A guitarist pens a GN about hysteria

Rolling Stone interviewed Def Leppard's Phil Collen, who's now producing a GN titled Hysteria, and identifies as the umpteenth supporter of darkness in entertainment:

When Phil Collen was growing up in London in the 1960s, comic books weren’t as popular as they were in the U.S. But the Def Leppard guitarist was a fan anyway. “Some of the news agents would sell these American comics, and I used to just load up on them,” the 66-year-old tells Rolling Stone via phone from his California home. “I’ve actually got The Silver Surfer No. 1. I’ve still got The Incredible Hulk No. 3 and early Batman stuff, all from the Sixties.”

Although he’s admittedly not an ardent comics fan now and hasn’t followed any recent titles, Collen latched onto the art form recently when Vault Comics asked him if he’d like to make a title of his own. Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz had created a graphic novel for them, which Collen enjoyed, but he had other ideas of how it could be done. The guitarist explained that he been writing his own “really dark short stories” lately. “Before you knew it, I’m talking to the writer [Eliot Rahal], and I’d come up with a plot and a plan, and we just kind of expanded on that,” he says.

Now Vault is releasing Hysteria: The Graphic Novel, a book that shares its title with Def Leppard’s magnum opus but little else. Instead, it tells the story of indie rocker, Foz, who fronts a band called Darkside. When she inherits her late father’s estate, she rediscovers a guitar he owned when she was little. Eventually, the instrument begins speaking to her with promises of fame and fortune and she learns the instrument’s true history, part of which is revealed in the graphic novel’s first pages above, premiering here, and hysteria ensues.

So again, no Superman mentioned here. And hysteria's not much better a direction to emphasize than darkness, which he already indicates he's okay with. Wow, how is it these "artistes" get so infatuated with the angle of darkness, basically parroting almost everyone else who does it, and following their lead? It's hugely regrettable.

As revealed in the first few pages of Hysteria, the story gets bloody pretty quickly. What attracts you to writing about darker subjects?

The world is a fairly dark place, and human beings are not that complicated. You look at history, social things, or politics, and it’s always been exactly the same. People fall at the first hurdle or the shiny things, like celebrity, power, or money, and stuff. The story’s always the same. It’s just a very interesting way to dress up in different things. I remember reading the early Stephen King books, like The Shining, and I was fascinated by the darkness. My favorite movie is Alien, the very first one that’s kind of right up there. Shawshank Redemption is great. They’re all fairly dark. The interest comes from growing up and loving the cult of horror movies.

As expected, he adds in all the choice words for gushing how great darkness and the horror thriller genre are. And only makes clear what a bad influence they can actually be. I may have seen 2 or 3 movies adapted from King's writings (Cujo, The Running Man), but in hindsight, he's one of the most overrated writers of all time, and hasn't made things any better with some of his more recent manuscripts either. But "fairly" dark? It's worse than that.

What inspired the music of the punk band Darkside in the Hysteria graphic novel?

Basically, it’s a three-piece punk band that gets really popular, and they go through these changes. The music we’re recording, I don’t know if it’s going to be an EP, an LP, or whatever, but it starts off very aggressive, very Pistols-esque or kind of like L7. They’re kind of nasty and they’re pissed off, and it’s all of these things. They’re just post-teen, so they’ve still got this anger and rage and everything, so that comes through.

As they get more successful, the music starts changing. It gets a little more refined. It progresses into a cool, commercial thing, because the more they get into this thing with this possessed guitar, success pushes them a bit further, so the songs start changing. That’s a whole new different project on that as well.

I hope that's an indication the story will turn more towards optimism, but Mr. Collen's standings aren't likely to change regarding the horror genre and darkness, which means that for all we know, he may continue to develop more comic projects that'll rely on the themes, and for all we know, his approach in the forseeable future won't change much, if at all. Too bad. The comedy genre's been so badly marginalized, and one might think a musician would consider humor a valid source of creativity. Which is why it's a shame Collen won't clearly distinguish himself.