Neil Young’s Enviropocalyptic Comic

[kpete]

Neil Young’s stirring Greendale started life in 2003 as a crunchy concept album about the enviropocalypse, and quickly became an indie film. The inevitable graphic novel arrives in bookstores Wednesday, viralizing the War on Terra for comics geeks and new adopters.

“Neil gave us a lot of freedom to interpret the story, so I think of our Greendale like a cover song,” artist Cliff Chiang told Wired.com in an e-mail. “ and I wanted to create something that readers unfamiliar with the music could appreciate, but also give fans an alternative look at the album.”

What the comic distinctly offers, as one can see in the exclusive panels above and below, are hazily nightmarish specters of environmental dread and lost innocence. Young’s epic rock opera, recorded with his long-time collaborators in Crazy Horse, conjured dark pictures of a rural community torn apart by oil wars and dumb media. Chiang’s subdued, surreal art delivers an arresting visual dimension to the rock legend’s spiral narrative that’s as whimsical as it is fearsome.



In an increasingly turbulent new millennium — where even legendarily apolitical bands like the Pixies are being called “cultural terrorists” for canceling a tour stop in Israel, while traditionally hyperpolitical bands like Rage Against the Machine are launching sonic strikes at Arizona — rocktivist lifers like Young are beacons in a mind-numbing popscape.

Read More http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/06/greendale-comic/#ixzz0r3juMc00



Read More http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/06/greendale-comic/#ixzz0r3jIUbj8

[LWolf]

1. I saw him present "Greendale" live at the Greek in '03,

and I don't remember it being about an "enviropocalypse."

I didn't see the indie film; was it different than the tour he did to promote the Greendale CD, which I still have around here somewhere?

Does the graphic novel have anything to do with the stage performance I saw?