#BookReview ‘The Yellow Submarine’ by Bill Morrison

About the book…

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine comes this fully authorized graphic novel adaptation.

The Beatles are recruited by the Captain of the Yellow Submarine to help him free Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the world of Pepperland from the music-hating Blue Meanies.

My thanks to the lovely Will at Titan Books for my gifted review copy of the 50th anniversary edition of ‘Yellow Submarine’

Capturing the psychedelic fevre dream of the 1960’s hippie movement in a lovingly reproduced hardcover, this has all the usual high production values one comes to expect with Titan graphic novels.

Quality paper, intense colouring and crystal clear inking go together to create a vivid retelling of the original animated movie-which I have yet to see, so I was coming to this blind!-and I think that even though it is 50 years old, there is still so much to enjoy.

The mayor of Pepperland sends an envoy for help after they are attacked by the Blue Meanies, some terrifying clown creatures and Turks with sharp teethed mouths in their stomachs. Tackling the aerial assaults is the Dreadful Flying Blue Glove , with its insistent pointing out of the ne’er do wells daring to enjoy their lives.

The concept is simple-the authoritarian haters want to do away with colour, music, anything which makes people essentially feel good about their lives.

The envoy to our world, climbs a Mayan-esque pyramid to find a yellow submarine at the top, gets in it and flies to Liverpool where he encounters Ringo, and enlists him and the other 3 Beatles in a quest to return music and love to Pepperland.

Puns fly thick and fast as the 4 heroes of the story return through a fraught journey, collecting a Booby named Jeremy-read it, it makes some kind of sense even thought this ostensibly good guy talks in annoying rhymes and has a very bizarre mask on its face….-I assume that this is a cultural nod which I didn’t fully get.

The Beatles lyrics are woven through the uber bright cartoon strip, and although the reviews I read referenced a lack of music-not sure how this would be achieved, as literally every mention of ‘Help’, ‘Love is all you need’ and such automatically drop the needle on a mental jukebox record- I found no problem relating the grey and colourless world lacking in elemental beauty , to have a modern relevance.

The Blue Meanies-the establishment, today represented by the Tories, sucking the joy out of the marrow of existence-the authority figures pointing a literal finger, the clowns with upside down smiles which are really screams, the manic looks in the eyes of the bad guys bring to mind the work of Terry Gilliam and Gerald Scarfe.

The manic colours used to decorate and people Pepperland are contrasted with the solid blues of the bad guys, further standing out against the greys and monotones of the ideal ‘blues’ world,

The sardonic and laid back approach of the Beatles shines through the pen and ink strokes of their characters, and I enjoyed this trip aboard the yellow submarine , this adventurous outing to remind you that whilst it is an aspirational hope, love is all you need…

*Things I took umbrage with include the use of Frankenstein/Frankenstein’s monster which irks me wherever and whoever uses it, sorry to be a pedant but there we are!

**The colours were so bright it made me wince on occasion, but that is reflective of the movie as a whole, I could close the book for  a break but watching the movie would be a whole different ballgame.

*** Included at the end are the alternative cover, and original pencil illustrations to the iconic Beatles look, and I really like these type of added extras, .

About the author…

Comic book artist and writer, and co-founder of Bongo Comics (along with Matt Groening and Steve and Cindy Vance). He currently serves as creative director of Bongo Comics.

Morrison is a native of Lincoln Park, Michigan, a Downriver community situated south of Detroit, Michigan. He attended the College for Creative Studies.

Morrison is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America; he created the mural A Century of Values to celebrate the BSA centennial in 2010.

At the beginning of his career in the early 1980s, Morrison worked as a technical illustrator for Artech, Inc. in Livonia, Michigan, before going to work as an illustrator for Disney. Then he worked as an illustrator for The Simpsons and created his own comic Roswell. He served as director for Futurama.

Twitter @BillMorrisonMan @Bongoheads @TitanBooks