Robin Enrico's Jam in the Band

Yet another among many many direct homages. This time to my dear friend Liz Baillie. I remember the first MoCCA fest, long before I was drawing comics myself. Liz’s first issue of My Brain Hurts was one of the first mini-comics I ever picked up. Even in that rough state, she was leagues beyond most everyone else there.

What a great image. I couldn’t help but reference it. I am still just riding Liz’s coat tails. She moved Freewheel from a printed mini-comic to a web comic, and I new it was time to adapt Jam in the Band to a proper web-comic.

Where to begin here. Its kind of impossible for me to imagine a world in which I DIDN’T see The Filth and the Fury at just the right time in my life. Let’s watch shall we.

The style, the message, the energy. All of these hit me like a freight train in my early 20s. The Sex Pistols music itself, I enjoy it in fits and spurts. But the whole punk rock mindset. The “us vs. them” mentality, the “we are going to make our own world and fuck what’s been offered to us”. This is exactly what I needed as an angry young man. And as an artist, the way in which this whole documentary is cobbled together from scraps and ephemera. After seeing this documentary I knew what I had to do with my life.

The first of MANY dropped threads in this story. What seems like a throw away line about Tiara doing what Bianca tells her to, initially had far more meaning.

In earlier drafts of the script for Jam in the Band, I had planned on writing more to the backstory of Pitch Girl’s formation. Details about Tiara being the youngest and most naive member of the band, who had basically been tricked by the scheming Bianca into joining Pitch Girl. At some point I realized this was over explaining things that didn’t need to be explained. Later there will be a line about Tiara’s mother, this is also related to said dropped backstory. Having left this flashback out, I hardly feel its absence. How do you the readers the feel? Should I have included more about the early days of Pitch Girl? Maybe I should write it into the third volume.

On a final note. Before I had the title Jam in the Band, I wrote the script under the name They Don’t Love You Like I Love You. This is from a time when I though there would be more of an unrequited romance between Bianca and Nathan. It is also obviously a line from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song Maps. Let’s all watch that now shall we.

So another portrait of failure here. But with a slightly different twist. I always get bummed out at pet stores. I always feel bad for the little animals so desperate for attention.

That being said. The drawing of the cat here is an homage to this comic by Hellen Jo. Seriously, every time I have to draw a cat, I look at this comic.

Hellen is easily one of my favorite artist today, and has been for as long as I can remember. Check out her website and go out and buy her books. You won’t be disappointed.