A picture is worth a thousand little words

March 9, 2011 6:36 PM

69 Love Songs, Illustrated is a blog where comic book artists and illustrators interpret the songs on The Magnetic Fields' classic album 69 Love Songs.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn (17 comments total)

This is so, so, so cool. I hope all of them get drawn.
posted by zardoz at 6:41 PM on March 9, 2011

This is a stupendously wonderful idea, but I'm irked by how dissimilar the illustrations are to these songs in my imagination. I don't want to be overly critical, but I get the sense that not many of the artists really considered the songs.

This one is cute, though, and somehow Magnetic Fieldsy enough for me.
posted by byanyothername at 6:43 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ditto this one, which captures the oldmaidness to so many Magnetic Fields songs so well, and this one which gets the slightly absurd paeans to loneliness just right. What doesn't work for me about these is more than just the artists' styles clashing with my expectations--this isn't what I think of when I think of Magnetic Fields, but it really does work for me. A lot of these feel like the artist imposing on the song, which makes me strangely angry, because these songs mean more to me than I realized and I seemingly have some strong but inexpressible visual correlation with music.

This post and this project are both awesome, by the way, in case my comments sound too booing.
posted by byanyothername at 6:53 PM on March 9, 2011

Ruined my favorite song!

Saved a middling song!

Cute for a Cute Song

Kinda Brilliant

Lame! Song is so much better.

Not feeling it
posted by The Whelk at 7:06 PM on March 9, 2011

Thank you. <3
posted by schyler523 at 7:12 PM on March 9, 2011

A lot of these are awfully literal, but then, I guess they are illustrators.
posted by Flashman at 7:17 PM on March 9, 2011

Papa was a Rodeo ought to be a hoot.
posted by notsnot at 7:19 PM on March 9, 2011

Papa was a Rodeo was basically how my Mom explained how I came to exist, so I have unreasonably high expectations.
posted by The Whelk at 7:46 PM on March 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

You're 12 years old?
posted by kittyprecious at 7:47 PM on March 9, 2011

...pretty much.
posted by The Whelk at 7:48 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I liked these -- and I even liked this one, but am I the only one who was kinda disappointed that the protagonist of the "When My Boy Walks Down The Street" comic was a woman?
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 8:13 PM on March 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

It's funny how strong my opinions are on these. I'm glad 69 Love Songs is unlikely to be adapted to the screen because I am now reasonably sure I would loathe it.

I did like Love is Like Jazz and Xylophone. And, yes, When My Boy being a straight romance was kind of a travesty.
posted by troublesome at 8:50 PM on March 9, 2011

I know it's the wrong album, but I'd love to see Two Characters In Search Of A Country Song.
posted by maryr at 9:55 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, many of these are disappointing, but I did really enjoy Zebra and Reno Dakota. It'll be funny if it turns out that everyone agrees that most of them didn't capture the songs but nobody can agree on which ones did.
posted by phoenixy at 11:11 PM on March 9, 2011

I guess I Think I Need A New Heart is cute enough. I suppose. At least, when I look at it I can imagine the artist listening to the song when working on the entry.

"The Book of Love" looks like someone looked over the lyrics but was listening to some wholly different playlist.
posted by rewil at 1:41 AM on March 10, 2011

There was a puzzle based on this in this year's MIT Mystery Hunt.
posted by novalis_dt at 11:34 AM on March 10, 2011

If you like this you might enjoy Put the book back on the shelf, the comic book of Belle and Sebastian songs.
posted by ciderwoman at 1:06 PM on March 10, 2011