Forgery League

One of the comics I’ve been keeping up with online is Sordid City Blues. It stands out among the throngs of webcomics out there, with a cast of smartly written and charmingly drawn characters wrestling with issues of love, faith and art. The author, Charles Schneeflock Snow, is taking a few weeks off to work on other projects, and recently put out a call for guest artists to fill in for him on the web site. So I chipped in with a page, and went for the most obvious subject: Luther and his bandmates. (Luther’s the one in the blue hat - the central characters in SCB are colour-coded.) Here it is!

There are some references to earlier stories - particularly Chapter 43, which deals with the origin of the mural. The conversation about the bass is one I’ve had several times (the Fury LS-4 I play has an unusual headstock which tends to attract the attention of gear nerds) but also, Barkey does play a rather odd-looking bass.

(Like SCB? The first collection of stories is available in book form… help support independent artists!)

I’ve played around with comics before but never in a big way. And I’ve used Adobe Illustrator for years, but this is one of the few times I’ve actually been using it for hand-drawn illustration. Lessons learned: use layers. Lettering using a tablet is a pain in the ass. Background detail really helps a panel to spring to life (as was the case with the graffiti and cinder-block wall in the second panel). Also, it’s really freeing to write in a different voice for a while, and play with someone else’s characters. I did my best to capture a little of SCB’s look and its rhythms.

For quite some time I’ve been tossing around some story ideas, but I’ve never settled on a satisfying way of telling them. The format and characters keep shifting around on me - first it was a series of radio plays, then it was going to be podcasts, or maybe just short stories, and now I’m thinking of doing it in comic form. It may end up being a combination of all of the above. This has been a good chance to test the comics waters, and see if I’m really up to the task.

Some of the characters I’m developing are musicians as well, which means that at some point there will be music played. Which brings up the fascinating question of how to represent music in a silent, static medium. Usually comic artists just resort to a sprinkling of eighth-notes and some lyrics. But what about taking a crazy graphical approach, one that breaks out of the usual rhythm of panels, the way a big number in a musical jumps out of the “real world” of theatrical/cinematic structure?

The example that springs to my mind at the moment is Hot Jazz by the ever-wacky Hunt Emerson. I don’t know a whole lot about comics history, so I’m sure there are others… Any suggestions? I should probably look into some Matt Howarth, for instance.

In the meantime I’ve been hunting through The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics (see here for images, mostly the ones by Alan Aldridge). I’ll have to have a look for What The Songs Look Like too, which does the same for Talking Heads… and I wish I had a copy of More Dark Than Shark, a collection of artworks created by Russell Mills inspired by Brian Eno’s early “rock” albums, now out of print and hard to find.

My next comic-related project, then, is going to be this: pick a few songs that really inspire some visuals, and do one or two pages for each one. Strong contenders for the first couple: Stereolab and the Pixies.

From eleven songs that are currently stuck in my head:

It was crime at the time but the laws, we changed ‘em, though the hero for hire’s forever the same one.

I got to give myself one more chance to ring the band that I know I’m in.

Said: I’m so drunk I don’t mind if you kill me.

Felt unsure and catastrophic. Had to tell myself, it’s only music.

We might stop and surf a bit, but we would die for hippy chicks.

I want to be wrong but no one here wants to fight me like you do.

She told them, this is our home for now. God bless this cheap hotel.

And all the troughs that run the length and breadth of my house, and the chickens, how they rattle chicken chains.

And it thump, from the east coast to Bangladesh, big bank, willy gank smoke the thing to death.

You told us of your new life there: you’ve got someone coming round gluing tinsel to your crown. He’s got you talking pretty loud.

I don’t be askin’ the air - every action is a prayer.

The Decemberists play quiet singer-songwriter pop… or that’s what it sounds like on the surface, at least. Listen to the lyrics and things get rather ghoulish. The drawings that adorn their album covers provide a clue in their passing resemblance to Edward Gorey: the music, too, has a similar love of the macabre and the gleefully morbid. The songs on Castaways and Cutouts depict the anguish of a child’s ghost, a mother with a ruinous secret, and other unfortunates. Even the otherwise fairly playful “July, July!” has a line about a gut-shot gin-smuggler. It’s as grim as anything Gorey wrote, but it could perhaps use a bit more whimsy.
Singer Colin Meloy has a fascination with soldiers, bygone eras (they’re named, after a fashion, for the Russian Decembrists) and terrible poverty (babies “raised on pradies, peanut shells and dirt”), looking all sorts of ghastly things right in the face and finding the terrible beauty in them. Romanticizing? Well, yeah. But it’s pretty compelling. And the melodies are lovely.

The topic of lyrics has come up in conversation with a few people recently… So, for the sheer hell of it, here’s a handful of my favorites - it’s a short list, because most of my favorite bits don’t uncouple well from the rest of the music.

In no particular order:

CONGRATULATIONS STOP WISH I COULD BE THERE STOP Tell me something I don’t know. Is there anything left to know? STOP STOP STOP STOP
...I’ve got this epic problem / this epic problem’s not a problem for me / and inside I know I’m broken / but I’m working as far as you can see / and outside it’s all production / it’s all illusion set scenery
— Fugazi, “Epic Problem”

there once was a king and the king had a plan and the plan had a fist and the fist knew a man and the man had a mouth and the mouth spoke at meetings and the meetings always started with the shareholders’ greeting
— Bob Wiseman, “Libelous”

This used to be real estate / now it’s only fields and trees / Where / where is the town / now / it’s nothing but flowers
— Talking Heads, “Nothing But Flowers”

What did I give to you? / what did you give to me? / a nothing-trail of silences that warp in the rain / you said I don’t really know the reason / it’s just not the same / but oh what a vacant breath when / when you say my name
— Sarah Slean, “Weight”

When I win the lottery
gonna donate half my money to the city
so they have to name a street or a school or a park after me
— Camper Van Beethoven, “When I Win The Lottery”

and I got another factory back home
got a barbecue, a pink Mustang, fenders chrome
at nine o’clock I sit there in my chair
and I don’t know why I lose my hair
and then I go to
and then I go to
and then I go to sleep
— Wall Of Voodoo, “Factory”

All over town they’ve got these like messenger girls what ride around on innertubes / their asses are all scraped up / their eyes cold kick me off the bus y’all.
— Shudder To Think, “Gang Of $”

Think of it this way:
you could either be successful or be us.
— Belle & Sebastian, “Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying”

In the film they made us / a little more articulate / a little less afraid or something / with a lot more attitude and grace / And we danced like we never really could dance / in a scene designed to make you think of the old days / We’re not the outlaws here
— Wooden Stars, “Outlaws”