Jem, Kimber, Aja, Shana, the Misfits and co. are reacquainting themselves with a new, truly outrageous generation of fans (and they're even taking selfies).
It’s a good time to be Jem and the Holograms fan.
Last month, Universal Pictures released the first still from its live-action movie, which stars Aubrey Peeples as the adventuring pop star. Although the film won’t be released until October, IDW’s comic book adaptation of the popular 1980s cartoon series written by Kelly Thompson and drawn by Sophie Campbell hits store shelves March 25.
We talked to Thompson, who recently landed a co-writing gig launching Marvel’s Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps series in June, about the challenges she and Campbell face telling Jem’s story in a soundless medium and which real-world pop songs the Holograms and the Misfits should cover.
Myspace: Describe Jem and the Holograms for anyone who might not be familiar with the concept. How will the comic differ from the cartoon?
Kelly Thompson: Sure. Jem and the Holograms are a fictional band and the lead characters of a cartoon created by writer Christy Marx for Hasbro in the 1980s. Jem is the alter ego of Jerrica Benton created with the help of a Synergy, a super powerful computer (the ultimate audio/visual system) built by her father. Jem, in concert with her sisters Kimber Benton, Aja Leith, and Shana Elmsford, make up the Holograms. The band also has a fantastic nemesis in a rival band called the Misfits.
A Saturday morning cartoon that finishes up a single story in one half hour is really different than a single comic book arc that plays out over six months, so the mediums necessarily demand a pretty different approach. You have to hit different emotional beats. Additionally since we’ve moved from the ’80s into 2015, we’ll be dealing with more modern 21st century themes, how the world has changed especially when it comes to music, celebrity, and social media.
Myspace: What challenges, if any, have you faced working on a licensed project? Have you been working with the live-action movie production?
Thompson: The process working with IDW and Hasbro has actually been incredibly smooth so far. They have been very receptive and supportive of our ideas. I think the biggest discussions we’ve had are about skirt length, which is pretty minor in the scheme of things!
Myspace: What have the challenges been of conveying sound and music in a visual medium? What techniques have you come up with that have excited you? Are there other comics you've looked to for ideas?
Thompson: Well, as you may have seen from some of the covers and the preview pages, we’re trying to address the music as a concrete visual—using iconic images cut in and out of the sound as well as color to suggest tone. Ideally, if the Misfits and the Holograms played the same song, the visuals would still be really different. I would say one of the things that most excites us however is that a really fun aspect of original Jem cartoon was the off the wall music videos, so we’re trying to really cut loose when the story presents us with those opportunities. Sophie and I of course looked at Scott Pilgrim [a six-volume graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley that was adapted into a film by Edgar Wright], which we both love. We also looked at Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen as another pair of comics creators that do a lot of interesting things with music [the writer and artist, respectively, behind Phonogram, a two-volume comic book series that uses music as magic]. Artists like Meredith McClaren, Becky Cloonan, and Liz Suburbia have also all done interesting things with sound, word balloons, and turning traditionally non-visual things into visuals.
Myspace: You've said in previous interviews that you don't want to pin specific music to the Holograms and the Misfits. You don't want to push readers to a particular sound. How do you and Sophie do that but at the same time convey a specific effect or mood with the music? Or is having readers provide their own interpretations part of the fun?
Thompson: I think having readers provide their own interpretations is definitely part of the fun. Since we can’t actually define the music concretely for them the way that the show did, it’s best I think to let them project themselves into it. Like in a novel where even if you describe how a character looks, a reader is still going to fill in the blanks in their imagination to what that person exactly looks and feels like, it becomes more personal and specific in that way. I’d like it to be the same for the music. They know who are ladies are, what they like, how they dress, as well as the visual cues we give for the music, and of course the lyrics, and all those things together hopefully allow readers to sketch a picture that they can then fill in as best works for them.
Myspace: What kind of musical background, if any, do you have? Were you ever in a band? If not, did you ever want to be? Would you want to be (or were you) the front woman or play an instrument? Has this been a fun opportunity to see if you could write a pop song?
Thompson: Like almost everyone ever, I’ve always wanted to be in a band. I would either want to play bass or be the front woman (or both!). Drums are actually probably my favorite instrument, but you’re always in the background if you play drums and I think I’m too greedy for that, if I’m in a band I want to be front and center! To be honest, writing the music in Jem was one of the things that most terrified me about taking on this project. But it turned out to be one of my favorite aspects. Like any other writing it was just about doing research and getting into the mind of the characters.
Myspace: What are 5 songs you think Jem and the Holograms would cover at a show? What about The Misfits?
Thompson: Oooh. That’s an interesting end-run around not wanting to define their music. Using (mostly) more popular stuff that audiences might know, I’d say …
5 Songs That Jem and the Holograms Might Cover:
- Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
- Katy Perry, “Teenage Dream”
- Dolly Parton, “Jolene”
- Icona Pop, “I Love It”
- The Bee Gees, “How Deep Is Your Love”
5 Songs That the Misfits Might Cover:
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Phenomena”
- Heart, “Barracuda”
- Gloria Jones (made famous by Soft Cell), “Tainted Love”
- Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues”
- Faith No More, “Be Aggressive”
Myspace: Pitch time: I'm an old-school Jem fan. Why am I going to dig this new series?
Thompson: If we’ve done our job right, the new Jem comic is all the Jem characters you so loved 30 years ago, but through a 21st century lens. We’ll be revisiting some of the same classic stories, but with an updated vibe that hopefully will resonate emotionally all over again. Plus, Sophie’s incredible visuals and all new songs! ☺
Myspace: Pitch time revisited: I've never seen the cartoon. Why should I pick up the comic?
Thompson: The comic is about incredibly driven, talented sisters (with badass fashion sense, of course) in a rock band. They’ve got a fantastic over-the-top nemesis in a rival band called the Misfits who are hilarious grouchy divas that will stop at nothing to be the best. There’s fashion, music, and celebrity, all blended with cool sci-fi elements and drawn by Sophie Campbell, one of the best artists in all of comics.
Myspace: What's been the best part of working on this series?
Thompson: It’s been a scary challenge at times to re-invent such a beloved property, but I’ve felt really honored to be trusted with that responsibility (when I’m not terrified). Most importantly working with Sophie has been amazing, writers can only dream of working with someone as talented. I loved these women going into this project, but I cannot believe how much my love for them has grown over the last few months … it was a real surprise. I don’t know how I’ll ever let them go now.
