How much do you like music? Do you find yourself in another world when you hear certain songs? Do you believe that there is magic in music? Even though Phonogram mainly focuses on Britpop, I loved the idea of this comic book. This is how Unwritten was to literature and Promethea was to art.

Now I fully didn't understand what was going on at times, but I feel like I got the main points. And I think I only understood half the references. I wouldn't recommend this comic to anyone unless you want to read the Wicked Divine's team early stuff or if you are into indie music and magic. Otherwise you might not like this comic book.

I feel like I need to YouTube a bunch of songs and videos now. ( )

I have no idea what was going on during large parts of this book thanks to tons of insider references to obscure British pop stars and bands, an ill-defined magic system based on a devotion to music, and a lorry-load of British vernacular, but the dialogue and art still drew me along. This compendium peaks in the center volume, The Singles Club, which ditches the bizarre and pretentious plotting of the other sections for a series of fascinating character studies. ( )

This comic book series is a love letter to Britpop of the 90s. Magic here draws power from music and dance and practitioners are called phonomancers. The first arc, Rue Brittannia, follows David Kohl who finds that someone is rewriting the past and his memories aren’t necessarily his memories anymore. Also, he apparently killed a goddess and that’s a bit of a problem. The next arc, The Singles Club, is a single night at a club with each issue focusing on the perspective of a different character. Finally, we have The Immaterial Girl, which gives Emily Aster back story and a serious identity crisis.
The timeline between the arcs, and indeed the individual issues is all over the place, but Gillen helpfully provided a guide at the back of the book. Also included are little one-shots that usually feature art by someone other than McKelvie and which fit in between stories and issues in the series. (Again, consult the timeline if needed.)
While I enjoyed the book, I also missed a lot because I didn’t know the names of about 80 % of the bands mentioned. Kieron Gillen has a Spotify playlist [https://play.spotify.com/user/missadalovelace/playlist/4dpynLSBWuM1P0EOQ5oSzh?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open] for The Singles Club. (Actually all of Gillen’s playlists are worth a listen.) I also picked up some Long Blondes albums to listen to thanks to this series and the characters’ love for them. Aside from fleshing out my musical taste, the book often confused me, because I wasn’t fully sure what was happening. This has also been a problem for me when reading Gillen and McKelvie’s The Wicked + The Divine series. I think in both cases, there’s just so much happening on the page along with a lot of references I don’t get (because my musical taste was pretty bland back in the 90s, so that’s my fault. I have a lot of catching up to do.) Nonetheless, I liked the book and would gladly recommend it to fans of McKelvie and Gillen and fans of Britpop. ( )

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