Phonogram: Rue Britannia

I just finished reading through Phonogram volume 1: Rue Britannia by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. Sort of a big deal, since hearing about this book was what catalyzed my recent library holds splurging, leaving me up to my shins in comics to read before they're due back.

What interested me about the book was the sort of character progression the main character was supposed to have gone through- but having read it, I think said progress could easily have gone over my head if I wasn't sitting back and looking for it.

The basic premise of the book is... uh a nostalgic wizard leaves his past open to meddling because he is nostalgic. But replace 'wizard' with music lover, but replace 'music lover' with phonomancer.

The villain(s) is more of a type of music lover that is ultimately left to their own devices, which was a personal victory for the hero, but then there was the goddess Britannia who was emblematic of that history of music that introduced the hero to music/magic who was convinced not to come back...

Look sorry, I'm really sucking at talking about this thing. It's a book about one character that thinks everything and everyone else is stupid, who eventually grows to realize that he is also stupid, but that it's okay.

You know how the characters in Scott Pilgrim are mostly jerks? But at least they're fun to watch? And start to grow into not jerks?

This book is when those jerks aren't fun to watch, and only the one guy (the hero at least) is approaching 'not a jerk' status. Tentatively.

It's a book that is only accessable to a select few. If you were into music in the 90's, and you lived in England, then this book will hit close to home. If you didn't live in England but were still REALLY into 90's English music, then this can still be for you, but the social scene itself is lost on you.

And that's it. If you're not among that group and a half, you probably won't dig this book.

Just to compare with Scott Pilgrim again- Scott will speak to the Toronto crowd, its "scene", but if you don't live in Toronto there's still the music focus (mostly a music world separate from the real world, which helps that you don't need to know a bunch of trivia to get whats going on)-

BUT if you don't like the music focus, there's the video game focus.

BUT if you don't care for the video game focus, there's the romance/relationship angle.

And if you don't like ANY of that stuff- why are you reading Scott Pilgrim?

They are lots of different things to like is what I'm saying.

Phonogram isn't bad. It's niche. Super niche.