Lockdown! at the Disco #14: The Comic Book Episode

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Hiya! How you doin’ out there today? I’d like to extend a recommendation that each and every one of you find your favourite reading nook – heck, maybe build a blanket fort if you’re feeling fancy? – and curl up with your favourite comic. And you know what else you need to complete that vibe? A kickin’ soundtrack! So, let’s get into it shall we? 

TRACK ONE: “Girl U Want” – Devo

That song makes me crazy in the greatest way possible. I’m vibing and I hope you are too! This is Comics Youth Radio presents Lockdown! at the Disco and I am your book hungry host Amy Roberts and todays episode is all about comic books.

I’m a little surprised it’s taken us so long to reach this theme considering how intrinsic comic books and comics and manga are to what we do here at Comics Youth – where we read and create a lot of comics as part of our regular sessions.

For those of you who might be new to this show, Comics Youth is a youth organisation for youth, by youth based in the Liverpool City Region and we do a whole bunch of creative workshops for marginalised and super sassy young people where we make things like comic books, zines, blogs, and poetry jams in order to get the youth voice as elevated and as heard as it deserves to be.

And this is our podcast which we proudly produce with our young people on a weekly basis.

Opening the show there was the wonderful Devo with “Girl U Want” from the soundtrack to the 1995 movie adaptation of Alan Martin and Jaimie Hewlett’s Tank Girl.

And Tank Girl was a comic book that had a huge impact on me as a young, marginalised young person who never quite found their vibe within the usual comic book fare of superheroes, which I grew up with. And which I loved in many ways, but they didn’t really speak to me or my values or my personality in the same way that Tank Girl did.

Tank Girl is an anarchic blast of fun about a supremely wild, punk rock chick in the middle of a dystopian landscape who just goes about her days having loads of fun and fighting bad dudes in array of crazy clothes.

And the thing that really clicked with me about Tank Girl as a young person is the idea of facing off against a cruel, oppressive, and desolate world with a huge grin, a whole lotta mischief. As a character, she always prioritises having a great time and kicking it with her gang of fellow outcasts even when life is kinda rubbish.

When the world is as terrible as it can be – and wow, 2020 is really taking the trophy on that one – it pays to never lose sight of having fun and being a little bit silly. That’s survival, honey.

And speaking of things that are fun and a little bit silly, please hop inside this ramshackle time travel machine I’ve just built out of Capri Sun cartons and pot noodle cups here – don’t worry it’s safe, I think, maybe -  and let’s go back to a time before gritty reboots made everyone lose sight of a superhero who – to my mind at least – should have always remained in the world of camp and silly and fun. This is “Batdance” by Prince.

TRACK TWO: “Batdance” – Prince
TRACK THREE: “Kiss From a Rose” – Seal

That was “Kiss From a Rose” by Seal from the soundtrack to Joel Schumacher’s fabulous Batman Forever and it was requested by Tom. It’s a song that myself and Comics Youth art director Ste have made a pact to sing in karaoke together whenever this hellscape of pandemic is over and done with! So, that’s a frightful thing to look forward to, eh?

And I won’t hear a bad word about Schumacher’s Batman movies. I know a lot of bros like to pretend they never happened and that they actively set back superhero and comic books before the massive MCU boom from the early 00’s onwards. But damn, I love them.

And I love that Schumacher, who was one of the few openly gay filmmakers in mainstream Hollywood, never compromised his queer vision. Batman Forever and Batman & Robin are daft and ridiculous but they’re so much fun and they’re unabashedly camp and queer.

Anyone who has read a lot of Batman comics – and I did when I was a kid – will know that there has always been queer subtext to the character. And when Chris Nolan made his trilogy of films and gave them a real Conservative spin, that side of Batman was sadly scrubbed from the lens and it all got very serious.

Which is a little bit crazy, when you think about it. I like those films in many ways, but there’s something wild about trying to make serious cinema about an eccentric rich dude who likes to don a rubber suit and dress as an element of his childhood trauma in order to vanquish villains.

Even Tim Burton’s take on Batman – tho dark and gritty – retained elements of camp and fun because Batman kind of is a silly character. And though his world is dark and grim, there’s also an uncanny weirdness to it which perhaps loses some impact when you take it at face value.

In Burton on Burton, the filmmaker said, ‘Part of what interested me was that Batman is a human character who dresses up in vulgar costumes … it’s the freakish nature of it, and I found it the most frightening thing.’

I also love that take on Batman that went around a few years ago on social media which suggested that Bruce Wayne could easily solve a lot of the crime and underlying issues of crime within Gotham City if he just invested his fortune into the city and neglected support systems within the city – rather than piling that money into weapons and gadgetry with which to make himself a hero and tackle the problems with violence.

Guess that kinda swings back into the current conversation we’re all having about institutional and systemic violence and how defunding the police and allocating that money to better serving social issues and mental wellbeing, doesn’t it? A little something for y’all to chew on there. 

And that’s the last you’ll be hearing about conventional superhero comics this episode. Next up, we’re jamming with some independent fare. This is “Black Sheep” by Metric from the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack.

TRACK FOUR: “Black Sheep” – Metric
TRACK FIVE: “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” – Mohammed Rafi

That was “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” by Mohammed Rafi from the soundtrack to the 2001 movie adaption of Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World. It’s the tune that introduces the film, with lead character Enid dancing away to it with clips from the incredible 1965 Bollywood horror film Gumnaan spliced in between. I watched Gumnaam recently and I can’t recommend it enough – it’s this wild musical ghost story slasher and it’s a wild ride. If you can track down a copy I heartily recommend it.

And before that we had “Black Sheep” by Metric as requested by Ellie, and that comes from the soundtrack to the 2010 movie adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And what a soundtrack that is! It’s jam after jam on that thing.

Ellie says of the Scott Pilgrim books, “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this series! As much as I enjoy the movie, the books have a special place in my heart. They’re funny, ridiculous, and heartwarming. What it has to say about growing up and trying to become a better person resonated with me when I was an idiot teenager.”

I’m sure you were never an idiot teenager, Ellie! I find that very hard to believe. But I do definitely look back on who I was as a teenager and go, Wow, what a dummy. But I guess that’s all part of growing up.

And both Ghost World and Scott Pilgrim are books about coming of age and kind of figuring out your identity and ultimately, fighting for it in some way. They’re both books featuring wonderfully flawed protagonists who ultimately see the error in their ways and strive to make changes and fight to be better.

And that process of growing up – which continues long after you leave your teen years, by the way, but which gets easier as you get older – is all about that process.

Something else I love about those books and about a lot of indie comics in general including Tank Girl which I mentioned at the start of the show, is that they feature a lot of music within them. The characters listen to songs or make songs and it really helps to bring the narrative alive and to connect you to their world via music.

Last year when Comics Youth had a booth at Thought Bubble I picked up the amazing All the Sad Songs by Summer Pierre. It’s an outstanding indie comic book in which Pierre talks about her lifelong struggle with mental health and the songs that soundtracked her journey to identifying, accepting, and working through mental illness.
Each section of the book focuses on a different period of her life and the mixtapes that were made during that time. She talks in-depth about the songs that really resonated with her on those tapes and why and it’s just incredible. I heartily recommend it.

The last book series I wanted to mention on this vibe is Love and Rockets by Gilbert and Jaimie Hernandez. It’s an incredible book series set within a Latin-American community and it features gorgeous characters and relationships including a few queer ones.

One storyline from those books that has remained in my heart since I read them is the one between teenage queer punk rockers Maggie and Hopey. Hopey has a band in it and the two regularly listen to songs together and it just builds this wonderful world that you can listen along to with them.

And one of the songs they listen to together is this absolute punk rock jam right here – I think it’s about a six-pack of Capri-Sun and nothing heavier. This is Black Flag with “Six-Pack” - -

TRACK SIX: “Six Pack” – Black Flag
TRACK SEVEN: “Roundabout” – Yes

Oh damn, I hope at least a couple of you put a bet on that I was going to play a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure tune because – if you know me – it was inevitable, really.

That was “Roundabout” by Yes and I sadly had to cut that one short because we don’t have time on this show for the full eight minutes of it! Are you kidding me, Yes? Yare Yare.

Now, I was introduced to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure by a very nice boy at the start of this year and I am completely and utterly obsessed. I love the anime – which you can watch on Netflix, tho word to the wise watch it with subtitles if you can because the dub is horrendous – but I’m also currently working my way through Hirohiki Araki’s manga of it at the moment and it’s sensational in a completely different way to the anime. Both are brilliant tho.

It’s an oddball, fun, anarchic series with incredible characters and while it’s a whole lot of fun, it somehow also manages to tug at the heart strings as these characters face off against evil and you realise that that nobody is safe. Araki seems to love putting your fave characters in the direct line of peril or killing them outright and in unexpected, devastating ways and it’s reduced me to tears on many an occasion.

There’s also something fabulously queer about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Araki has mentioned in interviews that he wanted the manga to be inclusive to the LGBTQIA+ community but that he struggled to include non-coded representation due to pushback from his editors who refused to publish anything canonically queer.

But there’s a lot of coded queerness to each story, and many of the characters – particularly in later parts - are conspicuously androgynous which we stan.

For any of you looking for more directly queer comics to enjoy tho, I’d like to direct you all to Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper series which Lucas M has been reading recently and which we all love here at Comics Youth. It features really positive queer relationships and is an absolute dreamboat of a page turner.

On a similar vibe, we also recommend the incredible Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me which is all about young, lesbian love but also about ditching toxic relationships in favour of ones that serve us in ways that make us deservedly cherished.

And last but not least, read Lumberjanes – a fabulous adventure story set at a camp for Hardcore Lady Types which features some wonderful queer romance and non-binary representation and is such a blast to read.

And now we’re gonna return to some bombast with this next song requested by Lucas M, taken from the Thor: Ragnorak soundtrack. This is Led Zeppelin with “Immigrant Song”.

TRACK EIGHT: “Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin
TRACK NINE: “The Times They Are A-Changin’” – Bob Dylan

That was little Bobby Dylan with “the Times They Are’A Changin’” – ain’t they just, little Bobby?! – and that was taken from Zack Snyder’s 2009 adaptation of Alan Moore’s brilliant Watchmen. I still don’t know if I love or hate that movie – it is what it is, I guess? – it’s not a great adaptation of a masterpiece but there is something terrible and enjoyable about it nonetheless.

Though, let it be known that I nearly walked out of the cinema when I went to see it because it made me so mad. I’ve rewatched it in the past few years though and I didn’t hate it, so who knows? Maybe I’m getting soft.

The opening credit sequence with that song playing over it arguably probably the best scene in the movie, which doesn’t bode well, does it?

Ah well, better luck next Snyder. You’ll make a good film one day. Maybe.

Anyway! That brings us to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for hanging with me and for listening and please feel free to drop me an email amy@comicsyouth.co.uk if you want to suggest anything to be played on the air or have a shoutout you’d like to share to someone and I’ll do my best to get back to you and to include it.

Next week’s episode is going to see us trying to enjoy this season a little with The Summer Episode. I know things are rubbish right now, but we can still vibe with some Summery treats and talk about the things we love best about Summertime and the things we do that make us feel like Yes, Summer has arrived and it’s awesome.

So be sure to tell me what Summer jams you want to hear for that – and to share with me your shoutouts for the things that make you feel Summery.

Until then, remember: Everything is not cool – but it can be! Stay safe, stay sassy, and good grief, keep your nose in a good comic.

This is Vince Guaraldi with “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown” and this is Amy Roberts singing off….byeeeeee!!

TRACK TEN: “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown” – Vince Guaraldi