There's an actual narrative there, which is kind of cool (the fact that it's there, if not so much the comic itself!). The most famous "comics" album cover is probably R. Crumb's cover of Big Brother and the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills, but it's not really a comic--it doesn't read in any particular order or tell a story. The symmetrical design emanating from the circular panel at the middle reinforces the comics-in-the-service-of-design aspect of the art. There are also lots of comics hidden in what we used to call "inner sleeves" and which are now, if you are lucky, reproduced in miniature as part of a CD reissue. For instance, I just bought The Damned's Machine Gun Etiquette and the CD has a reproduction of the original inner sleeve (it actually fits inside the CD cover envelope as if it were an LP!), one side of which is a crude sketchbook comic showing you the chord changes to their song "Smash It Up," (the link is to a sloppy-great live 1979 performance on the "Olde Grey Whistle Test") along the way taking swipes at Tom Verlaine and Pete Townshend. Robyn Hitchcock also includes his own inscrutable comics on some of his albums' inner sleeves, most notably (because it's my favorite one) I Often Dream of Trains, although it's almost impossible to read since it's printed in gold on dark green! I can't find examples of any of these things on line, I guess you'll just have to track down the vinyl LPs...Anyway, nothing deep to say here, just something I noticed. If anyone knows of other comics album covers send a link if you like.
(Scan of Vento Sul taken from the excellent Brazilian music blog J Thyme... Kind) Read more...
