Ladies Making Comics

How to Get Inspired like Becky Cloonan and Fiona Staples

HuffPo asked some comics creators about the music they listen to while they work.  Here’s what the ladies said (I have helpfully provided YouTube links):

Becky Cloonan: Enough Metal to Build a Bomb Shelter

I love metal. And since everybody is (or rather, should be) acquainted with Iron Maiden and Sabbath (RIP Dio) I’ll list some essential albums for people who are looking to get into ambient pagan semi-acoustic neo-folk music with eternally grim and frostbitten black metal roots! This is atmospheric, melodic black metal at its finest, and these are all albums I go to again and again.

My job (drawing comic books!) requires me to read scripts, layout pages, and occasionally write, so a lot of the time I’m listening to music that is more atmospheric. That and I’m not an angry mohawked teenager anymore, so it’s nice to find bands that embody qualities that I love about black metal, but aren’t afraid to whip out their acoustic guitars and bring it down from 11 to maybe five or six when the song calls for it.

I hope everybody starts listening to black metal so we can get these bands to tour the U.S. a little more. Come on guys! Don’t make me move to Europe. (I’ll do it, I swear!)”

• Winterfylleth - The Mercian Sphere
• Nest - Trail of the Unwary
• Empyrium - Weiland
• Ulver - Kveldssanger
• Vàli - Forlatt
• Wardruna - Runaljod (Gap Var Ginnunga)
• Wodensthrone - Loss
• Tenhi - Maaäet
• Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit

Fiona Staples:

The Jesus & Mary Chain: I just play all their albums from Psychocandy to Munki. I don’t know why this is my favourite band to work to — I guess they hit just the right level of intensity, where I’m energized but not distracted.

The Cramps: All the songs about voodoo and monsters keep my mind in that special comic-drawing space.

The Diddy Kong Racing Extended Soundtrack: This is reserved for when it’s like four in the morning and I’m racing against a deadline, and already going insane anyway so why not embrace it.

I can definitely relate to that last one…