I Think Image’s Phonogram Is One of the Best Comics Ever

Image Comics changed the comic industry forever in the early ’90s. Image wasn’t the first home to indie comics, but it was the first time the most popular creators in comics got together to start their own comic company. Since then, Image has put out amazing comics of all kinds, from superhero to sci-fi to horror to slice of life. Image has also published comics from up and coming creators, and an entire generation of writers and artists came out of Image in the ’00s. One such duo is writer/artist team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. Gillen has become one of comics’ most beloved writers, and his current series The Power Fantasy is wowing critics. Meanwhile, McKelvie has become an A-list artist, helping design Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel costume and working with Gillen and other writers on fantastic series, all while writing and drawing his own books. Gillen and McKelvie are the best of the best, and their first American comic team-up is one of the best comics ever — Phonogram.

Phonogram was part of a wave of Image Comics that were very different from what came before. Image was known as a superhero publisher in its ’90s heyday, but it wouldn’t become the home of the best comics on the stands until books like The Walking Dead changed its identity as a publisher. We started getting more unique Image books, and Phonogram is a perfect example of why this era of Image is so amazing. Phonogram is a work of singular brilliance, a story that is as much about fandom as anything else.

Phonogram Uses the Love of the Magic of Music to Talk About Life

Phonogram is a three volume series — the black and white “Rue Britannia” in its first volume, Phonogram: The Singles Club, and Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl. The basic gist of Phonogram is that it follows a group of British runic magic users, who use music as the source of their power. “Rue Britannia” followed David Kohl, a phonomancer who came to prominence during the Britpop years of the ’90s, as the spirit of Britpop that he literally sacrificed returns, Phonogram: The Singles Club follows seven different characters all at the same club on the same night, and Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl deals with Kohl’s friend Emily Aster dealing with her magical chickens coming home to roost. Music is a central focus of each of these books — each issue comes with a list of songs that inspired it, and the collected editions end with the collected song lists. The characters in Phonogram are obsessed with music, and the songs of their lives inform the stories of the series. Phonogram‘s characters — David Kohl, Emily Aster, Kid-With-Knife, and many more — feel like people we grew up with, people we would have went music shopping with, people we’d argue about our favorite bands with, people we’d drink too much with at clubs in our 20s.

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Phonogram is a comic where the events of the story are important, but only in the context of the characters. Kohl and Aster both have to deal with the person they were in the past in their chapters of the book, and try to defeat their pasts to become better people. This is a common thing in real life, and Phonogram uses magic and music to tell a story about people discovering who they are. Phonogram is a book about magicians dealing with magical beings and their own power, but it’s also a book about getting older, about looking at who you were, and deciding to leave it behind to come the person you can be. Music is one of the universal languages of mankind, and Phonogram used music as its focus gives the book a universality. I wasn’t a fan of Britpop in the ’90s like Kohl but I understood his love of that kind of music because I felt the same way. I’ve had magical nights at the club like the people in The Singles Club did. I’ve had to deal with the person I was re-entering my life, reminding me of all the bad things I’ve done, and have to overcome it. I remember watching MTV in the early ’80s and being drawn into the world of music videos. I’m a character in Phonogram. We all are.

Phonogram Is a Book That Anyone Can Understand

Comics have always been full of beautiful people, but you haven’t seen beautiful people in comics until you read Jamie McKelvie comics. The black and white art of “Rue Britannia” is gorgeous, setting the visual standard for the book high. The Singles Club is his greatest achievement in the series; anyone who has been to a small, crowded dance club will recognize the setting of the series. McKelvie’s art puts you right there. You can feel the music vibrating everything around you. You can smell sweat, smoke, and alcohol, and feel the humid atmosphere of the dance floor. Your shoes stick to the floor with every step. If the writing of Phonogram is so universal, the only way it works is because McKelvie’s art is so very good. He draws a comic about music and brings it all to life beautifully. Look at that page right there. You can feel that page.

Phonogram is a work that I feel that everyone needs to read. It’s an example of a writer/artist team gelling together and creating something that anyone could understand. I came to Kieron Gillen not through his Marvel work, but through Phonogram. This is where I saw the way he meticulously built characters and situations, and fell in love with them. It was also my first exposure to McKelvie, and I was constantly blown away by him every time I turned the page. There are few artists out there who can bring a book to life like him. Phonogram is a work of genius. An argument can be made that The Wicked + The Divine is the superior Gillen/McKelvie work, but there’s something so universal about Phonogram. Give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.