Three #1

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Ryan Kelly

I love a good historical comic, and have long had an interest in the Ancient World, so I was very excited to learn that one of my favourite comics writers, Kieron Gillen, and one of my favourite comics artists, Ryan Kelly, were collaborating on a new series set in Ancient Sparta, some one hundred years after the famous Battle of Thermopylae.

This comic is very much a response to Frank Miller's classic 300 book.  Gillen states as much in the text section of the book, that he was irritated by the way in which Miller removed the slave aspect of Spartan society from his story, and set out to correct the historical record somewhat, and also tell a good story.

Spartan society survived only through the efforts of the Helots, the lower rung of a caste system that viewed them as less than slaves.  When the book opens, a group of young Spartan warriors attack some Helots who are gathering fruit.  Later, we meet a different group, who are having to listen to one particular Helot, from the city, who has put on some airs over his country cousins.

When a group of travelling Spartans insist that this group quarter them for an evening, this City Helot raises their ire by contradicting one man's accounting of the famous Thermopylae encounter.

This is a very interesting comic, with terrific art by Kelly, who has always been a master of human expression.  Gillen doesn't bog the story down with history, and instead provides just the right amount of exposition to make the social arrangements clear.

I'm not sure how long this series is set to run for, but I'm very excited to keep reading it until it ends.  Great stuff.

CBGB #1

Written by Kieron Gillen and Sam Humphries
Art by Marc Ellerby and Rob G

I didn't pick this up when it came out last week because of the price.  I figured I'd trade-wait it or get it at a con some day, but then the manager at my comic store encouraged me to take a second look, and I'm glad he did.

I couldn't care less about punk or the history of punk music, but I do like it when Kieron Gillen makes comics about music, and I've liked Rob G's stuff for a long time (although I think it's a shame they didn't work together on this comic).  I also like comics that have a strong sense of time and place, and that is something this new anthology series has in spades.

There are two stories in this issue.  The first has a punk wanna-be experience a Dickensian moment, and get visited by the three ghosts of punk - two ghosts of punk past (one giving the romantic side of things, the other more actuarial in his focus) and the ghost of punk future.  It's a nice primer on the history of the famous New York club, and it's a cute story.  The second story is set in the late 70s, and tells us about a punk kid who discovers that his recently deceased uncle once played CBGB.

This is an odd little project, and very much a labour of love, which makes it deserving of some support.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #7

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie, with Nikki Cook, Becky Cloonan, Andy Bloor, and Sean Azzopardi

This is definitely not what I expected for the end of this series. So far, each issue of The Singles Club has been showing us differing perspectives on the same night, at the same club. I'd sort of expected the last chapter to somehow pull together a number of the different threads of each character's tale, but instead, we have an almost completely wordless issue focusing on Kid-With-a-Knife, David Kohl's (previously) non-Phonomancer friend and muscle.

And it's a great issue. Kid experiments with phonomancy, pisses off some London toughs, dances, and gets the girl. It sounds like the perfect night. As usual, McKelvie's art is brilliant, and there's a cool page where all the pictures are drawn inside the lyrics to a song hook.

The back-ups are where this issue really shines though, as there is a short story featuring Indie Dave drawn by Becky Cloonan. This was a huge surprise for me, as I love Becky Cloonan. The story looks a lot like her boyfriend's issue of Northlanders, and it's awesome.

I do hope that Phonogram returns soon, and doesn't become the victim of Gillen's employment at Marvel.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #6

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie, with PJ Holden and Adam Cadwell

Sometimes the comics industry can operate in very mysterious ways. This week saw the publication of Phonogram, which was originally solicited for August, as well as the latest issue of DC's Adventure Comics, and they are remarkably similar in theme, if not execution.

Both comics focus on an overly serious late teenager. Superboy Prime's comic collection becomes his kryptonite. Black Lantern Alex Luthor tells him, "Others find hope and inspiration between these pages. They find a community to belong to. But you're not like the others. You claim ownership, but you have no control. And you hate what you can't control."

For Lloyd, it's all about 'Passion, Devotion, Commitment, and Intelligence'. He is passionately devoted to music (specifically Dexys), but his intensity has consumed his humour, like a black power ring drawn to rage or love. He toils away at his 'Master Plans' and fanzines, but with no real satisfaction.

I think both of these comics could hit pretty close to home for more than a few comics readers. Geoff John's attempt at confronting these issues is pretty self-referential and in-jokey, while Gillen's examination is much more heartfelt and soul-searching. His accompanying text piece is in many ways more gripping than the comic, as he explains how Lloyd is a reflection of his most obsessive period in life. This issue is interesting in the way it experiments with format - using the structure of a self-published fanzine to convey its story. There is less McKelvie than normal in this issue (perhaps explaining why it arrived so soon after the previous issue), but that only strengthens his pages.

The two back-up pieces are quite nice, and they both feature David Kohl. "Your Song" is my favourite of the two, as Kohl plots revenge on someone who behaves similarly to how he often does, albeit with vastly different motivations.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #5

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie and Dan Boultwood

I think that this volume of Phonogram has hit on the winning formula: eschew plot and focus on characterization. In this issue, the spotlight is on Laura Heaven, who was a bit of a wallflower in the first issue, and hasn't really been seen since.

Now we get a lot more insight into her character (which isn't all that nice), via a string of quotes from Long Blondes songs (which mean nothing to me).

It's a nice, well-packaged little story. The back-up works well too. It's nice to see another issue of this - I hope that the remaining two aren't too far away...

Phonogram: Rue Britannia

Written by Keron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie
Seeing as I've been enjoying the new Phonogram series (when it comes out), I decided it was time to go back and read the beginning of the title. I remember picking up the first issue on the stands, and enjoying it somewhat, but for whatever reason, I chose not to pursue the title.

Strangely, I think that first issue is the strongest in this trade. Gillen created a wonderful character in David Kohl, yet in the rest of the book, he doesn't use him to his fullest extent.

The series begins with Kohl, a Phonomancer, tasked by his Goddess to figure out what is going on with the dead Britannia, who is the goddess of Britpop, so far as I can tell. From there, Kohl goes on a pretty standard fantasy quest, except that he is journeying through underground clubs and dealing with a lot of scenesterism.

The title never really lives up to its potential. In contrast, the current "Singles Club" series is much stronger, as Gillen and McKelvie focus more on character development. This reads like an attempt to update John Constantine for indie kids, and while that has merits based solely on the strength of the concept, I found it a little facile.

As an indicator of Gillen and McKelvie's strengths though, it does demonstrate that these two up-and-comers have it in them to become stars in the comics field.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #4

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie, with David Lafuente and Charity Larrison

Gillen and McKelvie are taking some big risks with this title, and doing some interesting things. So far, each issue has been set in the same club, and the same events are being shown from different viewpoints, but not in a Rashoman style - the events over-lap more than coincide.

This issue shines the spotlight on Seth Bingo and Silent Girl, the DJs at the club. We see only their side of any conversation and/or song request, and the camera never moves from the confines of their booth - Gillen basically wrote an issue that could be very easily adapted to a very tiny stage.

As to how this issue works in regards to the entire series? I think it's a little too early to tell. I do know that when the last issue comes out, and I want to re-read the whole thing, this is the book that's going to require the most attention.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #3

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie, w/ Leigh Gallagher and Lee O'Connor

I know, when opening an issue of Phonogram, that I'm not going to get more than about half of the musical references, and those are going to be the most common points, as I don't listen to the same music as Gillen and McKelvie (and really can't see them doing an issue on underground hip-hop). Usually it's all good though, although I felt more than a little lost in this issue.

I think the problem is that this issue, unlike the first two, requires some working knowledge of the first Phonogram series, of which I only ever read the first issue (although it's on my list of trades to get someday). I know who David Kohl is, the main character in the first series, but I'm not sure about this Aster girl.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter, because Gillen and McKelvie are so good at writing character moments, that you don't need to know who the characters are to admire their craft - it just helps it all make a little more sense.

Anyway, this is a very good title, and it's starting to look like it's getting itself back on to some sort of regular schedule. The back-ups in this issue are decent - the first somewhat helped me get caught up on the series, and the second is cute.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #2

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie (with Emma Vieceli and Daniel Heard)

Phonogram is to music what Local was to cities. Where Wood's and Kelly's masterpiece inserted Megan, its protagonist, into a locale, and used that environment to complement the changes in her character and life, Gillen and McKelvie are using a static environment - a particular club on, it appears, a particular night, where the changing music becomes the key into a group of characters' psyches.

In this issue, Marc (or Marquis, as the protagonist of the first issue calls him) reminisces about a lost love, to a soundtrack that is melancholy only to him. I don't know anything about the music discussed in this comic (okay, I know who Kate Bush and Diamanda Galas are, but the rest is totally unfamiliar to me), but that doesn't detract from the story. Marc visualizes the girl that he met in the same club a few years before, and sees at the same time both the good and the bad times of their relationship.

The story-telling in this comic is quite complex. The layered flashbacks within the same panel reminded me of techniques used in Brian Azzarello's fondly remembered, short-lived Loveless series, and the creators here pull it off very nicely. I also like the ways in which this issue runs parallel to (and in-between) the story told in the first issue of the series.

I think that Gillen is on to something in his Proustian evocations of music and its ability to trigger memories and melancholy in people. This 'music is magic' concept is very fertile ground. The back-ups are nice additions, but ultimately aren't that memorable.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #1

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie (with Laurenn McCubbin and Marc Ellerby)

I thought it might be worth picking this issue up. I bought the first issue of the first series, but didn't feel compelled to continue with it. I did, however, enjoy McKelvie's series Suburban Glamour earlier this year, and thought I'd give this series another chance.

There are some things that I really like here - the 'done-in-one' format strikes me as a good idea for this type of series - it gives the writer and artist the chance to really explore their concept of phonomancy - magic made through music. The colour really highlights the high quality of McKelvie's art, and I like the panel layouts that McKelvie uses.

My problem is that I'm not sure that I felt like the 'done-in-one' story really had much of an ending to it. I didn't really understand what was happening in the bathroom scene, and where exactly the friend had gotten to. And, like many people said about the first series, some of the music references are a little too insular, although I found that they didn't detract from the story.

The two back-ups were nice additions to the main comic - I like that some creators are really feeling the need to add some value to single comics - still my preferred format really.

I'm going to have to take a look at the next issue before I buy it, but I get the feeling that if it makes it home, I'm on board for the whole series.