CBGB #1
Reviewed by David O' Leary
CBGB #1 (Cover Date July 2010)
Story by: Kieron Gillen & Sam Humphries
Art by: Marc Ellerby & Rob G.
Cover by: Jaime Hernandez
Publisher: BOOM! Town
Cover Price: $3.99
Reviewed By: David O' Leary
Book Summery : The most legendary name in alternative music comes to comics! For decades CBGB was the club that broke acts - like The Ramones, Blondie, Misfits, and the Talking Heads - that changed the world! Now BOOM! Town brings comics' best talent to tell stories of love, music, heartbreak, confusion and rebellion! The first issue will rock your world with contributions from Kieron Gillen (Phonogram), Rob G (Couriers), Sam Humphries (MySpace Comics), and Marc Ellerby (Love The Way You Love). Featuring a cover from comics' superstar Jaime Hernandez (Love & Rockets)!
I must admit first off that this genre of book is something of a departure from my regular reading material. I even mulled over weather to review it or not but in the end I decided to do so anyways. I wondered if I could do the book justice but in the end came to the conclusion that what is the harm in trying out something new. That's the whole point of reading comics isn't it?
Kieron Gillen is perhaps the one creator on this book with some name recognition to mainstream audiences following his highly praised book Phonogram another music orientated book. He writes the main feature about the famed music club CBGB which at its height in the late 1970's saw the emergence of some of alternative music's biggest hitters. The club folded in 2006 but CBGB Holdings Inc. contacted BOOM! Studios about the possibility of doing a comic. This was a chance to do an anthology with each issue of this four issue mini series hosting two stories featuring creators that BOOM! has not worked with before. I was sure that this was a book that would be steeped in references that I would straight over my head and I wasn't far wrong. For those that were at this club at the time of the stories setting I'm sure they would be brought back to a changing time in music history but unfortunately for someone from rural Ireland like myself, I am about as far removed as possible from the stories main meanings and points. Through no fault of the creators I am at a handicap from the get go.
In fairness to Gillen he does make a coherent story out of the characters present using Charles Dickens classic story A Christmas Carol as a framing device for the story. A history of CBGB is given through the ghosts of punk rock past and future and the stories protagonist, a failed punk music wannabe named Stooge comes to see the light at the end of the punk rock tunnel. This story is littered with some of music's big guns from The Ramones and Blondie to an appearance from Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Patti Smith. The appearance of Patti Smith is one of those points that went over my head. I take it for granted that she was there as she was an influential part of the New York rock scene of the era and as the book is an homage to CBGB I don't know if it was just a name drop or was there something that those in the know would get as an inside line or something but I was a little lost on that one.
The second story, written by Sam Humphries, was one that was easy to get into mostly right until the question of what is the Helsinki Syndrome? To me, it is the term popularised by the Die Hard movie about hostages feeling respect for the hostage takers. I know Die Hard came years after this stories setting but as you can tell the musical reference for it also went right past me.
Marc Ellerby provides art on the main story and his cartoony style seems like a strange style for this story but apparently the series is going to have many different styles of art so this is just one of many. Rob G on the second story seemed to suit the story better than Marc but I wonder if the art was always going to come in for some scrutiny. There is an irony somewhere about having to visually represent an audible setting and that can't be easy so I'll cut the artists some slack.
I can totally appreciate the idea. I can totally appreciate that this will not be everyone's cup of tea. But I can also fully understand that there are those out there that will lap this up in spades. And for those this book is right down your alley. But for me I am too far removed from the setting, the idea and the history to do it fair justice.
Rating the Issue
| Story Story: Overall 7 Concept - 7 out of 10 Plot - 7 out of 10 Dialogue - 7 out of 10 |
Art |
Importance |
Take A Look Inside
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Reviewer Bio
David has been with CR since June 2008 and started out as a reviewer and has expanded to do a couple of columns for the site also; starting with 28 Words Later with artist Declan Shalvey and later 5 Minutes With... where he talks with the industries best and brightest from Kubert to Moore.
blog comments powered by Disqus