Side B: The Music Lover's Comic Anthology

by Rachel Dukes (Editor), Andy Jewett, Dave Crosland

Music touches our lives every day. It is an influential and defining part of all generations and cultures. We have compiled an anthology full of stories about the influence that music can have on life - be it the life of the artist as and individual or on the creative process.

Over 200 pages of lost lovers, rocking out, spirit guides, ghosts, and dinosaurs - it's like an action adventure comic for the music lover in all of us. (Edited by Rachel Dukes, published by Poseur Ink.)

Genres: Music, Graphic Novels, Comics

232 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 2009

About the author

A 2013 graduate from The Center for Cartoon Studies, Rachel Dukes works as a cartoonist and illustrator and is the creator of the cat-centric webcomic Frankie Comics.

Rachel's work has also appeared in several anthologies, including Beyond, Oath, Bottoms Up, As You Were, and Tim'rous Beastie.

Clients include Brain Quest, College Humor, BOOM! Studios, Lion Forge Comics, and The Nib, among others.

Rachel lives in Los Angeles. They are thankful for coffee, gingham, and readers like you.

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a soft spot for this anthology, specifically because it was NOT full of the white teen "first time I heard Nirvana/Radiohead/punk" stories. Nothing wrong with that, but usually that's the reach of these kinds of things, but to see someone put into picture how they listened to Coltrane opened my eyes that the navel gazing could be extended to music I actually listen to.

It inspired me to do my own works in this vein, and although there was no Side C, this book informed me to the possibility that there could be people like me who've listened to different stuff be able to express that feeling, or share those stories.

[Matti Karjalainen · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Side B: The Music Lover's Comic Anthology" (Poseur Ink, 2009) lienee tarttunut mukaan joltakin Englannin-reissulta. Sarjakuva-antologia pitää sisällään lyhyitä musiikkiaiheisia sarjakuvia. En tunnistanut taiteilijoista etukäteen kuin ihmissuhde- ja Star Wars -jutuistaan tutun Jeffrey Brownin. Sarjakuvien taso vaihteli laidasta laitaan, kuten odottaa sopii. Jutut keskittyvät lähinnä indie- ja punk-kuvioihin, enkä siten saanut kummoistakaan tarttumapintaa tarinoihin.

[angelofmine1974 · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a compilation of rock graphics by some of my favorite illustrators!

For the rest of the review, visit my Vlog at:

https://youtube.com/shorts/9FUVDTmMj6...

Enjoy!

[Rand · Rating 3 out of 5]

The comix version of LIt Riffs— a fun way to reminisce over teenaged feelings and mixtapes and fumblings and the general relation between words and image and sounds.

Overall there is a strong bias towards varying shades pop and punk. Given that most of these comix artists are culled from the zine community, that is not surprising. Three of the pieces dealt with drugs: one in a just-say-no manner, another involving the social politics of the straight edge movement and another was a bittersweet memorial to a too-young friend lost to an overdose.

One of the strongest pieces is also one of the shortest—Rob Guillory's prose poem with a swirling collage of musical imagery. While Guillory's illustration really ties it all together, it's his words that really grabbed me and make a better manifesto than the introductory remarks by Dukes. Here is part of his thoughts on how music works:

What moves us is what's inside the music, the spirit of the musician, the spirit that lives within all art and all life. You can call it God, the collective consciousness, whatever. It's there. You've felt it. It is that invisible thing that moves from the fingers of the musician, to the instruments, to the recording, throughout your stereo, into your heart and pours out through our finger tips as artists of a different craft. It's not a sound, but a feeling, instead reverberating against our souls and moving us to do great things.

Unfortunately there is no table of contents. And the author notes in the back are not much help in deciphering whose work is whose. That many of the pieces are not signed does not help...
Mitch Clem did a clever homage to the Mr. T Experience's "Checkers Speech".

The publisher, Poseur Ink, got started making merch for Hot Topic to sell. There's an irony hiding in here as a few of the pieces in this collection bemoan the commercialization of the punk rock subculture & Hot Topic has been instrumental in selling official punk rock outfits. But that's neither hear nor their.

If you really like music and underground comix, then you would enjoy reading this.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like any anthology, this is a grab bag. Some stories - like the ones by Liz Ballie and Madeleine Flores - are absolutely wonderful, while others are too obvious with the theme, overly cerebral, and soapbox-y. Still glad I picked it up, but it's one of the more inconsistent anthologies I've read.

[Clint · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wouldn't read this content in any other format, so putting it in comic form doesn't save it. Especially not these comics. Sorry, Mahfood and Crosland, even your contributions can't make me like this book.

[Damon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was okay. I was surprised by how similar many of the pieces were, but maybe I shouldn't have been.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most collections of stories, some are great and some are meh.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hit or miss. Though I found it hilarious when one comic was all about the immaturity of having your whole life revolve around music while the next one was about how heroic that is.