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Sound Affects: Visualizing Music, Musicians, and (Sub)cultural Identity in and

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This chapter discusses the portrayal of popular music in comics as a product of sensory and emotive experience, as well as a determinant of social identity and labour. To this end, it focuses on the Japanese serialized manga BECK and the Canadian graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim. These two works offer comparable perspectives on music and the social mythos of musicianship, as well as sharing similar young male protagonists and social contexts, despite their disparate settings in Tokyo and Toronto, respectively. Through a comparative reading of these texts, this analysis examines contemporary comic book techniques as well as the cross-cultural dynamics of Japanese and Anglo-American comic book cultures, specifically with regard to the portrayal of workers in fields of cultural production. In order to examine their interrelated depictions of music as both sensorial experience and enactment of collective identity, I draw on the canon of comic book semiotics established by Scott McCloud, Ian Hague, and others to examine the techniques employed by these texts in communicating music as an emotive sensorial experience. In particular, I will concentrate on their use of diagrammatic techniques and visual caricature as a means of communicating music – not through attempted synaesthetic effects, but rather through emotive evocation. Second, I look at their representation of musicianship as an area in which the mythology of artistic entrepreneurialism coexists with imperatives of collective identity and lifestyle. I examine the sociologically idiosyncratic manner in which these comics reflect and build upon these mythologies through the filters of class, cultural, and generational identity, creating narratives that at times perpetuate – and at others subvert – the grand entrepreneurial narratives ascribed to musicianship within contemporary neo-liberal notions of creative labour.

Hardback ISBN: 9781789389494
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Sound Affects: Visualizing Music, Musicians, and (Sub)cultural Identity in and
Intellect , 135 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389494_10
/content/books/9781789389494.c09
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References

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  27. Sakuishi, H. (2010), ‘Beck manga online by Harold Sakuishi’, AnyManga, https://mangadex.org/title/4cf9b503-439a-48f7-9fc5-21831087a421?tab=art. Accessed 20 October 2023.
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References

  1. Adorno, T. (1994), ‘Analytical study of the NBC “Music Appreciation Hour”’, The Musical Quarterly, 78:2, pp. 325–77, https://doi.org/10.1093/mq/78.2.325.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Auslander, P. (2005), ‘Liveness: Performance and the anxiety of simulation’, in A. Bennett, B. Shank and J. Toynbee (eds), The Popular Music Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, pp. 85–94.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Chalup, S. K., Chong, K., and Ostwald, M. J. (2010), ‘Simulating pareidolia of faces for architectural image analysis’, International Journal of Computer Information Systems and Industrial Management Applications, 2, pp. 262–78, https://www.mirlabs.org/ijcisim/regular_papers_2009/IJCISIM_Vol_2_Paper_26.pdf. Accessed 1 November 2013.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. D'Anjou, L. (2010), ‘The riddles of rock and roll’, ICCE WWW Info Server, University of Groningen, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/18517689.pdf. Accessed 20 October 2010.
  5. Godek, T. (2006), ‘Music and comics: Two great tastes that taste great together?’ ComixTALK, 19 March, http://comixtalk.com/music_and_comics_two_great_tastes_taste_great_together/. Accessed 22 September 2010.
  6. Ebert, R. (2009), ‘Commentary’, in I. Takahata, Grave of the Fireflies, Houston: ADV Films.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Hague, I. (2014), Comics and the Senses: A Multisensory Approach to Comics and Graphic Novels, New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Herzog, A. (2009), ‘Introduction’, in Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 1–38.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Iwabuchi, K. (2004), ‘How Japanese is Pokemon?’ in J. J. Tobin (ed.), Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Riseand Fall of Pokémon, Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 53–79.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Keen, S. (2011), ‘Fast tracks to narrative empathy: Anthropomorphism and dehumanization in graphicnarratives’, SubStance, 40:1, pp. 135–55, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41300192. Accessed 1 November 2013.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Kruse, H. (2003), ‘Locating subjectivity in independent music’, in Site and Sound: Understanding Independent MusicScenes (Music/Meanings), New York: Peter Lang Publishing, pp. 113–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Laughey, D. (2006), ‘Subculture, club culture and post-subcultures: Music/social interactions?’ in Music and Youth Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 14–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Mann, R. (2002), Comic Book Confidential, Los Angeles: Homevision.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Matsue, J. (2008), ‘Introduction: Ethnography of a scene’, in Making Music in Japans Underground: The Tokyo Hardcore Scene (East Asia: History, Politics, Sociology & Culture), New York: Routledge, pp. 1–27.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. McCloud, S. (1994), ‘The vocabulary of comics’, in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Brattleboro: HarperPaperbacks, pp. 24–59.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Moore, R. (2009), ‘Young, gifted, and slack’, in Sells like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, and Social Crisis, London: NYU Press, pp. 114–55.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. O'Malley, B. L. (2004), Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, New York City: Oni Press.159
     [Google Scholar]
  18. O'Malley, B. L. (2005), Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, New York City: Oni Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. O'Malley, B. L. (2006), Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, New York City: Oni Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. O'Malley, B. L. (2007a), Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, New York City: Oni Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. O'Malley, B. L. (2007b), ‘The Annotated Pilgrim, Part 4’, RADIOMARU, 14 February, https://web.archive.org/web/20100823220111/http://radiomaru.com/2007/02/14/the-annotated-pilgrim-part-4/. Accessed 20 October 2023.
  22. O'Malley, B. L. (2008a), ‘The Annotated Pilgrim, Part 5’, RADIOMARU, 17 May, https://web.archive.org/web/20100911084053/http://radiomaru.com/2008/05/17/the-annotated-pilgrim-part-5. Accessed 20 October 2023.
  23. O'Malley, B. L. (2008b), ‘The Annotated Pilgrim: Volume 3, Part 1’, RADIOMARU, 23 May, https://web.archive.org/web/20100911084057/http://radiomaru.com/2008/05/23/the-annotated-pilgrim-volume-3-part-1. Accessed 20 October 2023.
  24. O'Malley, B. L. (2009), Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe (Scott Pilgrim's), New York City: Oni Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. O'Malley, B. L. (2010), Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour, 6th ed., New York City: Oni Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Pool, J. (2010), ‘The Harold Sakuishi interview’, Tokyopop, https://web.archive.org/web/20100116001709/http://www.tokyopop.com/Robofish/tp_article/286717.html. Accessed 20 October 2023.
  27. Sakuishi, H. (2010), ‘Beck manga online by Harold Sakuishi’, AnyManga, https://mangadex.org/title/4cf9b503-439a-48f7-9fc5-21831087a421?tab=art. Accessed 20 October 2023.
  28. Sorensen, L.-M. (2009), ‘The bestseller recipe: A natural explanation on the global success of anime’, Post Script, 28:2, https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+bestseller+recipe%3A+a+natural+explanation+of+the+global+success+of...-a0200723437. Accessed 14 April 2010.
  29. Stahl, M. (2008), ‘Sex and drugs and bait and switch: Rockumentary and the new model worker’, in D. Hesmondhalgh and J. Toynbee (eds), The Media and Social Theory, New York: Routledge, pp. 231–47.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Toynbee, J. (2000), ‘Market: The selling of soul(s)’, in Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions, London: Arnold Publishers, pp. 1–33.
     [Google Scholar]

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