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amcorbin's review
3.0
You can start to see where WicDiv was born, in style, obsessions, and tics, but WicDiv wears it better. A little shaky on story, on magic, on flow, but some wonderful moments for the type of person who was obsessed with music. Probably a little better if you're as versed in a certain type of music as Gillen, otherwise there are a lot of references that will leave empty spots in the reading. Immaterial Girl was probably best of the sections.
jessiqa's review
3.0
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.
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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