Black Mask is back with another new comic, this one related to the music scene. Do they have a hit on their hands, or is this a dud? Read on to find out, and note that there are some mild spoilers.
Written by Holly InterlandiCover by Sally Cantirino
Illustrated and Lettered by Sally CantirinoNicky Marshall was saved by rock and roll – or so he likes to think. An awkward upbringing and turmoil following his father’s suicide led Nicky to form a band called Ecstasy with his childhood friend Drey. The music takes them to Los Angeles, raw and gritty and teeming with personalities. Nicky thinks they’re ready for stardom, but no one’s ever ready for stardom. This first of four oversized issues begins in the 1980s, grows out of grassroots clubs & introduces Ecstasy to the world – whether it’s ready for them or not. From the brand new team of Holly Interlandi on scripts and Sally Cantirino on pencils & inks, this unique, heartbreaking story is about letting the music in… how it changes you and affects everyone around you, for better & worse.
This first issue of “Last Song,” Black Mask’s newest miniseries premiere, reads as if it’s from someone who has lived exactly what they’re writing about. An exploration of someone so focused on their end goal that they can’t help but doubt their present, I think most creative people can relate. Even more so, anyone who had even mild success with a band in their late teens or early twenties will deeply relate. Speaking from both of those perspectives, this book hit close to home.
The timeline of the book helped me dive deep into these characters. With Interlandi writing scenes that go back and forth between different eras, we get a strong feeling for each of the two main leads, Nicky and Drey. We also get a strong sense of their friendship. The scenes taking place in the latest years, essentially the “Last Song”’s present, have some great exchanges between the characters and some meaningful soft moments, but the reason it all hits so hard is because we also see them growing up together, starting to play music together, starting their careers together. Interlandi writes so many touching moments between the two, and by writing scenes from all over their lives, the cumulative effect by the end of the issue has me feeling like I’ve known them for years.
Also of note relating to the format is the way each scene is constructed. Some scenes have no dialogue. Some stick to a 9-panel grid. We occasionally get journal pages and music-centric collages, and then there are the pages which just tell the story through dialogue and images with standard panel layouts, like other modern comics. The scenes without dialogue open the issue and help set “Last Song”’s grounded, observational tone before jumping into a flurry of disconnected flash-forward panels. Just as quickly as we’re introduced to the tone, Interlandi and Cantirino introduce us to the book’s unconventional narrative techniques.
The collages achieved something interesting for me. I’ve always found it difficult to translate the feeling of music onto a page, and this is the closest I think any attempt has come to capturing that. Each page in the sequence is set up as belonging to a different song, coming one page after the other for a few pages which represent an entire set. Each page was set up similarly, with a few amorphous panels swirling into one another, each focusing on a different close-up: the singer’s face, the guitarist stepping on a pedal, a man cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling. Little text boxes float in these collages, some connected to each other and some not, a stream of consciousness representing the song, the space, the people, and whatever other little thoughts might float through the musicians’ heads. One page of this was definitely enough to get across a certain vibe, but by the end of the set, I realized that Interlandi and Cantirino had created the most accurate representation of playing music I’ve ever read.
The journal pages were a different beast. Written in prose and visually designed by Cantirino to resemble an old tattered notebook with some pictures pasted in, they related events to us through the subjective first-person view of a character. Prose is much better than comics at getting inside a character’s head, and it seems Interlandi inserted these pages specifically for that reason. As much as we can ascertain about the characters’ thoughts through the dialogue and visual-based scenes, these journal pages give us the full insider view of those characters’ poetic thoughts and feelings. They don’t come off as redundant or indulgent, so much as a satisfying piece of the puzzle.
Continued belowCantirino’s black and white art consistently keeps up with all of the experimentation that Interlandi throws her way while also delivering solid conventional scenes. As mentioned above, she gives a clear atmosphere to even the journal pages, which she both drew and lettered, even though the prose on the page is clearly the focus. Beyond those experiments, Cantirino draws much of the conventional panels with a focus on character faces and torsos and with a clear sense that all of these events, which can feel either magical or devastating to the characters, are happening in inconspicuous houses and clubs. These choices keep us grounded and focused on the characters, which meshes perfectly with Interlandi’s story.
All of this, from the experimental to the conventional, from the story to the art, blends together into a book that completely understands the feelings of being in a band and chasing an impossible dream. With “Last Song,” Interlandi and Cantirino take you from desperation to joy to self-doubt and back up again, a ride all creative people have dealt with at some point. Even if you’ve never had that experience, check this out and you’ll surely be able to understand.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – An exploration of the life of struggling musicians through relatable characters and some experimental methods, resulting in some highly realistic portrayals of this lifestyle.
