The 1990s was a boom period for rock & roll music. The success of Nirvana was followed by a glut of records from ‘next big things’, and record companies were signing rock bands left and right. Indie acts that had languished in obscurity for years were suddenly signing major label deals. MTV and radio were promoting groups that only months before would have been deemed impossibly unmarketable.
And at the same time, the comic book industry was experiencing massive growth. A crop of hot young artists was driving Marvel’s popularity sky-high, and the Death Of Superman storyline from DC garnered unprecedented media attention (and accordingly immense sales figures). Comics were suddenly not just cool, but profitable. And eager for a piece of the pie, dozens of new publishers sprang up, seemingly overnight.
One of the odder entries into the field was Roger Corman’s Cosmic Comics, an imprint founded by the B-movie master to adapt his properties into another lucrative market. One of the highlights of Corman’s oeuvre was Rock ‘N’ Roll High School, the 1979 cult classic starring The Ramones, so it was only natural that his new venture would feature a tie-in comic. Sure, there was the slight stumbling block of being unable to use The Ramones’ likenesses, but to an impresario like Corman, that wasn’t a problem. There were a million rock bands out there, ripe for the picking! And so, the comic version of Rock ‘N’ Roll High School was launched in October 1995, starring… The Melvins.
The Melvins were one of the bands who had directly benefitted from the grunge and punk explosion, and they were renowned for their heavy sound, unorthodox song structures, and distinctive hairstyles. They were far from any conventional concept of comic book leading characters… And the comic that ensued was far from any conventional concept of commercial.
Writer Bob Fingerman and artist Shane Oakley were the masterminds behind the series, and they fabricated a chronicle jammed with odd twists and turns and huge spaces. Characters race around with no rhyme or reason, and page after page is filled with zig-zags, sharp angles, deep blacks, and very little depth or shading.
The plot isn’t easy to summarize, but I’ll give it a shot: The Melvins are driving around the suburbs distributing pornographic magazines to nursing homes, and two slacker teenagers are struggling to pass their exams and start a band. There’s also a dalliance with a mad scientist, genetic mutations, run-ins with the cops, a sudden manifestation of psychic powers, and (of course) a climactic concert. The whole production echoes elements of the pop-infused indie strips of 80s UK zines, the American underground comix of the 70s, and the affected strangeness of MTV’s early 90s programming. Think Liquid Television by way of Tank Girl with a detour through the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and that’s not a bad approximation. And to sweeten the package, there were also few pages of extra material in the back of each issue: horoscopes, text pieces, interviews with The Melvins, and a comic strip by James Kochalka. I can only imagine where things would have gone had the series continued, as few comics ever reach this level of free-wheeling unhingedness; sadly though, only two issues saw print before Corman’s comics company collapsed. (The contributors went on to greater successes, though… Bob Fingerman produced a number of acclaimed graphic novels and prose works, Shane Oakley provided art for Alan and Leah Moore’s Albion series, and inker Jason Lutes is now renowned as the writer/artist of Drawn & Quarterly’s Jar Of Fools and Berlin.)
KISSNATION (Marvel Comics, 1996)
In July of 1995, Marvel Comics reteamed with KISS, reprinting the two stories they’d produced together in the 70s in a single volume, which included an ad for a new “coming soon” KISS comic. A year later, while Marvel was tied up in bankruptcy proceedings, the first (and only) issue of KISSNation was dumped on an unsuspecting world. And it’s a doozy of a thing. Much of it is taken up with articles on KISS’ touring plans and behind-the-scenes activities, but the main feature is a three-chapter comic story. It’s scripted by no less a luminary than Stan Lee himself (from a plot by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley), and the pictures are provided by Nate Palant, Dave Chlystek, Eric Lusk, and a team of others… Sadly, unlike the earlier Marvel/KISS stories that it springs off from, it’s not insane enough to be interesting. It’s just dull, and the giant monsters and superheroes don’t really do much to offset the banality of the whole affair. The art is sloppy, the story disjointed, and the whole product reads like like a big jumbled mess.
The story involves three different incarnations of the band jumping between realities, fighting demons, meeting Doctor Strange and The X-Men, playing a concert, and participating in story conferences in the Marvel offices. The subtext about the importance of imagination is delivered with all the subtlety you’d expect from a comic about a hard-rock band with kabuki makeup and superpowers, and just to reinforce the awfulness of the whole thing, there’s a sequence where Gene Simmons and Psylocke make out passionately. While floating in midair.
So few copies of this publication actually made it into the hands of readers, it ended up being reprinted less than a year later in KISS Rocks The World, the band’s tour program. It’s now a largely-forgotten footnote to Simmons and company’s comic career. Soon thereafter, he band took their license to Image Comics and teamed with Todd McFarlane’s production company for 31 issues of KISS: Psycho Circus.
The two issues of Rock ‘N’ Roll High School, KISSNation and the KISS Rocks The World tour program are all out of print, but can sometimes be found on ebay or at comic shops.
All articles in the Pop Music Comics series can be found here.
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