Status Updates From Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes

Read the piece inspired by the lyrics for ”Take to the Sky”, which is written by Annie Zaleski and drawn by Ryan Kelly (with colours by DC Alonso). In many ways, much of the comics narrative functions almost as a response to the lyrics, both visually and in its dialogue, in a slightly surreal and dream-like sequence. And this works rather well. I like it.

Read Alison Sampson’s brilliantly suggestive and near wordless piece based on Amos’ very brief lyrics for ”The Pool”, and really enjoyed it.

Read the story based on “Song for Eric”, written by Derek McCulloch and beautifully illustrated by Colleen Doran. The story extrapolates and expands on Amos’ very brief lyrics and does not really focus on including words or phrases as much as capturing the gist of the potential story.

Read the piece by Olivia Sullivan based on ”Ode to the Banana King (Part One)” and am not entirely sure what to make of it. It is comic sans parole and while he visual aesthetic is by no means bad, I find the visual storytelling quite weak. Unfortunately, the latter is emphasised by the lack of words and for much of this short story, I find it difficult to follow the story.

Read the story inspired by ”Thoughts”, written by Russell Lissau and drawn by Rachel Merrill. Not a bad piece, but rather loosely connected to the source material.

Read the story based on the song ”Upside Down” (which isn’t on the original, but on the second disc of the deluxe edition), written by Cat Mihos and drawn by Paul Roman Martinez. The narrative seems pretty loosely based upon the lyrics.

Read the sans parole piece based on ”Little Earthquakes”, written and drawn by Gianna Meola.

Read the entirely wordless story based on “Me and a Gun” (which incidentally is an a cappella song) by writer-artist Desi Alice-Aponte, with colours by Kelly Fitzpatrick. It is a different kind of piece since it seems to interpret the writing and composing a song based on the kind of a traumatic experience Amos’ lyrics describe, rather than interpreting the lyrics (which are pretty straight forward) visually.

Read the very literal adaptation of ”Tear in Your Hand”, written by Neil Gaiman (though Amos’ lyrics is used verbatim, so I am guessing it is more a question of plotting the sequence) and stunningly drawn by Bilquis Evely (with colours from Matheus Lopes). I definitely need to check out more of Evely’s work.

Read the piece based on ”Mother”, written and drawn by Andi Watson. A really nice interpretation of the lyrics, and I may need to look for more stuff by Watson, since I really like the visual style and the mise-en-page.

Read Kelly Sue Deconnick and Benjamin Dewey’s piece, supposedly very loosely based on ”Leather”. Nice story and beautifully illustrated, but I don’t quite see the connection to Amos’ lyrics, if I’m honest.

Read Wiktoria Radkiewicz’s piece based on “China”. It is pretty loosely inspired by Amos’ lyrics but a very enjoyable story (though the captions could have been better proofed) and I find Radkiewicz’s art very compelling. Will definitely keep an eye for other work from her.

Read Andrea Bell’s piece based on ”Happy Phantom” and am honestly not entirely sure what to make of it. It’s not a bad comics piece by any means, but the connection to Amos’ lyrics seem tangential more than anything else.

Read ”Winter”, interpreted by the inimitable Bill Sienkiewicz, using Tori Amos beautiful lyrics in full.

Read the piece based on “Precious Things”, written by Catherynne Valente and drawn by Sebastian Piriz.

Read “Silent All These Years” which has Margaret Atwood reinterpreting the narrative of Tori Amos’ lyrics by way of H. C. Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”, beautifully aided visually by the fantastic art by David Mack.

Read the story based on “Girl”, written by Leah Moore and drawn by Amilcar Pinna. While the art is nice, the lyrics are too firmly adhered to, but simultaneously spread out over music in headphones, captions and speech bubbles in a manner which makes the unified voice of the song broken and musical repetitions just a bit odd.

Read the introduction by editor Rantz A. Hoseley and the first story, based on the song “Crucify”, written by Neil Kleid and drawn by Andy MacDonald. Interesting take on the lyrical content.