“The Velvet Underground”, a well-documented comic book, looks back on the tumultuous journey of Lou Reed and John Cale’s group

Meticulously documented and drawn, this new comic strip returns to the chaotic trajectory of the Velvet Underground. The author probes the faults and motivations of its members, and lays bare the fault lines which fertilized the creation of the New York group, precursor of punk, propelled by Andy Warhol.

From Jimi Hendrix to Oum Kalthoum or Thelonious Monk, which music legend doesn’t have his own comic book or graphic novel today? In 2021, Prosperi Buri already gave us a hilarious portrait of the Velvet Underground (A History of the Velvet Underground at Dargaud). Even if we know the tumultuous journey of the creature of Lou Reed and John Cale in broad terms, it remains a pleasure to read a new version of the history of a group which left its mark on its era and influenced several generations of musicians. Because, like a biopic in cinema, the look is never the same.

Koren Shadmi, author and designer of The Velvet Underground – In the excitement of the Warhol Factory, has a rather psychological approach. He probes the flaws and motivations of his characters and lays bare the fault lines that will fertilize creation. He chose to open his comic book with the funeral of Andy Warhol in 1987. A way of emphasizing the role that the father of pop art played in the rise of the Velvet Underground, by presenting them as an innovative group, involved in his research artistic avant-garde and the excitement of its famous “Factory”.

Two painful souls

He then returns to the parallel mistreated and painful youths of Lou Reed and John Cale, the driving tandem of Velvet, born a week apart in March 1942, but thousands of kilometers from each other. On Long Island (United States), Lou Reed, a literary man who his parents worried about his marginal behavior (homosexuality, drugs) will think “fix” by subjecting him to electroshocks as a teenager. On the other side of the Atlantic, in Wales, John Cale, abused by the church organist at the age of 12, whose depression and anger grows sheltered from his experimental sound research. Music will be their outlet.

We follow the meeting of these two tortured souls in New York in the 1960s, and how their personalities will infuse into the Velvet Underground, which they founded after some trial and error, named in reference to a book about “sexual depravity”. A non-conformist group with assumed darkness, led by a common desire to shock and document the margins in words and sounds, with “portraits, news, experiences. As Last Exit to Brooklyn [le roman choc de Hubert Selby Jr paru en 1964] but in song. I want it to sink in. Bam!”, explains Lou Reed in the comic strip. Andy Warhol will impose his new muse on them, the blonde German singer Nico, the fourth character on whom the comic strip focuses.

An uncompromising portrait

Soon, even as their group continues to vegetate, Lou and John tear each other apart, vying for leadership like the worst enemy brothers, sometimes coming to blows. Lou defends the rock side, John the experimental side. “This tension between pop and avant-garde quickly bears fruit.”writes the author, which shows the antagonisms and contradictions at work in this group and what they allowed to hatch and invent.

With a classic style capable of deploying a profusion of details as well as favoring purity, the author favors muted twilight tones and astonishing purplish grays. A design that fits the pioneering group of punk like a glove, whose figures he skilfully sketches, Lou Reed even having a false air of Frankenstein from time to time.

Without complacency, Koren Shadmi does nothing to make his characters sympathetic. Lou Reed is particularly undrinkable: paranoid, eruptive, aggressive, he is with everyone, and particularly with the women around him, starting with Nico, whom he verbally tortures on all occasions. “This is my way of saying I love you.”he admitted, wryly, when meeting John Cale in 1987, years after their breakup.

Profusion of little-known anecdotes

The author knows how to use all the details he has gleaned from his documentation to advance the story carefully. Punctuated with information and little-known anecdotes, his scenario is a treat to read. In small touches, he manages to say a lot about each person, and even about the era. For example, Warhol called the tandem Lou and John “l“audio sadists”. Moe Tucker, the Velvet’s drummer, was so uncomfortable at Warhol’s Factory that she used to hide in a cubbyhole out of sight, where Nico finds her by chance in a poignant scene from comics.

Another delightful detail: in 1966, in Los Angeles, when a journalist collected the public’s impressions after a Velvet concert (as part of Warhol’s multimedia show called Exploding Plastic Inevitable), the musician David Crosby responded: “It feels like you’re eating banana soap.”. The singer Cher believes that “they will not replace anyone, except perhaps suicide.” A way of reminding us that although it has been cult for decades, the Velvet Underground took a long time to be appreciated.

“The Velvet Underground – In the excitement of the Warhol Factory” by Koren Shadmi, with script and drawing (Edition La Boîte à Bulles, 26 euros) was released on February 15, 2024.