A Rock Star Takes On Rockstars: The Anniversary’s Josh Berwanger Reflects on Joe Harris & Megan Hutchison’s New Image Comic
Main Art by Megan Hutchison
Writer: Joe Harris
Artist: Megan Hutchison
Publisher: Image Comics
What does “saving rock ‘n’ roll” mean? To the kid who goes to house shows every weekend, rock ‘n’ roll never left. To the frat guy and his bros, maybe Creed saved it.
But what about the person who bleeds these words from their mouth: “WHAT WILL SAVE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!?” In my opinion, these people are from another time: when popular music wasn’t watered down, when rock wasn’t a dog-and-pony show filled with cheap lyrical content, when guitars didn’t sound like digital puke and when band members cared more about writing a song with substance than about their social media status. As far as these people are concerned, “great” rock ‘n’ roll is over, and, sadly, they may be right.
Enter the first issue of Rockstars from Image Comics. Jackie is obsessed with music and can obviously be put into the category of humans who were “born too late.” He sits in his room trying to decipher rock’s greatest mysteries and myths, from “Paul is Dead” to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon syncing with The Wizard of Oz. But Jackie has also stumbled onto something else—the mysterious disappearance of groupies active in the ‘70s, and it just so happens that a groupie has recently been found dead. Is it a coincidence? Is it supernatural? Does rock ‘n’ roll carry a pact with the devil?