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6 Rock Stars Turned Comic Writers

No Fly Zone: 6 Rock Stars Turned Comic Writers
© Mania

Greetings, Maniacs, and welcome to The No-Fly Zone! This is Mania.com’s weekly alternative comics column, where we cover all things non-superheroic. A lot of artists like to cross over into other mediums. Making it as an actor can open the door to work in music. And, sometimes succeeding in music can lead to work in comics. It seems appropriate that the loud, often over-the-top antics of rock and roll would lead to writing in a medium known for being, in its own way, equally bombastic. Thus, here are six rock stars that, at some point in their career, have written comics. Not all of them used one to jump into the other, but there are some interesting examples here.

6. Gene Simmons

He of the long tongue has been a comic book fan for most of his life, and Kiss has made innumerable appearances in books by Marvel, Image, and Platinum Studios. But, in 2007, Simmons took a more direct role with Simmons Comics, as an imprint of IDW. Three titles came out: Zipper, Dominatrix, and the anthology book House of Horrors. But, Simmons declined to actually script the imprint’s three miniseries, providing plots, characters, and background for the stories. In a Mania.com interview, Simmons described himself as a “big picture guy,” while praising the writers working on his titles as better scribes than himself. Not much has been seen from Simmons Comics since the three IDW miniseries wrapped up, but Simmons’s son Nick has just released his first comic through Radical Publishing. Incarnate is drawn in a Manga style by Nam Kim, and it tells the story of a group of immortal revenants. The creatures must stand up to a secret society that has learned how to finally kill them.

5. Jyrki 69

Finland’s 69 Eyes brought old school Gothic rock back into the spotlight, showing a whole lot of kids in Slipknot shirts what the genre actually sounds like. In the mid-80s, Jyrki 69 drew cartoons and comics for a number of Finnish fanzines and underground comics. Only after the 69 Eyes found success on MTV—thanks largely to promotion by Bam Margera—did Jyrki’s old comics arrive in the United States. Deggael Communications published Zombie Love: Vampires, Ghosts and the 69 Eyes in 2006. The book features Jyrki’s comics in Finnish with English translations on the side. The book is just comic strips with vampire babes and night creatures of all stripes, so it’s a quick read. But, it provides an interesting look at what was going on in the Finnish underground in the 1980s. Of the initial hardcover run of 1000, Jyrki gave #666 to Glenn Danzig. Speaking of which…

4. Glenn Danzig

In the early 1990s, Glenn Danzig of the Misfits, Samhain, and his eponymous solo band branched out into comic publishing. A lifelong fan of comics and Manga, Danzig launched a series of adults-only horror titles, including Jaguar God and Satanika. Danzig scripted some of the comics himself, including the first adaptation of Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer. Verotik also published a comic adaptation of Nancy Collins’s cult vampire novel Sunglasses After Dark. Verotik garnered some less-than-flattering attention in the late 1990s when a story in the anthology title Verortika #4—among other racy titles from Eros—set off a police raid on Planet Comics in Oklahoma City for obscenity charges. Underground comics bad boy Hart Fisher wrote a story called A Taste of Cherry in Verotika #4, which was used as evidence by the prosecutors in the trial. Danzig only publishes through Verotik occasionally these days, with the last release being Drukija, Countessa of Blood—an illustrated poem in collaboration with Simon Bisley. But, Verotik is supposed to return to comics in October, with a one-shot appropriately entitled Morella Presents Verotik Returns.

3. Rob Zombie

Rumors of a comic by Rob Zombie persisted for years before the first issue of Spookshow International hit the stands in November of 2003. Published at first through CrossGen and then MVCreations, the series was an anthology book featuring the Firefly clan of House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, among other characters, including the masked wrestler El Superbeasto. You may have heard that name, because Zombie has directed an animated film called The Haunted World of El Superbeasto set to hit DVD on September 22^nd. It looks like it’s got the same sex, violence, horror, and black humor that everyone expects from Zombie. Early buzz has been very positive. You can check out the red-band and totally NSFW trailer here. As far as Zombie’s other comic work, he co-wrote a couple of really fantastic miniseries with Steve Niles, including the 70’s horror movie throwback Bigfoot, and The Nail, in which an aging professional wrestler has to protect his family from a gang of zombie bikers. That’s still available in trade paperback from Dark Horse. Speaking of Steve Niles…

2. Steve Niles

Rockers Turned Comic Writers? Wrong column for Niles, right? Sorry, but the 30 Days of Night scribe fits the bill. Niles played bass and sang backup vocals for the post-hardcore band Gray Matter from the group’s inception in 1983 until their second breakup in 1993 (they went on hiatus in the late ‘80s for a few years). Gray Matter was signed to the Washington D.C.-based Dischord Records, founded by Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye and drummer Jeff Nelson. Gray Matter hasn’t been together in a while, but they reunited for a single show last year in September at the Black Cat in Washington D.C. Drummer Dante Ferrando partially owns the club, and the show was part of a 15^th anniversary party. You can see the band playing “Walk the Line” that night here. There isn’t much to say about Niles comic book work that hasn’t already been said over and over again. He hit the big time with 30 Days of Night and continues to write intense, character-driven horror comics. Recently, Universal picked up the rights to make a movie out of Criminal Macabre, featuring Cal McDonald—Niles’s pill-popping monster detective. He’s still around and still kicking ass.

1. Gerard Way

The lead singer of My Chemical Romance wrote two issues of On Raven’s Wings for Hart Fisher’s Boneyard Press when he was only 16. Way intended to work in comics until the September 11^th attacks inspired him to write songs instead. My Chemical Romance was signed to Reprise Records after one release on Eyeball Records. The rest you probably know—they got really big, really quickly. Way returned to comics in 2007 with The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, which nabbed the Eisner for Best Finite Series/Limited Series in 2008. In a style reminiscent of Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, and Tim Burton, Way and artist Gabrielle Ba tell the story of a group of children with superpowers who reunite as adults after their mentor is killed. A sequel called Dallas followed in 2008, with another—Hotel Oblivion—on the way.

Some people are lucky enough to be multitalented. While not every rocker-turned-comic-writer has met equivalent success, a few have proven to be as good or better in comics as they are (or were) in music. But, it shows that comics have an enduring appeal to people working in other media. While the world’s not begging for another Night Cat, it’s always cool to see music and comics build bridges. That’s it for this week, guys. Keep the horns up.

Kurt Amacker is the writer of The No-Fly Zone, Mania’s weekly alternative comics column. He is also the author of the comic miniseries Dead Souls, published by Seraphemera Books. Dead Souls is available from the Seraphemera Books website, Amazon.com, and at comic shops everywhere. He can be reached at kurt_amacker@seraphemera.org.