Band Mail #6

This one’s the kind of page I live for. Naming and drawing a set of characters, showing existing characters looking different at different moments in time, implying a bunch of new avenues of backstory but leaving most of it open, looking at in-universe pictures of some kind…
Credit: This mailbag question (which I would’ve found a way to do eventually even if it hadn’t been asked!) actually came from comix artist & writer Jeanne Thornton, who’s a really essential friend in my life. I can easily imagine the alternate universe where she and I started some kind of aesthetically weird band.

21 Comments

Oh bitching, the woman who does Bad Mother asked this question ^_^ Love that comic, love this page!

Thanks!
Bad Mother is the greatest.

Jeez, doesn’t Arsenic ever change his shirt? 😛

Anyways, thanks for this little slice of history. Though now that you’ve made this, people will want to see old members show up again.

He’s only got a few shirts that he likes as much as No Shirts, so he makes them last for years.
I’m not sure whether we’ll ever meet any of these characters for real! Right now, they’re more interesting to me as stories we barely know anything about.

The bloody thigh prom dress is disturbingly punk rock….

Something I liked about that is that I think it’d be pretty easy to not notice the blood, if you only glance at the picture. It’s like paying attention is rewarded with gross.

I didn’t notice the blood at first, and the outfit reminded me of Courtney Love, but now of course I’m thinking of Sissy Spacek in Carrie.
The blond in photo 2 has to be Jennifer, right? Seems like all the Jennifers I know are blonds.

I feel like she’s probably watched Carrie dozens of times — like, you’d go to Turpentine and Arsenic’s apartment and there’s a TV on in the background playing an old VHS tape of either Carrie or Rosemary’s Baby, and the sound’s off, and they’re only half paying attention to it and have unrelated music playing.

…That second photo is the only one where I’m not totally certain who’s who, actually. That’s either Strychnine or Jennifer.

(also, yeah, no secret that I’ve always been a big ol’ fangirl for all things C. Love)

♥C.Love
Since the brunette with the doll has a Wednesday Addams vibe (originally I thought she was Ash Wednesday until I noticed the cross on the forehead in the last photo), it’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t be in the spirit of picking a Sourballs name. While the blond looks like she’s from a different band, something late 90’s.

I imagine the last photo is of their attempt at a uber gothy darkwave band that ended on rather sour terms.

Heh, yeah — I think that one’s the incarnation of the band that’s generally regretted by everyone involved.

I like the look of Kim, she’s big like me.

I’m not sure why I didn’t originally make at least one of the regular main characters of this world a bigger girl (like, more so than the difference between, say, Turpentine and Foxy) — I totally like drawing them. I could just draw girl-curves nonstop forever.

Kathleeeeeeeeen your alternate universe has COME TRUE

The title of the first album/EP/whatever is THE SHORES OF FEMME

AAAAAAAA, THIS IS THE BEST. This is like everything I want in life, and I’m a little sad that you and I don’t have this band RIGHT NOW. Ideal.
Things I like, besides everything: how I’m wearing my pointy statue of liberty headband, and you play a huge upright bass.

(I super wish we had this band also, plus that I could like REALLY play upright bass)

I really like Turp’s gender-bender Robert Smith look in the first photo.

I did think the phrase “Robert Smith hair” while I was drawing that! Siouxsie, too.

Also, a note on style & fashion: this comic’s always intentionally been a real style soup. It ties into the idea that, comics being a silent medium, we NEVER really get a definite sound for any of the bands…and that ties into the choice to have it set in this out-of-time universe where the bands aren’t part of real-life music history or any actual current or past scenes. So, since it’s already a mixed-up world, I think it’s fun to mash up different things even more, like how the Sourballs (past and present) seem to have elements of punk, grunge, goth, riot grrrl, and more. (And there’s also the fun thing where, within each band, each person’s got their own tastes. )