Written by Charles Soule
Illustrated by Renzo PodestaHendrix, Cobain, Joplin, Morrison. All belong to the “27 Club,” which admits only the most brilliant musicians and artists…and kills them dead in their 27th year. Will Garland is a famous rock guitarist, secretly unable to play for months due to a neurological disorder afflicting his left hand. He’s also 27! With mad scientists, long dead rock legends and cosmic entities in his way, can he make it to 28?
I honestly can’t remember the last time I looked forward to a brand new comic book as much as I looked forward to this issue. While I hadn’t heard of either writer Charles Soule or artist Renzo Podesta before, Music’s 27 Club had been a minor obsession of mine since I was just a youngin’ listening to my first Nirvana record (which, like the rest of the world, was Nevermind.) So when I found out a comic was being written involving magic and the 27 Club, and being published by my favorite publisher running at the moment, I just about wet myself, and I was apparently not the only one. The pre-release buzz on this one was flat out astounding, resulting in the first printing selling out TWO WEEKS AGO. Combine that with the fact that, due to supposed printing errors, many stores got nowhere near the amount of copies they expected to get (HUGE thank you to Michelle over at New England Comics: Allston for saving one for me), making this one of the most sought after comics of the year and yet another commercial success for Image. Hit the jump to see my thoughts on it!
Now that the coy, opening paragraph is out of the way and you’ve invested in my thoughts on this issue, I will say that this is probably going to go down as one of my biggest comic-related disappointments of 2010. I will admit that I am not 100% sure what I was expecting, but I am fairly sure that it was not this.
What we have is a fairly quick, largely incomprehensible story that lacked any kind of compelling hook. And more importantly, contained absolutely no mention of the 27 Club and, in fact, only one mention of the number 27 at all! Our story begins with world renowned rock guitarist Will Garland at the height of his career with his as-yet unnamed band. We then flash forward a year, after Will has become stricken with a muscular disorder that prevents him from playing guitar, and he has become relatively down on his luck and willing to do anything to regain his former glory. A typical (read: stereotypical) Rock n’ Roll idea, except unlike every artist VH1 has ever profiled for Behind the Music, a big, cash grab reunion tour was not in the cards for Will. So his desperation leads him into the strange offices of Dr. Hargrave Swinthe who, after a rather odd, immensely hard to follow, scene featuring nudity and talking inanimate object, returns Will’s ability to play guitar…but only after turning a knob on the mysterious device now implanted on his chest. After pausing his miracle to rub his returned success in a few faces, his abilities disappear just as quickly as they returned, leading him to fiddling with the device uncontrollably until a group of non-descript ghosts appear and tell him to stop…which brings us to the end of this very lackluster road.
No Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison or Jimmy Hendrix. No uses of music history and culture (which, granted, weren’t promised…but were absolutely heavily implied) beyond footnotes and side references. It really was a comic about a musician as opposed to a music comic…and that alone is enough to make it angry. The fact that it was a sloppily written, uninteresting and badly constructed narrative made things even worse.
That having been said, the art was a notable saving grace. Almost like a cross between Mike Oeming and Chris Bachalo, Podesta managed to adequately convey the feeling of absolute glory followed by absolute despair perfectly. He also proved he could draw a creepy as hell scene with just enough dread to make you care about the character if only the scene was written that way as well. Overall, his style was eye catching and worked well for the most part…though it was not good enough to save the story.
It saddens me to say this, but after Marineman last week and 27 this week, that is two very noticeably chinks in Image’s amazing armor. Of course, we still have Chew, Morning Glories, Skullkickers and everything Robert Kirkman puts his name on…but I am definitely beginning to question my “if Image is investing in it, it must be good” line of thinking. I wish I could say that I was at least curious to see where the story was going…but I’m really not.
Final Verdict: 3.5 (and only for the art) — Pass
