Belle & Sebastian comic

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This is pretty much a dream project, for somebody like me. I am SO saving up for this!!!

Here's a quote from the Press Release:
Scottish indie pop sensations Belle & Sebastian make their first foray into the four-color world in a very different approach to the comics anthology in Image Comics' PUT THE BOOK BACK ON THE SHELF: A BELLE & SEBASTIAN ANTHOLOGY GN.

Bursting out of Glasgow in 1996, Belle & Sebastian took the U.K. by storm, going from an independent underground sensation to placing an album on the British Top 20 in just two short years. With their infectious brand of indie pop, Belle & Sebastian has become a college radio staple in the United States. Thanks to its bittersweet love songs and fanatically loyal fans, the band has sold over 2 million albums worldwide.

Now, the band's colorful lyrics and gorgeous, full-bodied melodies have provided Image Comics with the inspiration for a new kind of comics anthology. With the full-color, 144-page PUT THE BOOK BACK ON THE SHELF, a stellar collection of independent comic creators and cartoonists put their own spins on a cross section of Belle and Sebastian's songs, crafting stories inspired by the band's music, drawn from the band's entire catalog.

With an all-out marketing assault, including mailing out to the over 40,000 fans that are on the various official and unofficial newsletters & fan clubs, a strong push over radio, online and in print, plus the band itself talking about the book while promoting their new album, THE LIFE PURSUIT, sales of the book are expected to be stellar.

PUT THE BOOK BACK ON THE SHELF: A BELLE & SEBASTIAN ANTHOLOGY GN (ISBN: 1-58240-600-6) is tentatively scheduled to be released on February 22nd, the week before THE LIFE PURSUIT is in stores, giving it an extra push through cross-marketing.
What the press relkease doesn't mention is that it features a practical who's who of contemporary American indie comic creators, including Laurenn McCubbin (Rent Girl), Jamie S Rich (ex-Oni Press editor-in-chief and writer of Cut My Hair), Rick Spears and Rob G (the creative geniuses behind Teenagers From Mars), and Andi Watson (who is best remembered for superhero romantic comedy Love Fights, and, um, a rather unfortunate attempt to do Namor as a teen coming-of-age story... but let's forget about that one).

Whether you're a fan of the band or the comic artists (and ESPECIALLY if you're a fan of both), this is something you ought to be eagerly anticipating.
 
I was all over this the minute it was announced. Didn't think anyone else on these boards liked 'em as much as me.

Hoping to see something based off of This Is Just A Modern Rock Song, Lazy Line Painter Jane, Your Cover's Blown, Fought In A War and The Boy With The Arab Strap. And Dirty Dream Number Two:wink:

Can't wait.
 
admittedly, i haven't heard as much B&S as i would have liked, but this sounds like a damn good concept for a comic. i love the idea of the creativity dispersing through both inspiration and medium. awesome!

from the cover, i'm reminded of demo #12. i can't wait to see this.
 
Fuzzy Birds said:
Hoping to see something based off of This Is Just A Modern Rock Song, Lazy Line Painter Jane, Your Cover's Blown, Fought In A War and The Boy With The Arab Strap. And Dirty Dream Number Two:wink:
Oh hell yeah!

I really wish Seth Fisher (Vertigo POP! Tokyo, Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big In Japan) were taking part so he could do "I'm A Cuckoo" (I'd rather be in Tokyo/ Listen to Thin Lizzy, oh/ Join the Sunday gang in Harajuku/ But i'm a cuckoo).


naughtyninja said:
from the cover, i'm reminded of demo #12. i can't wait to see this.
Not sure if you realized it, but it's done by Laurenn McCubinn who illustrated Quit City by Warren Ellis.

On a related note, the more I look up stuff about this comic, the more I realize what ****ing snobs indie rock fans are capable of being. The feedback on this LJ entry is probably the most indicative of the feedback I've encountered.

discosteve said:
What gets me is that it's so bloody esoteric. I mean, how many comic readers KNOW who Belle & Sebastian are, really?

thelizardking04 said:
Comic book stories inspired by the music of a scottish indie pop band?

I hate to say it, but this sounds slightly less stupid than Cyberforce, though a very different kind of stupid. At least they're trying new things, I guess. Definitely a big difference from the Lee/Liefeld/McFarlane/etc era.
There's a real unsupportive, what's-the-****ing-point? vibe and I'm really annoyed by it, perhaps a little more than I ought to be. :arrgh:

But at the very least, that horrid entry did produce this little gem:
backwards7 said:
If Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan can make an album together, then surely Belle & Sebastian can share a cross-over title with Cyberforce.
 
On a related note, the more I look up stuff about this comic, the more I realize what ****ing snobs indie rock fans are capable of being. The feedback on this LJ entry is probably the most indicative of the feedback I've encountered.

read the lj entry. yeesh. trying to judge a comic group by their badly-aged titles isn't anyway to get a feel for an upcoming title. besides, in all honesty, these are probably the same people who get into indie rock because it's...indie. and because they are soooooo cool.
 
Seriously...

If you like Belle & Sebastian, but you don't ordinarily enjoy "indie-style"/"non-mainstream" comics, get this anyway -- it's got wonderful interpretations of most of the songs. (Mostly.)

If you're not familiar with the band, but you enjoy comics like Optic Nerve, or Eightball, or the "emo" stuff (Andi Watson, Jeffrey Brown, Craig THompson), or the releases from Oni Press, get this anyway -- it just might introduce you to some creators whom you may have overlooked.

And if you're a B&S fan who already reads independent comics, then hopefully, you should already own this.

Did anybody else love this as much as I did?
 
I was reminded about this when I saw Moony's new avatar. Did anybody else but me and Musli pick this up? Because it was twenty different kinds of AWESOME!

I'm also getting Image's newest music themed anthology soon: the LP sized collection of shorts inspired by Tori Amos. I'm not as much of a fan of Amos' stuff, but there's plenty of material to work with, and the line up of creators involved is just as impressive as the B&S anthology.

Mods, you can merge this with either the General Comics OR Music thread, if you think it will generate more responses.
 
oh cool, i never knew about this, but I love belle and sebastian - I'll try and look.

If it's already released can someone tell me what the track listing is? or is it done pretty non-linearly.
 

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