Total Synaesthesia

Scrolling through the New York Times online this morning, I came across this article:
"Superhero Stylings From Stars of Pop" by George Gene Gustines.

Personally, this news of musicians getting involved with comic books made me excited; but synaesthetically, I was blown away by this sentence:

"Creatively, the fields [music and comics] are not that far apart, given that many musicians tell stories with their lyrics, though they use sound, not visuals, to convey mood and drama."

Interesting thought, and sometimes true, but I would have to argue that the parallel made between the art of comic books and the music of songs is incomplete and somewhat inappropriate.

Comic book fans know that the art does more than just "convey mood and drama", often the art tells the story much more than the words. When I first began reading comic books, I had to train myself to pick up on the nuances of the visuals so I could understand the story. Comic books are different than illustrated children's books; the words are often there to lend support to the drawings, not the other way around.

I would argue that music was also misrepresented in the above article. Often the instrumental aspects of music define the meaning of the song. I recently had someone point out the differences between the original recording of "Layla" by Derek & the Dominoes (Eric Clapton and friends), and contemporary live performances by Eric Clapton. In the original version, you could hear the guitar alternately screaming and crying with the fresh pain of the story; but in recent versions, the guitar chugs along at a steady, blues pace, contemplating healed wounds. The intensity of emotion is no longer present, and so the song takes on a much different meaning. In this instance, the instrumentals of a song add much more than just "mood and drama", they are instead the backbone of the piece.

I was a little pained by the sentence, quoted above, from the NY Times article. I'm not a fan of generalizations in criticism, because more often than not, critics choose to see only one side of the coin. Overall though, I'm excited by the prospect of comic books by musicians. Artists are often artistic in many fields, not only the ones in which they specialize. I think it will be good to see what music and comic books can do together. Who knows, maybe they'll be the next PB&J?