Who's Who In The CBU Update 2010

Who are... Park and Barb?

Barbara Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper, are the owners of Wicker Man Studios and of Gun Street Girl, its flagship project created by Barbara and artist Ryan Howe. Barbara has written for many websites, and served a one-year stint as Managing Editor of the multiple-Eisner-award-winning print magazine Comic Book Artist. Park is the Editor-in-Chief of indie comics company Septagon Studios, and of Comics Bulletin's sister-website MangaLife. Together, they also co-wrote the graphic novel Half Dead, published by Dabel Brothers Productions and Marvel Comics, and later picked up again by Desperado Publishing, and the New Media project The Hidden for manga publisher Tokyopop. They both also adapt manga and edit manga and comics for various companies.

School House Rock With COMICS!

By Park

By Park Cooper

Yes, the story of comics (from the Silver Age to the present, at least) is the story of a fascination with music, but especially Rock and Roll. Don't believe me? Let's look at some of Comics' greatest music moments!

Comic's Greatest Music Moments: Rock and Roll

Dazzler: The minds behind Dazzler have admitted that she was just a way to try to cash in on the disco craze. Dazzler, perhaps partially because of Archie Goodwin, has given me some entertaining moments. The biggest was when she, by herself, ran into (literally) Juggernaut, who was all set to mess her up until her recognized her and professed his adoration-- turns out he was her biggest fan and had all her albums. A touching and amusing moment, and also realistic... that's what would really happen if a really famous superhero fought crime.

Lila Cheney: At this point I've got to mention Lila Cheney, the brit-talkin' super-long-range teleporter and Joan Jett archetype who had her way with Cannonball, complete with dressin' him up in leather. He wasn't my cup of tea, but it was great to see the kid get so lucky. Later, while on the run, Dazzer played keyboards for Lila's band.
  
Mucus Membrane: The punk band famous for giving young John Constantine his brief singing (and co-songwriting) career. Thus Mucus Membrane must live in our hearts forever. In the first two issues Jamie Delano showed us just how cool this punk aspect of John's life helped make him via a 2-part textual interview a fictional music magazine writer write on him. Over a decade later, no one's read Delano's excellent issues, since only 9 have been reprinted, and Paul Jenkins ran that punk thing into the ground in an un-entertaining way. Garth Ennis does get credit for once having Kit Ryan wear a t-shirt emblazoned with the name of the punk band Stiff Little Fingers, however.

Delirium: The longer Neil Gaiman knew Tori Amos, the more Tori-like Deliruim became, until she passed her counterpart, and now Delirium is vastly amusing and Tori is tired and old hat.
Rick Jones: had his own band.
  
Mezz: Star of the Universe's greatest rock band in NEXUS. YEAH, anyone?

Flexi-Nexi: Speaking of which, I read at one point of the failed experiment of the Flexi-Nexi-- with one special issue of Nexus they tried to publish it with a flexible vinyl record, or something like that. Had it taken off it would have changed the life of...
  
Grant Morrison: The only thing that frustrates Grant Morrison more than DC editors is the fact that the world has not yet produced him with a comic book that carries its own soundtrack. If he had such tech at his disposal, every comic he created would be a musical tribute unto itself, mostly featuring the song stylings of The Jam. You can't throw a rock in THE INVISIBLES without hitting either a Jam lyric or one of their contemporaries, and this was slightly true of everything else Morrison's ever written. Start with Liza Radley from Doom Patrol and start checking the titles of issues from there... On a different note, one of my fave moments from DP was near the end, when, as they enter what is essentially paradise, music that Cliff Steele identifies as Louie Armstrong is heard by Rebis as Pet Clark (I Couldn't Live Without Your Love to be exact).

Garth Ennis: The Pogues. They're in PREACHER too, but his HELLBLAZER especially is set in a world in which the Pogues are on every station.

Comics' Greatest Music Moments: Not Exactly Rock...
  
Green Lantern Mosaic: Gerard Jones' great epic explores, among many other things, American Music History and its influence on culture, racial and otherwise. Which was why GL:M was way too cool for the room at all times.
  
Very Vicky: I tip my hat to old indie title VERY VICKY for the character of Babblin' Lou Hubbard, a parody of real-life hyperactive case Screamin' Jay Hawkins. It's an unexpected yet somehow unsurprising cultural reference from this brilliant comic that was already in love with all things Ratpack...

Comic's Worst Music Moments:

Scare Tactics: They're monsters, they've got their own band. Spark once did the special effects portion of their show.

Foxglove: A cool character in DEATH: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE with an alternative folk thing happening, she later (in DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING) hit it too big, it went to her head, had an affair on her partner, and gave it all up, all without coming out of the closet to the media. God forbid she just become reclusive and not cheat on her partner... or, for an easier solution, if she thought coming out might hurt her career, but she didn't have the willpower to say no to her own fame, why not come out and damp her career down to a level she could handle? Possibly inspired on some level by Neil's friends the Indigo Girls, possibly in ways that would bore me further if I knew more.

Jack Knight: Suddenly, the man with the best obscure taste on Earth is revealed, in one annual, to have been a big Sid Vicious fan? Oh, the tragedy of misspent youth.
Wasn't even Speedy in a band for a while?
  
Mythos: Even without Neil, Vertigo isn't safe.
  
Young Heroes In Love: Only falls into worst because although Thunderhead eventually got his custom-made giant guitar, the title didn't last long enough for us to see him really jam on it.
  
Hawk and Dove: I love Mike Grell, but the Dove character from this most recent incarnation was just the most recent example of comics' sometimes oversimplified obsession with rockers.