Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #7

Psc07

Gillen mildly redeems himself–not really, he avoided the most interesting characters in Singles Club and filled three issues with malarky, but somewhat–with an almost wordless issue featuring Kid-With-Knife, another supporting cast member from the first series. He ends up with the girl from the first issue, the one we’re not supposed to like.

Otherwise, the story is mostly just a silent street adventure. Kid-With-Knife is a superhero too, in addition to being Gillen’s only likable character. He saves these people from being mugged and leads the muggers on a chase.

It’s got a lot of nice art from McKelvie.

There are four backups this issue and they sort of ruin the high Gillen was on. All of them are pointless, none of them make a real impression of any kind.

Except maybe the Cloonan one… only because it’s a completely idiotic waste of time.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #6

Psc06

Wow.

Gillen wants the reader to through pages and pages of poorly written text with bad punctuation. The writing eventually gets so bad I had to give it up.

Here, instead of a bad person in Phonogram, Gillen wants the reader to enjoy making fun of the loser. I’m not sure why he included this character in the story, since he brings nothing to it except some laughs–and this issue clearly shows Gillen can’t stretch it out.

It’s a strange thing to be asked to dislike a character; Gillen has done it twice now. I’m not sure why he thinks it makes Phonogram worthwhile. I do like how the last page (seemingly unintentionally) implies the character is gay.

The backups, with art by PJ Holden and Adam Cadwell, are nice.

The Holden one is actually a good story, even with Gillen’s bad narration. The Cadwell one has good art.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #5

Psc05

Here we get the story of another depressed girl–she opens the issue cutting herself–and she tells most of her story in quotes from songs. While it’s admirable how much work Gillen put into finding those quotes and making them work in the narration, it’s not good writing. His first person narrator is talking directly to the reader, which makes absolutely no sense but he also can’t pull it off.

It doesn’t help the story is generally bad too. She’s a boring caricature. At least his other caricatures so far in Singles Club have been sensational.

It feels a little like Gillen’s running out of enthusiasm for the series overall. This issue has only one backup story, illustrated by Boultwood. Gillen concentrates on funny lines, which is fine for a backup, but Boultwood’s style doesn’t lend itself to sight gags.

The main story doesn’t even have a satisfying conclusion.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #4

Psc04

Whether Gillen intends it to be or not, this issue is more a concept issue than anything else. The protagonists are the two DJs at the club and we pretty much don’t see anyone but them for the entire issue. There’s a lot of affected dialogue, but Gillen can get away with it because of the concept.

Unfortunately, it leaves McKelvie with almost nothing to do. He’s drawing the same panel over and over, maybe some differences in expression, but most of the expressions get repeated eventually. Because of the design, it works fine… it’s just not particularly interesting once finished reading it.

As opposed to the previous issues, Gillen has no insight into the characters. He’s intentionally writing caricatures, not doing so because of limitations.

The backups–one by David Lafuente and one by Charity Larrison–are useless.

Lafuente’s art is good. The Larrison one is pointless, but pleasant.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #3

Psc03

Not sure how you’re supposed to read this one. Gillen’s protagonist this issue is Emily, a supporting cast member from the first series. But it ends with her having casual sex with a complete stranger in order to forget her past. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to judge her for it–Gillen would probably argue any judgment is a misogynistic response–but if we aren’t supposed to judge her for it, why does Gillen make it so clear she’s truly unhappy? And if she is truly unhappy, isn’t he just using a woman and her suffering the way he complained about indie bands doing in the first issue?

It goes round and round.

Great art from McKelvie and the issue’s solid even if the intent is fuzzy.

The Gallagher backup (retelling the first series) is awesome. The O’Connor one is lame because Gillen’s making some kind of music commentary.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #2

Psc02

Oh, wait, the girl from the first issue isn’t really that terrible and didn’t deserve to be treated so meanly?

Gillen is apparently doing a night at the club from everyone’s perspective, so this issue we get to see how some other guy spent the night. Basically, it was him being depressed over some foreign exchange student who is now gone (either dead or just gone back to Helsinki).

It’s maybe Gillen’s best writing of a character just because he’s not going out of his way to make the guy as annoying or unlikable as possible. He’s just a guy.

Some more great art from McKelvie. It really brings an added dimension to it, since in black and white he’s frequently sparse because of the graphic design approach.

The backups here are filler.

Vieceli’s has some beautiful artwork and succeeds.

Heard’s art is fine in other, there’s just no story.

Phonogram: The Singles Club (2008) #1

Psc01

The issue has three stories in it. The most successful is the two-page one, illustrated by Ellerby. It’s just a little, amusing strip… but it manages not to have the problems the others do.

The second back-up should be a blog post discussing the casual misogyny of indie music, using a suffering woman as an easily effective subject. Gillen needs to get himself that blog instead of trying to turn it into a narrative. McCubbin’s art isn’t bad though.

The feature–with McKelvie in color and he looks great in color–has problems of its own. It’s all about some self-centered girl realizing she shouldn’t be so self-centered, she realizes it after her friends and acquaintances are mean to her. The problem is Gillen doesn’t write any likable characters so asking the reader to dislike his protagonist is problematic.

The art makes up for it though.