Unstable Decibels
My weekly Navel Gazing summary at Punknews is often accompanied by an image that may have little to no actual connection with the content of the article. It’s fun and nonsensical, and on rare occasions may have a hidden meaning to me or the other editors. In fact there’s an inexplicable trend of us using newly discovered sea life (I think I convinced a hardcore band to name themselves after that sasquatch lobster, but I digress). More often than not, and particularly because I’m lazily drawing on what I know (as opposed to a achieving some genuine sense of whimsy), I’ve been using comic book images.
When I received an email from Marvel Comics I was convinced, before even reading it, that it was going to be a terse warning to cut out my vanilla copyright infringement. Seeing as I’m so often focused on the ills of the music industry it’s been pretty much been drilled into me that corporations don’t talk to the public unless they’re brandishing a heavy stick. Thankfully I was completely off base. It turns out Marvel was cool with it, and not in a “hey, it’s free advertising for us” way (out of context pictures of Beta Ray Bill and Fing Fang Foom don’t really achieve anything), they were just genuinely cool.
Roll the calendar a month forward and I find myself freelance writing for Marvel.com, exploring how music and comics intersect by chatting with musicians who happen to be Marvel zombies. To my absolute thrill, the first feature is with Billy Morrisette of the incredible Dillinger Four. It turns out he grew up with Roger Stern’s Avengers and fondly remembers the “Trial of Hank Pym” story, reminiscing that it introduced him to the “dynamic of a flawed hero.” How wonderful is it to even get that perspective? I see so many comic fans on message boards these days bitching about “Hank Pym the wifebeater” and how much the arc ruined the character for decades to come. Count me in with Billy: Pym’s faults make him infinitely more interesting and I’m delighted whenever he’s involved in a story these days (particularly the ongoing Avengers: The Initiative by Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli).
So I’ve somehow managed to merge my music and comic geek universes together, and I never assumed that would be possible. I’m going to ride this unnatural mutant chimera as far as it will take me.
Marvel.com - Unstable Decibels: Rock and Comics with Dillinger Four
