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“The Beatles Story”

By | March 20th, 2018
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

I’m not alone in loving, nay, being obsessed with the Beatles. Their music was the soundtrack of my youth, due to my parents loving them, and it is now the soundtrack of my kids’ early years as well. When I saw that Rebellion was looking to reprint “The Beatles Story,” the first graphic telling of the Beatles story, I was ecstatic to check it out. Unfortunately, the book is both a visual and plotting rehash, without much new to bring to the table.

Cover by Angus P Allan
Written by Arthur Ranson
Illustrated by Angus P Allan

This was the very first graphic novel to chart the creation, evolution and break-up of the Fab Four, first published in 1981. The Beatles Story is an exceptionally drawn account of the band from one of the UK’s leading artists of his generation, Arthur Ranson (Batman, Judge Dredd, Button Man). Written by Angus Allan it includes fascinating insights into Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s first encounter, their early gigs in Hamburg’s Kaiser Keller, through to the recording of the legendary Abbey Road album and the band’s break-up. First published in the pages of legendary UK youth magazine Look In, this beautifully illustrated account is a treat for both the devoted Beatles admirer and new fans alike.

Like any celebrity, specifically any pre-internet celebrity, there are a certain photos/images that are etched into your brain as representative of who the Beatles are. Angus Allan was well aware of this, as he used just about every single one as reference for his work here. Almost every page features a seemingly traced photograph, sometimes altered slightly, sometimes presented exactly as remembered. I don’t actually think that Allan was tracing the photos, but the level of detail he puts into these recreations are near-tracing levels.

That practice hurts the book in two ways. Because so much of the story is told through well known images, it doesn’t give Allan any room to get creative at all. All his characters must be exactly photo-realistic, or they don’t fit in with the other characters on the page. But more than that, it totally kills anything sequential about the art. Comics work because your brain has to fill in the gaps between panels, and so you become an active participant in the work. Here, it is more like collages of previously seen materials are recreated by Allan, with only the slightest concept of sequence thrown in.

Allan doesn’t get to do anything other than try to most accurately replicate Paul McCartney in 1966, and that doesn’t seem fair for an artist of his talent. While he certainly captures the source material well, it is far from a truly creative work for Allan. Aside from deciding how to lay out the panels, and some combining of images into slightly new creations, this is about as by the numbers as an art assignment can get.

What is an interesting choice from writer Arthur Ranson is to focus more than half the book on the pre-fame era of the Beatles’ career. This choice might have been made in order to give readers some ‘new’ material to enjoy, as the story of the Beatles’ biggest hits would be reasonably common knowledge, even in 1981 when this was first serialized. So, there is more about Allan Williams, their first manager, and a few of their pre-Pete Best drummers than you’ll get in almost any other Beatles biography.

Although the book is mainly told via omniscient narration and quotes from interviews, Ranson has to invent a fair amount of dialogue between various characters, especially early on in the book. These represent the nadir of the book, as Ranson seemingly has to squeeze as much late-50s Liverpudlian slang into every conversation as possible. Through context, I can tell you what “I wouldn’t half like” means, but it doesn’t help the story at all.

I mentioned earlier how this book was originally serialized, and there are spots where that is crystal clear, like when the same information is reiterated in almost the exact same way a page or so apart. The original publication was in a teen magazine, which may explain some of the other choices that were made in its creation, but it doesn’t forgive the reading experience that anyone outside of the English girls who read Look In in 1981.

While I am glad that we don’t necessarily get a scene of McCartney seeing a sad Julian Lennon and writing “Hey Jude,” the book totally lacks insight into all but their very earliest creative endeavors. The Beatles were so innovative in their studio work, that an entire book could have been dedicated to showing how they created. Instead, we get some small bits about their films and a little bit about the rigors of touring and fame.

In many ways, this is a tribute the the celebrity of the Beatles, rather than an exploration of what made them special. Removed from their creativity, this comes off as standard hero worship, without much depth or nuance. While I hardly feel sorry for the Beatles – there are enough Beatle books to keep diehard fans like myself busy for a few decades- I do wonder why this was put back in print. Unless it is a nostalgic purchase for someone who read it at the time of release, I can’t see why anyone would choose to read “The Beatles Story.”


Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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