MUSIC TO YOUR EYES
Graphic ode to vinyl
Swan Song Edited by Ed Appleby, Jeffrey Ellis, Oliver McTavish-Wisden, Anat Rabkin and Bevan Thomas | Cloudscape Comics Society $30 | 184pp
The 16th graphic novel to come from Vancouver’s Cloudscape Comics is billed as “an anthology of stories about music.”
What that includes is everything from Talisein at King Maelgwn’s Court, a story inspired by the traditional Welsh harp songs Caniad y Gwyn Bibydd (Song of the White Piper), to the Klara Woldenga’s delightful Your Brain on Music, fuelled by Culprate’s Relucent.
All told, there are 22 illustrated stories in the book, which must be commended for its inspired design.
To start with, it’s the size of a standard vinyl album cover and can be filed right into your record shelves. Each chapter is divided up by a single titled page that is a record album cover with the story name on it, as well as the music that the author or authors used as inspiration.
It’s an ingenious way to put together a book and the print and colour quality is excellent. In other words, this is one you’ll keep going back to.
Led Zeppelin fans will be quick to catch that the title of the tome is also the name of the seminal British rockers’ record label. But don’t come to this compendium looking for any kind of Heavy Metal magazine junk. Jeffrey Ellis’ title story is actually based on Matthew Good’s The Vancouver National Anthem.
Cloudscape has never really gone down that road, instead offering up non-clichéd narratives from creators who get out of their basements on a regular basis to engage with the full spectrum of Lower Mainland communities.
The material is delightfully varied and explores music across all kinds of genres and touches on everything from science to cultural theory, sci-fi and fantasy and even some spores with killer harmonies.
Enjoy honest expressions of why Tegan and Sara are so important to so many (Tegan and Sara and Me by James Brandi) to Emily Cowan’s wonderful The Sound of Silence, all about not really being into music much at all. That her work selects The Young Canadians’ I Hate Music as a muse is all the better.
As an introduction to the collective’s output, Swan Song takes flight. It’s also a perfect seasonal gift for anyone with a penchant for graphic novels and/or music.