Phonogram: Rue Britannia #3 - "Faster"

[laughing_tree]

"A key element of the traditional superhero comic -- the thing that actually divorces it from science fiction -- is that there are these entities of incredible power, but despite all this it doesn't change the world in the slightest. Hence the persistence of the thrill of looking at your neighborhood fence and imagining a geeky teen gifted with arachnid powers propelling him over it at enormous velocity or the local school being razed beneath the fists of a towering green man. It contextualizes these characters into your everyday life. Equally, like the Transformers, through secret-identities there's this insertion of God-like figures into the human world. Superhero comic' closest genre neighbor is the modern fantasy, despite its science fiction or crime tropes." -- Kieron Gillen on urban fantasy

















"Still, no Kula Shaker yet."

To find out the truth of what's been tampering with Britannia (and by extension his own history and personality), Kohl prepares a ritual that will transport him to Britpop's memory kingdom ("the consensus memory of a time"):









* * *

And the issues "B-side":

Comments

[pyynk]

While this is very obviously some of Gillen and McKelvie's earliest work, it's fascinating how often I come back to this and the second Phonogram series. And when I say this, I don't mean just in reference to their other work, I mean other comic series.

Some books just hit you and for me, Phonogram was one of those.

For those interested in some more things that Gillen had to say about Manic Street Preachers...