Pop music and comic books share many sensibilities and influences, and often cross over in unexpected and interesting ways. Comic artists illustrate album covers, bands utilize four-color imagery in videos and live shows, musicians try their hands at writing and drawing comics, and rock stars have even become characters in their own comic series, further blurring boundaries.
Saturday Morning: The Comic is a truly odd specimen of comics/pop cross-pollination. It was published in 1996 by Marvel and MCA Records to accompany the release of Saturday Morning, a compilation of “alternative” rock acts covering cartoon theme songs. And it’s every bit as off-balance and bizarre as its multimedia promotional concept would indicate.
A brief plot summary: a sleeping record company executive is awakened when a mysterious figure appears in his bedroom. The apparition explains that he is from a dystopian future society where music is generic homogenized product, used by the evil ruling class to brainwash youth and create a generation of politically correct drones… And the only way to avoid this nightmarish scenario is to enlist a bunch of bands to interpret old TV cartoon jingles, thus creating a record of chaotic abandon that will make the future safe for creativity.
What follows is twenty-odd pages of future guy and record executive transporting from place to place, avoiding “The Evil Suits” from the future and recording the album that will save the world. There’s hardly any story beyond that, and it doesn’t really matter; the joy here is in seeing action-packed comic-book renditions of rock musicians. We find The Butthole Surfers escaping from an insane asylum, The Violent Femmes floating in a space station, The Reverend Horton Heat conducting a baptism, The Ramones in a tiny New York club, and a host of other acts in various scenarios. It makes no sense, the core concept of “rock saves the future” bears no small resemblance to Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the visual style varies wildly (twenty different artists had hands in drawing the story), and it’s all underpinned by the questionable conceit that a corporate product can be edgy and nonconformist save us from a corporate society… But there’s an incoherent glee to the whole endeavor, there’s some pretty pictures, and it’s a pretty evocative look at the music scene of the late MTV era. I grinned a lot while reading it. While it’s no lost classic, it is a charmingly skewed riff on the power of rock and roll, and a fascinating footnote in the history of comics and pop music .
Saturday Morning: The Comic was released by Marvel Comics in 1996. It features appearances by Matthew Sweet, Sponge, Liz Phair with Material Issue, Helmet, The Ramones, Collective Soul, The Butthole Surfers, The Toadies, Frente!, Mary Lou Lord, The Reverend Horton Heat, Juliana Hatfield and Tanya Donelly, Dig, Wax, The Violent Femmes, Tripping Daisy, Face To Face, The Murmers, and Sublime. It was written by Ralph Sall and Mike Lackey, with art by Steve Lightle, Klaus Janson, Michael Avon Oeming, Steve Yeowell, Trevor Von Eden, Tim Sale, Chris Bachalo, Steve Purcell, Steve Leialoha, Kieron Dwyer, Pat Oliff, Neil Volks, Rick Geary, Tom Morgan, Craig Rousseau, Chris Moeller, Rick Parker, Bob Fingerman, Tony Salmons, and Mike Zeck. The uncharacteristically hideous cover is by the esteemed Bill Sienkiewicz. It has never been reprinted, but can be found inexpensively on Ebay or (better still) at your local comic shop.
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