Review: BPM by Paul Sizer
I first heard about Paul Sizer through the Remake/Remodel art redesign threads on Warren Ellis’ Whitechapel forum. I knew that he had a graphic novel out, but, to be honest, it didn’t really give it much thought. Sure, a comic about a DJ seemed like something up my alley, but it seemed like there were so many other, more interesting comics out there, and I only had the budget for so many things…
I probably never would have checked it out if I didn’t come across the copy while looking from Harold Washington Public Library's extensive graphic novel collection. The great thing about libraries is that they let you take a chance on books or movies you never would’ve otherwise tried. You don’t have to pay any money, and if you don’t like it - just give it back. So I figured I might as well check BPM out.
And I’m glad I did.
BPM is one of those works that’s less about getting from Plot Point A to Plot Point B and more about character progression. As the graphic novel opens, young DJ named Roxy dealing with a sort of crisis of confidence. She gets paid for doing what she loves, but it’s at a low-rung bar, the pay sucks and she feels creatively uninspired. It doesn’t help that her DJ friends seem to be doing better than she is - Atsuko draws large crowds to a popular club, while Dominic plays a more experimental stuff in lower-key events. He may not be getting paid, but he’s doing what he loves and he’s pretty good at it.
Enter Robie - a once-popular popular DJ who self-destructed years ago. Now an owner of a dingy record store, he pushes Roxy to step outside her comfort zone and experiment. The rest of the graphic novel focuses on her slowly working her way up the DJ foot chain, pushing her limits and trying to learn from her friends even as her relationship with her girlfriend falls apart.
Doing a comic about music is tricky. Comic books are a visual medium, while music is, quite obviously, not. But it can be done. Whether it’s Phonogram exploring the relationship between music and life through a metaphor of magic, or the more straight-forward use of music in series like Scott Pilgrim and Hopeless Savages, the trick seems to be to use the text and the visual language of comics to show how the music affects the characters. BMP reminds me of Phonogram’s emphasis on the way music affects us, the almost-mystical language used to describe it. And between the use of photos, the color palette and the characters’ body language, you can get how the music the characters play effect the people, and even how it effects the characters themselves. BMP also includes soundtrack listings - each page has a song that reflects the mood of the page. While listening to those songs are you’re reading is hardly necessary, it helps.
Speaking of body language - I would argue that it’s one of Paul Sizer’s greatest strengths as an artist. His proportions may be a bit wonky at times, but he’s great at capturing nuances of facial expressions and movements. When Atsuko and Roxy are tired, they look it. When Roxy’s first attempt to step outside the box pays off, there’s a great panel where she grins even as sweat rolls down her forehead. And I like the fact that the background characters in crowd scenes aren’t just indistinct silhouettes - they react to whatever is going on in the foreground or have their own interactions. It’s a nice touch - a touch that I’m sure made drawing panels more time-consuming, but a nice touch.
Another thing I liked about the art is the character designs. Every character has a unique design, and several different body types are represented throughout the story. That extends to the background characters. As I said earlier, they aren’t indistinct shadows, and a lot of them have interesting designs that suggest a lot about their background and personality.
(A small aside about designs - it is so rare to see artists depicting breasts realistically and showing them responding to pressure and gravity. Even some of the better artists in the business still treat them as oddly shaped bowling balls. It doesn’t always quite work, but at least Sizer gave it a pretty good try, which I appreciate).
Speaking of design - Sizer clearly put a lot of thought into signs and logos of all of the prominent bars/clubs/stores featured throughout BPM. Ditto flyers and posters. Every establishment has its own design scheme that looks internally consistent and unique. There are a lot of details that don’t, strictly speaking, need to be there, but they are - and it really helps with world-building.
There are other things that, honestly, shouldn’t have to be noteworthy, but in comics, they very much are. When doing character revamps, Sizer frequently revamped them as ethnic and/or sexual minorities. BPM has the same sort of diversity - out of all the characters, only two are white. I’m not even entirely sure what ethnicity Roxy is supposed to be - to me, her design suggest hapa, but I’m not sure. And I liked the fact that Roxy’s bisexuality was almost incidental.
Multiracial casts shouldn’t be terribly unusual. Leads who are bisexual shouldn’t be that unusual. But for now, at least, they are - so it’s always nice to see a creator bucking trends.
I am far more ambivalent about the way Sizer used photography. In some scenes, he drew backgrounds by hand, but he often used photos. It works okay in the night scenes, and a lot of the club scenes are pretty damn effective because of it. But other times, it comes off as clumsy. The scene where Roxy and her friend, Colin, attend a wedding doesn’t work at all - especially when there are clearly photo-filtered real people in the background. It’s quite jarring.
As for the plot… Well, I’m not sure it has a plot per se. There is a character progression - Roxy finding inspiration, developing her skills and slowly but surely making her way to the top of the DJ ladder and making her own music. But her relationship with her girlfriend just sort of peters out. Looking back, I’m starting to think that you could cut the character out entirely and lose absolutely nothing. And there are some tangents - the aforementioned wedding scene, for example - that only seem to there to allow Sizer to share some in-jokes. There was also the narration - while it worked quite well some of the times, there were too many times when “show - don’t tell” rule was cruelly ignored, to the detriment of the story as a whole.
And yet… I think the story winds up working overall. Roxy is an interesting character, and I did find myself getting involved in her struggles. Atsuko, Dominic and Robie were also pretty interesting characters in their own rights. The relationships between all the major characters felt natural, and their interactions helped make the story interesting, entertaining and even heartwarming.
But most importantly - for me, at least - BPM really captured what was it that makes dance music so appealing. The way the sound can stir emotions. The rush of energy when a good song comes on. It’s ability to capture a mood, a state of mind. And there is a lot of creativity in there - the way sound is manipulated, the way older songs are reimagined in new ways… There are plenty of ways to screw it up, but when done right, boy does it ever work.
Comics like Blue Monday and Phonogram took the music I knew nothing about and made it interesting. BPM is the kind of comic I would give to people who ask me why I enjoy dance music. They may not come away liking it as much as I do, but I hope that they would at least understand.
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BPM is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, at Sizer’s online store and it may be available in comic shops near you.. For more information, check out the BPM website. It may be a bit dated, but it makes for a pretty good supplement to the graphic novel. Along other things, it has playlists (yes, plural) for all the music featured in BPM.