Music in Comics
Posted by ChrisArrant on Wednesday, November 15 2006 at 11:00 am
The idea of depicting a comic about a band has been something that’s followed me around for years… since 1995 to be exact. Not realized until 11 years later in my collaboration with Daniel Warner in 1 Way Ticket, those years did not hamper the image but colored and added to it. In those 11 years I’ve been in three bands, played 60+ shows, and went to thousands of band practices, wrote lots of comics, wrote lots period, and saw from the inside and outside the unique relationships brought about by being in a band. Getting that kind of feeling, those stories, into comics form is is both a challenge and a promise not just for music fans or for comics fans.
As a purely visual medium, comics would seemingly be an improper medium to depict the exploits of a group of people producing music: that which cannot be heard in it’s depiction. Pushing past that, the problem lies with how to visually, staticly, represent music. One of the earliest, and most widely recognizable, attempts at this would probably be Charles Schulz’ Schroeder in Peanuts.
Depicting musical notes and sheet music, even if people cannot read music, is commonly used to denote the playing of music in comics. While it does allude to music being played, I think everyone agrees that it falls far short of evoking the intended results of simulating music. Sound effects are also an option, but that effect has almost become a cliche of American comics and it’s hard to shake their influence and their hints at the 60s Batman TV series.
Trying to reach this synaesthesia of using static images to evoke music was one of the big concerns in making this comic, and one of the reasons I approached Daniel Warner to do it. Stoked by his artwork in the Cocopiazo miniseries from SLG, our initial conversations consisted of me and him talking about ways to depict music. Using music notes or sound effects weren’t discussed much, but it was more about reaching to the primal part of comic illustration: using color, lineweight and perceived motion to act as building blocks to get people in the mindset to imagine music. Probably the closest example to what we’re talking about (minus color) would be Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series.
We’ve teased our technique in chapter 1 of 1 Way Ticket, and the upcoming chapter 3 (in 2 weeks) promises to show this off in full regalia.
But what do you think are good examples of music in comics?
Category: 1 Way Ticket, Chemistry Set Announcements
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Comment by Steven
Posted Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 12:17 pm
By far, Love & Rockets, esp. Vol. 10 (the one about the doomed Beverly Hills rock party). They work in a love of music without trying to hard to show it… moments include a guy skateboarding around town singing the Stooges at the top of his lungs, a millions disses on the English band Love & Rockets, etc. But music’s all over the Palomar stories in little ways as well.
Also, Howard Chaykin’s disturbing and filthy BLACK KISS has some great music references, esp. the Boswell Sisters.
Comment by Dan Goldman
Posted Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 2:06 pm
The Pander Bros’ SECRET BROADCAST from Oni is my personal favorite… it was even integrated with a mix-CD that gives you corresponding page/track numbers which rocked my socks in 1999.
Another winning example of music+sound would be Rami Efal’s HEBI NO HADA for ACT-I-VATE.