Morrissey as superhero: Smiths songs are transformed into comics

US publisher hopes to create a series of comic-book stories based on songs by Morrissey and Johnny Marr

The Smiths' songs as comics – in pictures

Sean Michaels
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 August 2011 

 
Unite and Take Over re-imagines Smiths songs as comic strips. Photograph: Jason Pedersen
 
What if the Smiths' songs were comics? An American publisher is taking that idea to the printing-press, organising a new anthology that transforms songs such as Girlfriend in a Coma and How Soon Is Now? into comic-book stories. Each tune will unspool as a four-to-eight-page comic strip, with the whole thing published in November. Unite and Take Over: Comic Stories Inspired by the Smiths is the brainchild of Shawn Demumbrum, a Phoenix, Arizona comics geek who clearly likes his Batman with a dash of melancholy. Instead of imagining Morrissey and Johnny Marr as vinyl-wielding superheroes who seek out happiness and, er, destroy it, the Smiths' influence on Unite and Take Over is subtle. "What's the story that plays in your head when you listen to your favourite Smiths songs?" he explains in a promotional video. The book's authors use these songs as "an inspiration, a jumping-off point, a theme or a mood". In an email to the Guardian, he added: "As a teen in the 80s, one of my favourite soundtracks was the Pretty in Pink soundtrack. While training for cross country, I played the cassette over and over on my Walkman as I ran. There was always something about the Smiths' Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. It tapped into my teenage psyche, a combination of loneliness and yet hopeful optimism, that only Morrissey's vocals seem to capture." Demumbrum is funding the project on the crowdsourcing website Kickstarter, hoping to raise $3,000 (£1,841) toward printing costs and ISBN codes, as well as to license song lyrics from the Smiths themselves. He has already gathered 13 writer/artist teams, each of whom will take on a different Smiths classic. Although the anthology lacks any major names, most of the contributors are indie comics veterans, including Christian Vilaire, Henry Barajas, Jeff Pina and Shelby Robertson. The finished product, which will run to at least 72 illustrated pages, is due out at the upcoming Tucson Comic-Con.