was one of the most magnetic icons of modern pop culture, seducing generations of fans with both his music and his counterculture persona. In death, the cult of Bowie has only intensified. As a musician alone, Bowie’s legacy is remarkable, but his place in the popular imagination is due to so much more than his music. As a visual performer, he defied classification with his psychedelic aesthetics, his larger-than-life image, and his way of hovering on the border of the surreal.
BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns & Moonage Daydreams chronicles the rise of Bowie’s career from obscurity to fame; and paralleled by the rise and fall of his alter ego as well as the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. As the Spiders from Mars slowly implode, Bowie wrestles with his Ziggy persona. The outcome of this internal conflict will change not only David Bowie, but also, the world.
The first thing that must be mentioned about this book is how perfect of a fit it is for Mike Allred. In his afterward about the book, Allred talks about how he has been drawing Bowie since 1974 in notebooks and sketchpads. From Madman to “Red Rocket 7,” Allred has brought Bowie into many of his works.
It is due to that fact that parts of “Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams” falls a little short.
When you’ve seen Bowie as superhero, as spaceman, as time traveler, seeing him as David Jones dolled up seems a little less magical. What would make real life even more magical, and which the book has to work without (likely due to rights) are Bowie’s lyrics. Because of that, we are denied Bowie’s most important words. Sure, his feelings about “Space Oddity” are important, but none as important as the actual lyrics to the song. This was a similar situation to the Titan released “Yellow Submarine” graphic novel by Bill Morrison, which also didn’t have the rights to reprint Beatles lyrics. But that book was about a fictional world, whereas this is about creating the actual music.
And so, if you strip Bowie of his lyrics, and you strip the book of the fantastical stories that Bowie would sometimes tell, and of the potentially surrealistic lens a less straight book would use, you’re left with just a man. An extraordinary man, thankfully, as Bowie’s life is interesting enough to sustain an entire book without getting drab or dull for a second. But the thought of what the book could have been, either if taken in a more surrealistic way or given the boon of Bowie’s lyrics, somewhat brings it down from a narrative viewpoint.
Where the book is elevated, however, is through Allred’s art. Every panel is stuffed full of detail, from record sleeves meticulously rendered to every hair on someone’s head perfectly coifed for maximum glam. Allred is such a fantastic draftsman that he is able to replicate famous scenes and people in a way that never leaves you wondering who or what you’re looking at.
But Allred is more than that, too. He’s a fantastic sequential storyteller, and so his work rarely looks posed or still. His characters move and breath and exist in three dimensions. Unlike so many of the biographical comics we get, this isn’t just moving Bowie from famous photo to famous photo. There are, obviously, iconic moments depicted, but that comes secondary to telling the story.
Allred and Steve Horton did exhaustive research to make sure that this biography is accurate. There is a lot in the book that was new to me, and I’m a pretty big Bowie fan. Thankfully, Horton and Allred are also good at prioritizing things that feel important, instead of getting too weighed down by minutia. They are particularly adept at finding interesting parts of mundane stories. Bowie doesn’t like to fly, that’s not too unusual. But that he took a train across Asia/Russia back to Europe? That’s a fun detail that Allred makes into one of the book’s best pages.
Continued belowThe book wraps up after Bowie kills off the Ziggy Stardust character, though it sticks around for the aftershocks of that decision. Unfortunately, this is the precise moment where Bowie’s career becomes, to this writer, really interesting. The Philadelphia soul of Young Americans, the cocaine-blackout period of Station to Station, the Berlin trilogy, the pop superstardom of Let’s Dance!, the stumbles, the Pixies-inspired Tin Machine, the electronica, the comebacks – all of that is fascinating stuff. It all has very specific visuals attached to it, too, and so is rife for books like this. Hopefully, Allred and Horton get to do those books, as they are hinted at in the final pages of the book, where various eras get beautiful splash pages highlighting different eras of Bowie’s career.
It is understandable why the book would wrap up where it does, as it is the capstone to the initial thrust of Bowie’s stardom. His soul records would confuse parts of his fanbase, and he wouldn’t really do a big ‘pop’ record until the early 80s. It is also the end of this particular iconic look, which the book spends its first half building up to. We see the various pieces of Bowie’s look appear, before eventually coalescing in the iconic Aladdin Sane cover, perhaps still Bowie’s strongest single visual. Almost as it was assembled, that look was then broken down for parts, eventually settling in an entirely new persona for Bowie.
Overall, this is a book that is best paired with Bowie’s actual music, and since it can’t reprint the lyrics, that’s up to us to provide. Put on your favorite couple of Bowie records (I’d suggest period appropriate ones) and marvel at the visual feast that is this graphic novel. And then buy a second copy so they can do a sequel.
