I’ve received such nice comments about the MIXTAPE project I decided it was time to upload the entire series proposal, which can be accessed by clicking the “MIXTAPE” tab on the bar at the top of the page, or by simply clicking here. I’ll be off to Comic Con this weekend to push MIXTAPE among other things, so make sure to tell me what you think of it. Comments are always welcome and appreciated — otherwise I may actually have to start posting the spam that gets sent to this site.
Growing up in Canada in the 1980’s I listened to British bands like Roxy Music and Echo and the Bunnymen. Living in the UK now I listen to the Spoons and other great Canadian groups remembering the place and the time.
Mixtape reminds me of how music can make you feel less alone even when you are; while reminding you of the angst of being young and not knowing what comes next, and wishing you could do it all over again. Joe Cocker was right when he sang that we ‘get by with a little help from our friends.’
It made me feel young and hopeful and nostalgic, and the art work is fab.
Thanks for that.
Mixtape makes me think of the last year of high school – the stress of making sure you keep your grades up as well as the constant feeling that an era is coming to an end. But there’s also the fear and anticipation of what comes next. Basically, at that time, the world is yours and where you go next is entirely up to you. Up until that point, it was all planned out for you – grade school, junior high, high school. You just went with the flow and you had no choice in the matter. But from then on, it’s all up to you. And I don’t think you recognize at the time the role that music played in your life. It’s only when you look back 20 years later when certain songs instantly remind you of a time and a place. The memories the music triggers are so clear and you’re transported back in time for an instant.
I like the feel of this graphic novel’s world and its period characters, when connectivity was low-tech, and evoked through the music that somehow captured how they were feeling at this juncture of their times. Very nice job in generating an ensemble of characters we would want to follow, because they feel like people we may have known when we were coming up from the end of the ‘Me’ 80’s into what would be the moodier 90’s. Stories about these friends who shared those romanticized or cynical values, are why I feel ‘Mix-Tape’ would have a resonance in an expanded series allowing all these elements to grow on readers. The writing in “Mix-Tape” is assured with the ‘been there’ tone of hanging with your slightly misunderstood friends, and finding the meaning of it all, within the right mix!