There’s something resolutely indie about fan art. It conjures up images of a couple of kids called Linus and Darla cross-legged in their step-dads basement after school, hand-painting brooches to stick on the front cover of their weekly fanzine. With this is mind, Belle & Sebastians decision to release a compilation of comic strips written and drawn by their wooly-mittened followers could be seen as an attempt to return to that naïve winsomeness the band epitomised in their early years. In more recent times, sell-out shows across the US and Canada have morphed the band from twee-hugging introverts to stadium-bloating, star-spangled rock colossi in the vein of Stuart Murdochs guilty idol Rod Stewart (one half expects him to grow his hair out, walk on with a leggy blonde and start kicking footballs into the crowd). The question is, does this publication show the band havent forgotten their roots and those who got them where they are or is it another sprocket in the B&S market leviathan? More pressingly, is it any good? The answer is mixed and probably depends a fair smidge on your feelings about the divisive troubadours themselves.
The strips run the gamut from the schoolyard pretty-ditties of their hey day to the modern Thin Lizzy aperies. Many of the authors and illustrators represented herein are obviously working from the same dictionary as those who compile Hollywood’s “inspired by” soundtracks as half seem more an outlet for the authors teenage desperations with a song-title tagged on than visual adaptations of the music that supposedly birthed it. Nevertheless, the drawings are invariably beautiful (if not much comic enthusiasts wont have seen before) and often capture well the spirit of the music. Fans are tricky beasts, however, and dont easily fall into the one pigeon-hole (just take a cross-section of your beer-and-chips versus feather boa-and-babycham Manics disciples) and so what you get is a mishmash of styles and outlooks that sometimes work (Legal Man, Marx and Engels) and sometimes seem like theyve stumbled in on the wrong party (Dog on Wheels, The Chalet Lines). Even so, a lot of love has gone into all the works on display. The kind of love that spends hours crotcheting little puppet band members and Fimo necklesses. If youre a fan of the band its a worthy addition to the ever-burgeoning B&S-related consumables. If youre a fan of the medium theres still plenty here to divert your attention in a Ghost World/Blankets kind of way. If youre a fan of neither then you need to open your heart a little and stop being such a grumpy stick-in-the-mud.
Rating: 6.5/10
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