Download Phonogram by Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen (.CBR)

Phonogram by Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen
Requirements: CBR Reader, 295 MB.
Overview: Britannia is ten years dead. Phonomancer David Kohl hadn’t spared his old patron a thought for almost as long… at which point his mind starts to unravel. Can he discover what’s happened to the Mod-Goddess of Britpop while there’s still something of himself left? Dark modern-fantasy in a world where music is magic, where a song can save your life or end it.

Phonogram is a dark urban fantasy by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie about music, magic, memory, love, sex, life, death and the importance of having friends who can drive.

Phonogram

Jamie McKelvie

Kieron Gillen

Matthew Wilson

Leigh Gallagher

Image Comics, 2006-2010.

The first volume, "Rue Britannia". began in August 2006 and stars David Kohl, a mage who uses the medium of Britpop music to interpret his magic. In keeping with the Britpop theme, the six individual issues and the collection had cover art based on album artwork from that era. At the end of each issue, and somewhat shortened in the trade paperback, the creators give a glossary of the more obscure phrases and pop-culture references used, as well as musings on the history of Britpop and the influences on the book.

The second volume, "The Singles Club" consists of seven one-shots looking at young phonomancers and their experiences over one night at a dance club. Each issue consists of a 16-page main story, rounded-out with features and back-up stories. Phonomancer David Kohl has to save his Britpop goddess, Britannia, who is missing. Cursed by a goddess, he follows a series of leads and meets with other ‘mancers, and spends time with a "normal" friend, Kid-With-Knife. He eventually locates Britannia. Once more, a glossary is included in both the issues and the trade collection. The trade also includes the tracklist that is playing in the club scenes.

Music journalism, thinly disguised as a comic book, Reviewed by Ars Legendi on March 2, 2012

I was ready to hate this book. I was intrigued by the first issue of the comic, but by the time I had finished the second, the Pitchfork-esque celebrations of musical superiority had reached critical mass. Something happened, though, as I got near the end of this six-issue collection. I found myself looking up the mentioned bands. I found myself actually understanding the various metaphors, even though I stand firmly on the outside of the story’s cultural inner circle. By the time I finished the book, I realized to my surprise that I enjoyed it despite trying really hard not to.

The story arc begins with an avatar of a musical goddess sending a phonomancer (someone who can use music as a medium for arcane practice) on a quest to find out what has happened to one of her aspects, Britannia. Feel free to ignore this setup, though, because it has precisely nothing to do with the proceedings, other than to introduce protagonist David Kohl and give an overview of the setting. The book, for all of its fantasy trappings, is actually a fierce paean to Britpop music and an introspective exploration on what it meant and still means to its fans. David’s race to stop the dead goddess from being resurrected as a monster is a thinly veiled history of Britpop’s rise from the foundation of 1960s British guitar rock as a response to American grunge, its relatively quick decline and fall, and the state of the genre after it started feeding on itself instead of on a cultural identity. The most interesting part of the story is the consequences David faces if he cannot find Britannia in time: the destruction of his own essence, as his memories are altered and blurred until he is lost and transformed into someone completely different. Someone, for example, who hums along with Ocean Colour Scene and doesn’t mind listening to Kula Shaker. The fight to hold on to himself leads him to questions that every scene kid, no matter what the scene in question is, must eventually face. What happens when you get old, and the music you’ve loved so deeply and understood so intimately becomes a relic of the past? What’s the next step, when you can no longer define yourself by the trappings of pop culture once it inevitably leaves you behind, or vice versa?

These parables are so thinly veiled that it’s easy to get lost in the dreamlike twists and turns of the narrative, if you’re not keeping an eye on the big picture. Furthermore, even though there is a handy glossary at the back for readers that aren’t familiar with Britpop, there is still an excessive amount of musical preening. Obscure Britpop references are tossed recklessly around, with an indifference bordering on disdain for the comfort of anyone who may not be familiar with them. Or maybe I just felt that way, since I grew up on the other side of the pond, listening to reviled Seattle grunge instead of Pulp, Blur, Elastica, or Kenickie. I eventually realized that the story isn’t about excluding anyone, though. It’s simply a love letter to a musical era that passed by largely unremarked on, except for by those in the thick of it, and those who wandered in too late on the heels of "woo-hoo" and "Wonderwall." Taken solely on those merits, this is a subtle and powerful work of storytelling.

The black-and-white art is fantastic. The pulp feel is wholly appropriate, somehow, and the realistic style conveys some remarkable articulation and emotion. The reader immediately learns almost everything about David Kohl by the expression on his face in the first page of the first volume. There are a few jarring shifts between pages and a handful of awkward action panels, but they’re balanced by some very expressive character art. Honestly, the covers alone almost make up for any other artistic problems.

Taken all together, this is a remarkable graphic novel. It’s bound to alienate some readers who either aren’t familiar with or don’t have any interest in the British guitar pop of the early 1990s, since the actual story doesn’t really hold up without at least a passing appreciation for it. But reading this with an open mind (and a tolerance for having your own musical tastes sneered at, just a little bit) opens up a surprising deep and heartfelt piece of music journalism in comic form.

Phonogram, Reviewed by Caroline on Oct 27, 2008.

I am not the target audience for ‘Phonogram.’ That’s pretty clear, because the book is largely driven — not just in atmosphere but in plot — by references to a whole lot of bands I have never in my life heard of. These bands were apparently popular in the UK in the 1990s, a decade that I spent entirely in college towns in the Southern U.S., listening almost exclusively to jazz standards and Billy Joel albums, and attending a total of two concerts of popular music: a show by a local ska band, and a Lisa Loeb/ Sarah Maclachlan concert that my ex-boyfriend dragged me two years after we broke up. I know this description sounds like it’s exaggerated for effect, but it is literally true. Those were my ’90s.

And yet I enjoyed ‘Phonogram.’ I’m pretty sure (I hope) that series creators Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie would take that as a compliment. A note in the back of the book says: "Everything you need to know about a band is right there in the narrative, and should be able to be grasped by the context it’s in." That note precedes an extensive glossary, and listening suggestions, indicating that Gillen & McKelvie hoped that some people outside their target audience would be their target audience — which, while it really isn’t necessary, is a nice touch. It’s refreshing for a book that relies so heavily on allusion and cultural coding to feel like it’s actually trying to include readers, instead of excluding them. A lot of writers of ‘mainstream’ superhero comics could learn from this approach, as those stories are all too often meaningless to people who haven’t been reading about the same characters since they were 10 years old. ‘Phonogram’ actually fools me into thinking I know something about Britpop. It’s a tricky exercise, but Gillen and McKelvie pull it off.

It’s probably starting to sound like I don’t actually want to talk about what happens in ‘Phonogram,’ and there’s something to that. I’m not sure what *does* happen in this book. I just know that the central character, David Kohl, is a fascinating (and totally reprehensible) son-of-a-bitch, and that I could look at Jamie McKelvie’s striking, imaginative black & white art all day.

Download Instructions:
http://festyy.com/wK2koz — Phonogram–Rue Brittania 01
http://festyy.com/wK2kov — Phonogram–Rue Brittania 02
http://festyy.com/wK2kom — Phonogram–Rue Brittania 03
http://festyy.com/wK2koY — Phonogram–Rue Brittania 04
http://festyy.com/wK2koG — Phonogram–Rue Brittania 05
http://festyy.com/wK2koX — Phonogram–Rue Brittania 06
http://festyy.com/wK2koB — Phonogram–The Singles Club 01
http://festyy.com/wK2ko1 — Phonogram–The Singles Club 02
http://festyy.com/wK2ko7 — Phonogram–The Singles Club 03
http://festyy.com/wK2kpe — Phonogram–The Singles Club 04
http://festyy.com/wK2kpo — Phonogram–The Singles Club 05
http://festyy.com/wK2kps — Phonogram–The Singles Club 06
http://festyy.com/wK2kpk — Phonogram–The Singles Club 07