First Look: Oblivion Suite
Oblivion Suite is the story of the band Figgy Pudding, a 1970s progressive rock band offered a Faustian bargain allowing them to enter an alternate dimension based on their own music and concept records. There they’re given the chance to save their former bandleader, the enigmatic, brilliant and quite mad Vic Bixby.
Oblivion Suite is also a comic book created by myself and artist Catalina Rufin. Catalina is ridiculously talented and loves and knows more about progressive rock than any person who wasn’t actually in a prog band has any right to. Check out some of the artwork, click on 'em to embiggen and turn them into a slideshow:
Catalina has infused everything on these pages with so much damn charm and imagination, it’s been a really unique experience for me to witness Catalina conjuring up all of my descriptions and transforming them into a living breathing world, and I’ve loved every second of it.
Our story owes a heavy debt to the Pink Floyd mythos involving Syd Barett’s breakdown and the subsequent spectre he cast over the remaining band members and all of their later works. But Oblivion Suite is also its own thing and draws from a lot of prog rock hearsay and lore as well just good old-fashioned comic book creativity.
In other words:
We made a lot of it up.
Right now we have almost the entire book up on Tumblr and will be sharing more pages as the book progresses (Get it? Get it? Naw… you don’t get it…) Eventually we’ll collect the book into a proper edition with all sorts of bells, whistles and whackadoo cool-fangled other stuff.
Until then, read it on Tumblr from page 1 or just check out some random pages. Dig on the dreamy art, laugh at the Spinal Tap meets Velvet Goldmine dialogue. Most importantly, get to know the band and the cast of our story:
Wyatt Sink, the control freak lyricist and keyboard player.
Zachary Rai, guitar god and voice man, though he can’t write a decent tune himself to save his life.
Ruford Gibbons, the drummer. In Catalina’s own words: “Precious manchild, stoner extraordinaire.” Yeps, that’s our Ruford.
Frankie Gideon, the outrageous glam rocker and possible adversary to Wyatt and the Figgy lads. Frankie is a cocktail with equal doses of Bowie, Bolan and Peter Gabriel for added spice.
Vic Bixby, the shattered and strung out genius at the heart of the Figgy universe.
And finally, Mista Bizness, the moustached, bowler hat donning sinister gentleman replete with snakes for fingers who has leapt off the album art of Oblivion Suite, Figgy Pudding’s latest concept album, and into the real world offering the band an invitation to save their former leader and dear friend Vic. But of course, with Bizness there’s always a price, so what will it cost the band?
P.S. That tasty band logo was designed by Dan Singleton, he's the best.