Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Amaru Ortiz Martinez, Colin Bell, Coll Hamilton, Comics, entertainment, harry french, Lesley Atlansky, master tape

Master Tape Asks – Can Earth Music Be Saved?

By Alasdair Stuart

Master Tape is the story of Leo O'Brien, one of the last A&R men on Earth. It's not so much that the world has risen up and annihilated them, although there are plenty of bands that would like that. Rather, it's that humanity has gone out into the stars, found extra-terrestrial music and fallen in love with it. As a culture, we've embraced the new so much that the idea of four people with guitars and a drum kit being music is a little like handing a Formula 1 driver a boxcar and telling him it's the latest model. We've moved out and up and now Earth music is the sole purview of fanatical fans, hipsters, Leo and his intern who, in a moment of Spider Jerusalemian charm, he refers to simply as 'Intern'.

Then it all goes a bit wrong. Again. Fans of the Scandinavian Death Metal band Leo turned into Christian Black Metal children's entertainers come calling and, well, there's some explosions, some violence and a lot of running. Which is how Leo and Intern meet Salmo Salar and encounter the last thing they expected to:

A New Sound.

Harry French's script zips along and, like Sam Read on Exit Generation, plays cheerfully fast and loose with style. There's a great gag early on involving a reflection and an even better one about what existed before the Universe did.  The script never stops moving, Leo rarely stops talking and the ideas come thick and fast. Even better, French can back up the Ellisian swagger with real talent. Leo is a charming, likable bastard and his scenes with Intern crackle with energy whilst Salmo manages to be both genuinely alien and endearingly rubbish. None of these people work right, all of them live on a planet that no longer works right and you're rooting for them from almost the moment you meet them.

Amaru Ortiz Martinez's art is as nimble and quick-witted as the script. The different types of music are portrayed with just the right combination of detail and abstraction. The character work is perfect too, everyone just flawed enough to be interesting and the action ebbs and flows with real visual wit.

Lesley Atlansky's colors are a vital part of this process too, especially in the Death Metal assault and the final couple of pages whilst Colin Bell's lettering is, again, impressively subtle work. Wrapped up in a Coll Hamilton cover that hits exactly the right notes of pop and sci fi, this is an exuberant, funny, original comic from a major new talent.

It can be picked up here, as can Exit Generation and I recommend both of them. The future's here, and you can dance to it.

Alasdair Stuart is a freelance journalist and podcaster. He hosts Pseudopod (www.pseudopod.org), a weekly horror fiction podcast and co-hosts Escape Pod (www.escapepod.org) it's science fiction sister show. He's also written books and modules for the official Doctor Who, Primeval and Victoriana RPGs and can be found online at www.twitter.com/alasdairstuart.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!