drupal stats

@ Pop Dose-- Phonogram: The Singles Club (tpb)

singlesclubtradeforpreviewstb.jpg

So it seems that I’m doing some writing now for Pop Dose and, since it’s predominantly a music site, I figured I’d start with a comic book about music-- Phonogram: The Singles Club collection..

In fact, forget about the magic.  Gillen and McKelvie set up that rule as a guide more for the reader than for the characters in the book because the characters break it in almost every issue.  It was easy to get lost in the “magic” of Rue Britannia, to get caught up in the endless Britpop references, sigils and musical incantations and miss what the story was really about.  In The Singles Club, the magic is different; it’s not about the music but more about the experience of music.  The magic of music in The Singles Club is about how it passes through you, how you experience it and what it does to you.  In the pages of this book, music has the power to inspire people, to make them remember, to make them forget, to dream bigger than everyone else and to just plain have fun.


You can read the rest of the review at Pop Dose.  

I think Phonogram has been one of the most fascinating series in the last couple of years.  Almost all of the musical references that Gillen makes in both series go completely over my head (Pipettes?)  but like I say above, you've got to forget about all of the musical call-outs and the magic or, probably a bit more specifically, you just have to give yourself over to it; accept the way that Gillen and McKelvie's characters love the music and then apply that love to your own life, your own music or even your own comics.  Phonogram is about music but it's also about the love of some thing outside of yourself.  At least, that's my own interpretations of Gillen and McKelvie's book.

Even if it can't be another Phonogram book (and please say that the comic audience may be receptive to more Phonogram someday,) I hope that Gillen and McKelvie can continue to work together.  I don't know how many great writer/artist teams there are working in comics right now but I think these two could become one of them.