by Jason Iannone

Hey, you like comics? You do? Great! Hey, you like Coldplay? You don’t? Too bad! Because the two are coming together in Mylo Xyloto, the latest attempt to take a comic book, base it on a rock song, and have it actually make a lick of sense. And with plot descriptions like, “a young Silencer on the front lines of a war against sound and color in the world of Silencia,” you can be sure they’re well on their way.

But we’re not here to discuss Coldplay; if we were, we’d probably fall asleep halfway through the seconpaaraghzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

See? So no more Coldplay songs. Let’s discuss different songs instead, and how they too could be turned into crappy comics! There have been a lot of characters in songs that needed way more than four minutes to have their tale told. And, through the medium of comics, they may finally get their chance. Unless nobody pays us to write them. In that case, all you get is this silly little article. Them’s the breaks.

Also, we’re not giving away the endings. If these things get picked up and actually made, we obviously wouldn’t want spoilers all over the place. Also, we didn’t think of any.

Jeremiah the Bullfrog

For crying out loud, we can’t even tell if he’s a literal or metaphorical bullfrog from this!

If anyone in rock needed a fleshed-out story, it’s Jeremiah the frog. All we know about him is that he was some guy’s friend, he talked in pure gibberish, and he only drank the finest wine. Clearly, this is a special kind of frog; most of the ones we hang out consume nothing but Night Train and year-old Wine-In-A-Box from the local Wal-Mart. Also, our frogs speak English, but have nothing interesting to say at all. Such a drag.

Sadly, we get no info about Jeremiah after the first verse; the rest of the song is just the singer yakking about loving the ladies, along with something about being a rainbow rider. So let’s take that throwaway line and give it some depth; Jeremiah was a bullfrog, but was also the leader of The Rainbow Riders, a group of rebels who band together to overthrow an evil clan of cannibal frogs (yes, they exist), who wish to marinate Jeremiah in his own wine and then swallow him whole.

At least, that’s what the rebels think they’re fighting for. Since Jeremiah apparently couldn’t be more unintelligible if he were the lovechild of Bane and South Park’s Kenny, there would always be the question of what he REALLY wants. After all, bullfrogs eat everything, not just other bullfrogs. If Jeremiah is actually working WITH the cannibal frogs then, a whole mess of them could easily overtake the other Rainbow Riders and make them into a delicious stew. Should’ve stuck with human friends, Mr. Three Dog Night singer guy. It’s a hell of a lot easier to tell when one of THEM wants to eat you.

And hey, DC Comics — is it that far a leap from losers like the Rainbow Raiders to the hard-partying Rainbow Riders?

Mickey

Seriously, this innocuous little cheerleader song is ripe with disturbing implications. Basically, Toni Basil wants Mickey, and she wants him bad. But Mickey, shockingly enough, wants to take it slow and not rush into things. Who knows why; perhaps it’s because Toni, while not ugly in any way, shape, or form, somehow came across as the creepiest cheerleader of all time. When you’re wearing enough makeup that even the ’80s stops to shake its head at you, you’re not a cheerleader; you’re a doll given life to kill in the name of its voodoo master. Plus, even in the realm of cheesy, early-80’s, girl-pop, she really wasn’t anything special. Maybe Mickey was just saving himself for Olivia Newton-John. Now there’s a girl who could show you the gates of Xanadu.

The bulk of the song is Toni pleading with Mickey to, well, bed her. He never does. So a Mickey comic book would explore the natural next step of the relationship, where Toni starts stalking Mickey incessantly and threatens to kidnap him and make him her live-in sex slave. Hey Mickey, you so fine, I’ll chain you up and make you mine! Hey Mickey! Oh Mickey you so fine, in my attic till the end of time! Hey Mickey!

Cheerleader outfits: hot even when they’re unnerving

Realizing he’s in major trouble, Mickey files a restraining order, and hires a team of bodyguards, to keep Toni away from him, his family, and anyone he even remotely likes in this world. In addition, he finds himself a girlfriend: a big, muscular, angry girlfriend. Not because he’s attracted to her or anything; it’s just a precaution, in case the bodyguards can’t bring themselves to hit a girl, or are turned on by creepy 40-year-old cheerleaders.

Of course, even if the plan works, and Toni is ultimately beaten up by the bodybuilder lady and carted away, Mickey’s life could become even worse. Once the bodybuilder realizes he doesn’t actually care about her, and sees her as little more than protection, then good luck stopping her angry vengeance. Hey Mickey, you so fine, your lady’s gonna break your spine, hey Mickey!

Particle Man

WARNING: The links in this section may contain movie spoilers. If you don’t want us ruining things you haven’t seen, don’t click on any of these links. Hell, don’t even scroll over them. You’ve been warned. Now, back to your regularly scheduled immature humor.

This song’s already about superheroes (we think), so turning it into a comic book is a natural transition. The chain of command among these super-powered (again, we think) beings is as follows: Particle Man gets his ass kicked by Triangle Man, who also kicks the crap out of Person Man. OK, so it’s not really a chain, per se, as it is an anthropomorphic triangle going on a psychotic rampage.

Meanwhile, Universe Man waits in the wings, not really doing anything other than being unspeakably large. So the Particle Man comic would tackle the one epic battle that They Might Be Giants didn’t mention: Universe Man vs. Triangle Man, for the honor of Person Man. See, Person Man is Universe Man’s friend, and Triangle Man all but left Person Man for dead. Now Universe Man is pissed, and has Triangle Man in his sights.

“Alternative polka” isn’t a phrase that gets used a lot, but here we are regardless

Now, depending on who writes this thing, Triangle Man could be the greatest supervillian of them all, managing to upend what’s basically an entire universe up until the very end, or it could be like Bambi vs. Godzilla, where Triangle Man’s crushed to smithereens, and everything’s wrapped up in one gory, hilarious panel.

Of course, if they don’t want to do either, they could just do what comic writers do best: re-boot continuity and resurrect dead people. After all, the song’s named after Particle Man; why just kill a main character in the beginning and hardly mention them again? That never works!

So Particle Man could suddenly swoop in, just as Triangle Man was about to kill Universe Man, and save the day with no decent explanation whatsoever. Hurray! This idea woud succeed because, at the end of the day, most of us are still little children who like our stories to have convenient, happy endings, no matter how ludicrous the path to get there is. It makes tuck-in time so much easier.

Disco Duck

That album’s somehow even more annoying than we expected

Yes, this stupid song, written by Satan under the pseudonym of Rick Dees, actually has a story. Basically, some random schmo is disco dancing, when he suddenly turns into a duck. And then he just keeps dancing. And that’s it. Hey, we never said it was a good story, just a story. It was still more detailed than you probably thought.

But dammit, we need more! A man just turned into a duck. Nobody’s questioning this? They must’ve been really stoned at that disco hall to just accept that a man can become a giant mallard for no good reason. Well, we assume he’s a giant mallard. He might’ve been the size of a regular duck; the song doesn’t say.

It actually doesn’t matter; in a Disco Duck comic, a team of scientists learn of the magical man-duck, track him down, and kidnap him for a series of tests. Their goal is, naturally, to determine how a man could just transform into a duck, with no chemicals, no pills, and no voodoo curse. Did his father screw a duck? Couldn’t be, because the result of such a tryst wouldn’t be an intelligent being, more human than duck, who dances and speaks perfect English. Also, ewwwwwwww.

One thing we’re sure of: the reason for his transformation will NOT be the power of music. For one thing, that’s the lamest idea ever, reserved purely for romantic comedies starring hot new Disney channel sensation Annette Selena Lovato-Cyrus. Also, that would imply that disco is music.

Also (again), we can do far better. If Marvel Comics is willing to not sue the pants off of us, then he could be the love child of Howard The Duck and some random groupie. And then, once Howard learns that his offspring is into disco, he can beat the living crap out of him. For pages and pages and pages.

Billy Joe and Bobby Sue

Steve Miller may have told the most incomplete story of all time with “Take The Money And Run.”  Billie and Bobbie are a couple of amateur hoodlums, who robbed a rich Texan and fled the country. There’s a detective who wants to catch them and…that’s it. Nothing else. He doesn’t actually go after them or anything. Perhaps he heard what Miller chose to rhyme with Texas (“facts is”), and just decided to drink instead.

May we suggest this as a publisher logo for these titles?

In fact, why not include that in the comic? This detective, who is clearly a big-shot government agent since he “makes his living off of other people’s taxes,” gets the ax due to excessive drinking on the job, probably due to his laziness in locating two dumb hippies who robbed a damned castle, were almost certainly caught on tape, and STILL managed to “head down South” without being detected.

So in response, this detective goes rogue and becomes a psychotic vigilante. No longer burdened by government regulations and lazy lyric writers, he stalks the South relentlessly, with no regard for anybody around him. If he has to injure, main, cripple, or kill, he will do so, if it means getting one step closer to the two kids who cost him his job. He’d be like Jack Bauer, except he isn’t saving the world, and he’s terribly crappy at what he does.

The comic could switch between this guy and the two fugitives, showing how they’re living it up with their fortune while constantly evading law enforcement. Or, more accurately, how they’re quickly going dead-ass broke, while still having to evade the law. These two are pot-smoking idiots who found an easy mark with a thick wallet; no way they invested or saved their money in any way. And you can only blow so much on weed and tequila before there is nothing more to blow.

Burn, Hollywood, burn!

Jason Iannone is a humorist and editor for hire. He can currently be found at Cracked and TopTenz, as well as the usual social media thises and thats.

Jason previously shepherded pop culture annoyances into better positions when he suggested new gigs for 5 Celebrity Burnouts Who Need A Regular Job. –>