Hard Rock Comics Part 1 - Hard Rock Out with Your Cock Out

This edition of Fucking Comics, we're going to take a look at the series Hard Rock Comics, published by the now defunct independent comic book publisher, Revolutionary Comics. Which is a bit of a shocker for me. Why? Because Revolutionary Comics was an independency publisher, and if there are any causes I firmly support, it's independent art. But there are lines that should never be crossed. And this is one of them. You'll see.

For those who aren't aware, Revolutionary Comics breathed it's first back in 1989, and they mostly dealt with creating comic book biographies of popular musicians of the time. As an independent, and not having the rights to do so, more often than not their biographies were unauthorized. It lead to a bunch of law suits in the future, but nothing they couldn't get around.

Revolutionary comics boasted themselves as being "Unauthorized and Proud of It", because you know, it was the late 80's, early 90's so selling out was a total faux pas. Now, if you ask me, there are two kinds of musicians in the world. The kind that are willing to be told what sort of music to play and live comfortable lives of financial security (if they spend their money right) and then there are the ones who want to do their own thing and practically starve if they make the wrong decisions.

Whatever your choice is, whatever, I listen to music for music's sake, not for how much money the mother fucker on the receiving end of that royalty cheque is getting. Music is art, and I'm going to decide if I like it or not base on if I like the sound, not what the musician is doing.

But I digress....

Getting back to the story of Revolutionary Comics, they also printed a number of other unauthorized books and magazines, and they had a bunch of in-prints (just like a really bonafied comic company!)

Not only did they do comics base on Rock 'n' Roll stars, but also sports legends, contemporary biographies on people like Stan Lee, and probably an embarrassing line of Beverly Hills: 90210 cast biography books. If that weren't enough, they also had an imprint called "Carnal Comics".. Which, as you can guess is porn comics.

Americas answer to Hentai, I suppose.

In 1992, it's founder, Todd Loren was murdered in his San Diego apartment. Now while most people figure it was serial killer Andrew Cunanan who murdered Loren, I'm highly suspicious that perhaps it was a disgruntled comic book fan (San Diego is home of the worlds biggest comic book convention, Todd Loren was the founder of a comic book company? See the connection? See? Yeah, I'm an asshole for making light of someone's murder.)

No surprise that when Revolutionary Comics went out of business (however, there has recently been a web site opened offering all the old comics on CD), the only surviving thing to do with the company was it's adult imprint Carnal Comics, which is still in print today (Wait, pornography sells? What a shocker!)

... Anyway, enough with the history lesson for now, today we're going to look at one of their imprint titles: Hard Rock Comics. Hard Rock comics was a title that featured unauthorized comic book biographies of "hard rock" musicians such as Metallica, Megadeath and... uh... Joan Jett...

But specifically we're going to look at two issues that focused on the music of my generation, whatever you fuck you want to call my generation.

Back in the early to mid 90's when I was on the road to puberty (Which, like everyone else was a fucking disaster I care not to speak about), Grunge rock was the in thing. Grunge, was like punk, except for a lot more mumbling, screaming about rape, and wearing flannel. Apparently. What the fuck do I know, the whole first half of the 90's I was listening to nothing but "Weird Al" Yankovic, and shunning everything else that my brother would start listening too, because he started by listening to Coolio, and Kriss/Cross and it made me not fucking trust the music industry (when really, I shouldn't have trusted my brothers obviously awful taste in music.)

Now granted, I came out of my little "Weird Al" shell (Although, I still love that guy to death, comedic genius is Al Yankovic), I never really got into Grunge music. Oh, I had friends who listened to Nirvana, and all the other bands out there (I bet some of even listened to Hole albums, while locked away in their closets as to not alert anyone that they were responsible for prolonging Courtney Love's financial security before Kurt died.)

Now here's the thing, today, I cannot stand any of these musicians. None of them. Over played, and over obsessed, I am sick to death of hearing about them. Probably because I never had that connection.

When Kurt Cobain blew his fucking brains out one day, I remember a kid in my class came up to me and said "Dude, Kurt Cobain shot himself today!" and I was like "Who's Kurt Cobain?" What the fuck do you expect? I was fucking 12 years old man! He looks at me like I drew a picture of Mohammad and shat on it after I said that.

What the hell do you want from me man? I don't like Nirvana. There I said it. Kurt Cobain was about as innovative as Sid Vicious was 20 years before hand! I think Dennis Leary had a point when he said that musicians who die young never go the fuck away (at least he didn't steal that from Bill Hicks... 's far as I know anyway.)

Anyway, before I go off on a rant about how much of an idiot Kurt Cobain is (and piss off every Nirvana fan on the planet -- shit, you wouldn't see that sort of furor if Dave Grohl killed himself, am I right?) let's get back on subject.

The issues of Hard Rock comics we're going to take a look at today are focused on Nirvana (in Hard Rock Comics #4) and Pearl Jam/Soundgarden (In issue #8) and I will try not to stray from my contention that Hard Rock comics fucking sucked, and try not to deviate into a rant about how much I hate Nirvana, Soundgarden and/or Pearl Jam.

But before we begin, if you feel compelled to send me hate mail due to my opinions on Nirvana or any of the bands that I am about to mention, feel free, but just remember that we have a statement about hate mail and we will publish the e-mail you send to us, and we will make fun of you. Also, ones taste in music is subjective to the individual, I am merely stating my own opinion (which last I checked in a democracy I am able to do.) And if you think I'm some high and might music snob, I am not, I listen to Ska music. I don't think I have to say anything more about my taste in music than that.