The comic-writing duo behind Marvel’s Young Avengers are giving pop stars the superhero treatment. Enter the gorgeous, fantastical worlds of Phonogram and WicDiv“We often say Phonogram is music criticism,” says Kieron Gillen, shaking off jetlag, having just flown back from San Diego Comic Convention. “It does come from the same part of me that was a critic.” Phonogram is a comic series that imagines a world in which the magic of music is a literal power, controlled by “phonomancers”: pop priests who turn songs into sacred rituals. It’s written by Gillen, a former games and music journalist (who happily admits that “a lot of the stories are really arguments”) and drawn by Jamie McKelvie, an artist who captures pop epiphanies in clean, gorgeous lines. His work can also be seen on Glaswegian synthpop act Chvrches’ tour posters. The pair met in 2003 at a convention where Gillen was selling his first photocopied comics. The first Phonogram series, Rue Britannia, came out three years later. It stars David Kohl, a thinly disguised portrait of Gillen, and follows his quest to extricate himself from the demons of Britpop. The follow-up series, Singles Club, came out between 2008 and 2010, and tracks seven characters through one night at a club in Bristol. Its meticulous plotting derives from McKelvie having pages pinned up across his bedroom walls. “It just got too oppressive,” he says. “After a few months, I had to tear them all down.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2015-08-10 00:00:00 UTC ]