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I'm not a big fan of anthologies even though I love the idea of them, they usually wind up being too hit and miss for me to enjoy them completely, but every once in a while I get suckered into buying one. The hook for me here was that Put The Book Back On The Shelf is a graphic novel anthology of stories based on songs by Belle & Sebastian, one of my favorite bands and a band whose songs are very narrative to begin with so you would think this would be a great marriage of art and music. However, most of the creative teams on this book seemed to have missed the point of the songs they chose to adapt. Some even seemed to have ignored them altogether (one story actually features a ninja for god's sake). Although a couple of the offering boast nice artwork and a sensibility that fits with the band's style, most of the stories reminded me of some sort of college art assignment that a student spent very little time on. It's possible also that since B&S's songs do such a good job of telling a story on their own that adding visuals to them can only take away from the experience of listening.

Posted at March 20, 2006 01:03 PM

Rich -

Neeth and I saw B&S 3 weeks ago in NYC ... great show!

Posted by: Mike Mc at March 21, 2006 09:42 AM