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Review - Phonogram: Rue Britannia
Phonogram: Rue Britannia
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie
Published by Image Comics. $14.99 USD
As someone who's very into music, and was into a handful of the Britpop scenesters who made some impact on U.S. shores, I was pretty excited to get this. Don't make anything of the months it took before I picked up and read the thing--if you saw my office you'd understand. The plot of this six issue mini-turned-GN is about the least important part, but it concerns David Kohl, a "phonomancer" who uses the magical properties of music. His personality is still centered in the Britpop movement of the '90s, which is dangerous because his goddess, Brittania, is dead but somehow being resurrected. This is a bad idea somehow.
Honestly, I was pretty lost with the goddess stuff, which makes the climax a bit of a drag (it's also very talky). The problems with the book are fundamental: it's not very clear what David does, what he wants, and why it's important that he stop this thing from taking place. Lesser problems are that Gillen has people talking in bars and restaurants too much and doesn't give McKelvie enough cool stuff to draw. McKelvie is great at drawing pretty girls, a bit bland with the men, but in all fairness he's not given a script where we can really see what he can do.
All that being said, I did actually like the book. Maybe more to the point, I liked the idea of the book and the emotion Gillen clearly invested in it. It's a love letter to his youth, it seems, and a way to put it into perspective and move on without denying its importance. That is, under the premise--which is a clever one, just not clear enough--there's a real heart beating here, and even if, like me, you maybe knew Blur and Oasis and Pulp but not Kenickie and Echobelly and The Auteurs, you should still be able to hear enough of that beat to smile and let yourself go.
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie
Published by Image Comics. $14.99 USD
As someone who's very into music, and was into a handful of the Britpop scenesters who made some impact on U.S. shores, I was pretty excited to get this. Don't make anything of the months it took before I picked up and read the thing--if you saw my office you'd understand. The plot of this six issue mini-turned-GN is about the least important part, but it concerns David Kohl, a "phonomancer" who uses the magical properties of music. His personality is still centered in the Britpop movement of the '90s, which is dangerous because his goddess, Brittania, is dead but somehow being resurrected. This is a bad idea somehow.
Honestly, I was pretty lost with the goddess stuff, which makes the climax a bit of a drag (it's also very talky). The problems with the book are fundamental: it's not very clear what David does, what he wants, and why it's important that he stop this thing from taking place. Lesser problems are that Gillen has people talking in bars and restaurants too much and doesn't give McKelvie enough cool stuff to draw. McKelvie is great at drawing pretty girls, a bit bland with the men, but in all fairness he's not given a script where we can really see what he can do.
All that being said, I did actually like the book. Maybe more to the point, I liked the idea of the book and the emotion Gillen clearly invested in it. It's a love letter to his youth, it seems, and a way to put it into perspective and move on without denying its importance. That is, under the premise--which is a clever one, just not clear enough--there's a real heart beating here, and even if, like me, you maybe knew Blur and Oasis and Pulp but not Kenickie and Echobelly and The Auteurs, you should still be able to hear enough of that beat to smile and let yourself go.
Posted by ChristopherAllen at 1:48 PM [Link to this post]
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