Posted to Matt Fraction's Forum
Maybe the only thing I've studied harder than comics or my navel has been the history of rock and roll, as a recovering musician rock's been the monkey on my back for 20+ years. It's interesting to me to track cycles in music as compared to comic books, pop culture second cousins that, like other forms of media to varying degrees, reflect the mood and movements of their time periods.
To continue down this road for a sec, the periods in music that have gotten me the most excited have been what I think of as the garage band eras. You could arguably go back further, but for the sake of this argument let's say the Golden Age of Garage Bands started when Sam Phillips started recording white boys singing black blues in the early 50's. Over the next decade rock gets watered down and polished up. Bring on the Hamburg hardened Beatles, and in their wake thousands of kids started thrashing on Sears Silvertone guitars and amps in actual garages (!), giving us the Silver Age of Garage Bands, which faded into psychedelia once everyone got stoned. Fast forward another decade give or take, and punk rock starts to fester in New York and then London, and pop music takes an adrenaline needle in the chest, which, in shorter order now since our attention span has diminished, limps into new wave and is choked out by vast amounts of hairspray and spandex. The circle of diminishing returns in full swing, before long disenfranchised kids are getting pissed off in flannel, and it's Garage Mach IV (has it really been almost 13 years since "Nevermind' came out?). The slew of imitators shows up on schedule, the point is forgotten, and just when you thought we'd be mired in boy bands forever, the The bands (Hives, Vines, White Stripes, Strokes et al) show up to kick everyone in the balls. Each of these eras is typified by kids fed up with the status quo of the old guard, with THEIR OWN THING TO SAY (the important part), just going out and doing it, damn the torpedoes.
This is what I love about the idea of Garage Comics. It's not the implication of lack of skill or polish, it doesn't have to be raw or sloppy to be garage (it doesn't necessarily hurt, because the means justify the ends ultimately), but it has to have the fuck your monkey passion and 110% committment to the idea, statement, story, message, whatever the thing is you're trying to get across, that's Garage baby. Just like Strummer, I've been back in the garage with my bullshit detector, and I can smell let's pretend like my dog can smell a fresh chewy cat turd in the litter box. Some guys want to be rock stars, and some guys have a song they need to sing or their heart will rip out of their chest in agony and desperation. As the widescreen dust settles and the last of the THX enhanced 'splosions fade into the distance, the time seems exactly right for Garage Comics. If history is any guide, they're coming anyway.
Maybe the only thing I've studied harder than comics or my navel has been the history of rock and roll, as a recovering musician rock's been the monkey on my back for 20+ years. It's interesting to me to track cycles in music as compared to comic books, pop culture second cousins that, like other forms of media to varying degrees, reflect the mood and movements of their time periods.
To continue down this road for a sec, the periods in music that have gotten me the most excited have been what I think of as the garage band eras. You could arguably go back further, but for the sake of this argument let's say the Golden Age of Garage Bands started when Sam Phillips started recording white boys singing black blues in the early 50's. Over the next decade rock gets watered down and polished up. Bring on the Hamburg hardened Beatles, and in their wake thousands of kids started thrashing on Sears Silvertone guitars and amps in actual garages (!), giving us the Silver Age of Garage Bands, which faded into psychedelia once everyone got stoned. Fast forward another decade give or take, and punk rock starts to fester in New York and then London, and pop music takes an adrenaline needle in the chest, which, in shorter order now since our attention span has diminished, limps into new wave and is choked out by vast amounts of hairspray and spandex. The circle of diminishing returns in full swing, before long disenfranchised kids are getting pissed off in flannel, and it's Garage Mach IV (has it really been almost 13 years since "Nevermind' came out?). The slew of imitators shows up on schedule, the point is forgotten, and just when you thought we'd be mired in boy bands forever, the The bands (Hives, Vines, White Stripes, Strokes et al) show up to kick everyone in the balls. Each of these eras is typified by kids fed up with the status quo of the old guard, with THEIR OWN THING TO SAY (the important part), just going out and doing it, damn the torpedoes.
This is what I love about the idea of Garage Comics. It's not the implication of lack of skill or polish, it doesn't have to be raw or sloppy to be garage (it doesn't necessarily hurt, because the means justify the ends ultimately), but it has to have the fuck your monkey passion and 110% committment to the idea, statement, story, message, whatever the thing is you're trying to get across, that's Garage baby. Just like Strummer, I've been back in the garage with my bullshit detector, and I can smell let's pretend like my dog can smell a fresh chewy cat turd in the litter box. Some guys want to be rock stars, and some guys have a song they need to sing or their heart will rip out of their chest in agony and desperation. As the widescreen dust settles and the last of the THX enhanced 'splosions fade into the distance, the time seems exactly right for Garage Comics. If history is any guide, they're coming anyway.
posted by Case at 11:36 AM
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