ROCKUNROLL

The Newsarama blog has a feature called "I [Heart] Comics," where different comics professionals talk about a specific corner of the art form that lifts their skirt. This week, I am the guest contributor, and I wrote a piece on comics about rock 'n' roll. It was posted this morning.

A taste: "Since this was the late 1980s, one of the bands we all really liked was Love & Rockets. In obsessive music circles, much like obsessive comic book circles, knowledge is a top commodity. The things you know that nobody else knows determines your coolness. Then, I was the guy that knew that the band had stolen their name from the Hernandez Bros.’ comic book. I had a handful of well-read issues and a couple of the early Jaime collections that I could show around and use to impress my friends. One of those issues was Love & Rockets #24 (Fantagraphics Books), which I remember because the cover of that comic is still one of my all-time favorites. It’s of Ape Sex, Hopey’s band, up on stage, taken somewhere from the back of stage right. You see the performers, and they look like they can really play, but more importantly, you see the audience. There’s all kinds of different people in there, including a girl’s legs sticking up over the stage and some dude leering at them. Another guy is in the background flipping the band the bird. All you see is the arm, the hand, the finger rising up above everyone else’s heads."

Of course, I mainly picked that topic so I could leak this Red Rocket 7 cover:

I think I've mentioned, I wrote a new afterword to go with this forthcoming Image Comics edition. I'm pretty stoked to see it coming back in print.

Current Soundtrack: Primal Scream, "Loaded (Terry Farley Mix);" the Futureheads, "Return of the Berserker;" Mos Def & Shuggie Otis, "Blue Black;" Roddy Woomble, "From the Drifter to the Lake"

Current Mood: in tune