When the music-scene murders start happening again, Jackie Mayer is ready. He knows the secrets of the past. Or, least he thinks he does. But the gods of rock are darker than he thought, and the conspiracy he uncovers is more insidious than he could have imagined.
THEY SOLD THEIR SOULS FOR ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!!
Music, murder, magic, and mayhem.
Rock fan Jackie Mayer possesses an uncanny, almost unearthly talent: he’s able to connect the legends, secrets, curses, whispers, mysteries, and conspiracies in the music world. He knows musicians hunger for fame and fortune – making them easy marks. Old Scratch likes nothing better than the burn of desire – whether a 19th century violin virtuoso, a young Blues man down in Memphis, or an occult-obsessed guitar genius. When a pattern of unsolved 1970s music-scene murders resumes in present-day Los Angeles, no one sees the connection except Jackie. Together with muck-raking music journalist Dorothy Buell, they soon uncover a vast conspiracy involving a legendary band, demonic possession, and sacrifices to the dark gods of rock. Jackie is drawn into the underbelly of the music world – and he’s going to have a devil of a time getting out alive.
JOE HARRIS is the co-creator and writer of original comics and graphic novels such as the Image Comics rock ‘n’ roll thrill ride, Rockstars, and the environmental sci-fi epics, Great Pacific and Snowfall; along with the supernatural thrillers, Ghost Projekt and Spontaneous, and the children’s fantasy, Wars In Toyland, for Oni Press. In 2013, Joe began a long stint writing the officially-licensed continuation of the paranormal investigations of Agents Mulder and Scully in The X-Files comics at IDW to the enjoyment of fans around the world. The X-Files: Cold Cases—the best-selling audio dramatization of Joe’s comics scripts featuring the voices of David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and the entire original X-Files cast—and the follow-up, The X-Files: Stolen Lives were released by Audible beginning in 2017.
As a young creator at Marvel Comics, Joe launched the cult-classic Spider-Man spinoff, Slingers and the Bishop: The Last X-Man series. He has written for just about all major comics publishers including DC Comics, Marvel, Image, IDW, Dark Horse, Valiant, BOOM! and others.
A horror screenwriter and filmmaker, Harris conceived and co-wrote Darkness Falls for Sony Pictures—after his short film, Tooth Fairy was acquired by Revolution Studios and he was hired to develop it into a feature—along with the politically farcical slasher movie, The Tripper for FOX. In 2018, he co-wrote the live-action web series, Ninjak vs. the Valiant Universe for Valiant Entertainment.
His latest project is Surviving Nuclear Attack, a paranoid sci-fi thriller, set to launch in 2019 as part of John Carpenter’s Tales of Science Fiction from Storm King Comics.
This has a ton of wasted potential. It's about all the death and myths surrounding rockstars, particularly from the 70's. The first half has a bunch of thinly veiled references to Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin. Ultimately, it has something to do with demons jockeying for rockstars souls and those of their groupies. Unfortunately, the story is so vague and full of flowery but meaningless narration that the plot is mainly lost. The dead groupie ghosts that are so "important" at the beginning are quickly forgotten and seemingly pointless. They are indicative of the storytelling throughout this. Everytime something is presented as important to the story it fades out without any kind of resolution. Ultimately, this story really kind of heads nowhere. Megan Hutchison-Cates art is pretty great, at least.
It's a book about rock and roll, and metal and magic, and it almost put me to sleep. What a boring nonsensical slow ride through nothingness with no real inspiration or style to it.
This had a whole esoteric mystery vibe going on. And the art matched it well; I liked it. But the honest truth is that I just spent an awfully long time being confused. I sensed the story was going somewhere and even had a tentative grasp on where. And it did come around to it in the end. But I spent so long confused that the payoff didn't quite land for me. The compilation is comparatively long, and eventually, I was just waiting for it to get to the point.
Jackie Mayer is die hard rock fan but, he has a secret ability. He is able to connect the music industry with secrets and mysteries. He knows that people who chase fame and fortune, like musicians, are easy targets for dark forces.
A decades old murder is familiar to the recent string of murders that are occurring. No one else seems to notice the pattern but, Jackie. He is determined to solve the mystery behind the murders before another body drops.
I was excited to read the graphic novel but, I abandoned it half way through. The graphic novel was incredibly boring and the story was confusing to follow. I thought if I read more that the story would start to make more sense but, it doesn't. Characters appear and disappear without any real explanation. The story had so much potential but failed execution wise.
Fantastic idea and art, terrible writing. I'm disappointed because the idea sounds like such a cool story. The protagonist Jackie has an inherited supernatural ability to see and connect the music world's urban legends, conspiracies, and mystical influences. Dorothy, a reporter investigating musicians and disappearances around them, joins him as they uncover the demons influencing the music world for generations and deal with blood-thirsty groupies and the mystery of what happened to Jackie's father.
The writer tries to cram in so many slang terms and music references that it becomes nonsensical. Thankfully, the art carries the story enough that the reader can understand what is happening. The main reason this book is getting two stars instead of one is that the artist did a great job; if I were rating on their work alone, it would be a higher rating.