Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre
How do you write a fake biography of a fake band? With style, writer and Gorillaz touring drummer Browne and comic book illustrator Jamie Hewlett, along with the design collective Zombie Fresh Eaters, answer back lustily. Gorillaz are a music/art hybrid masterminded by Hewlett and Blur frontman Damon Albarn, a veritable cartoon supergroup made up of mountainous B-boy Russel Hobbs, Japanese girl guitarist Noodle, metal-worshipping bassist Murdoc, and hollow-eyed, angular vocalist 2D. They are a genuine pop sensation, with millions of albums of dub/hip-hop/punk sold and concerts mixing animation and live musicians. Rise covers all that but from the "perspective" of the band, with the human creators cast as bit players and the focus squarely on the rise, fall, and rise of four scrappy toonz. The book is equal parts graphic novel, design catalog, and spoof of Steven Davis's Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga, characteristics that easily make it the best-in-the-moment biography of snobs, and devotees of great British art pranks alike will devour it whole. Recommended for libraries of all stripes. --Library Journal, November 15, 2006