Gay artist turns Madonna, Björk and Kate Bush album covers into comic books and they’re out of this world

Madonna comic books

The Comic Book Project recasts Madonna, Björk and Kate Bush as heroes from comic books, one album cover at a time.

Gay artist Liam Alexander began his project in June 2018 with a comic book cover based on Björk’s 1993 album Debut.

“I’ve always had a love for the artwork in comics and graphic novels ever since I can remember,” he told PinkNews.

“I’d never attempted working in this style before and one day I was just sketching while going through an intense Björk phase and the two seemed to fit together.”

 

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Björk – Debut Comic Cover Project • • So I’m a huge fan of Björk and comic book art and I have this huge space on a wall I need to fill so I decided to combine them and make something. This is the first one for Debut and I’ll be doing all 9 studio albums over the coming months. Thought I’d share them here for others to appreciate. • • I took inspiration from the lyrics of the songs, the videos, outfits and hair from the Debut era. Tried a few things that didn’t work but I’m happy with the end result. • • I illustrated all of this in Photoshop on a Wacom 24HD for those that are interested. Is anybody? I dunno. Anyway, on to Post where I get to extend my palette beyond beige 🙂

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In the months that followed Alexander worked his way through all nine of Björk’s studio albums, including his favourite album Vespertine.

Each of the artworks includes references to its respective album’s track list, music videos, the era’s hairstyles and B-sides.

After wrapping up his Björk series with her most recent effort, Utopia, Alexander moved onto Kate Bush beginning with 1978’s The Kick Inside.

 

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Kate Bush The Kick Inside – Comic Cover • • With this year being the 40 year anniversary of her debut, it felt only right for Kate Bush to be the next subject of my comic cover series. I will be doing all studio albums from The Kick Inside to 50 Words For Snow. • I’ve loved Kate Bush for as long as I can remember. I grew up with my Dad playing her music on a loop and I was always fascinated by her. I was lucky enough to get to see her live on the Before The Dawn tour in London a few years ago which was the most incredible concert I’ve ever been to. • The Kick Inside isn’t my favourite of hers but I think that’s just due to the production as I lean more towards the work she produced herself. Saying that, I don’t think she has a bad album and I adore every song on here. My current fav is Feel It ❤️ • For this one I tried a few different ideas before it came together. In fact I almost had it finished a couple of weeks ago until I scrapped all of the background and started again. The books were my way into this one – she sings about poetry, mythology, philosophy etc in this record so it felt right – and obviously we have Wuthering Heights and I think I read somewhere that James and the Cold Gun was inspired by The Day of the Jackal. • I put in a reference to every song on the album, some are obvious, others are only slight but just DM me if you can’t find them and want to know. • PRINTS AVAILABLE – LINK IN BIO

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“I’ve loved Kate Bush for as long as I can remember,” he wrote on Instagram.

“I grew up with my dad playing her music on a loop and I was always fascinated by her.

“I was lucky enough to get to see her live on the Before The Dawn tour in London a few years ago which was the most incredible concert I’ve ever been to.”

As well as drawing from Bush’s own work, Alexander took inspiration from comics elements such as Batman’s Gotham City and Bush’s one-time collaborator Prince.

 

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Madonna – Music Comic Cover Project • • By the time this album was released I’d become a big Madonna fan. I had it on a loop for months and it still feels fresh after almost 20 years. It has some of my favourite Madonna songs (Impressive Instant, Paradise, Gone, Don’t Tell Me) and one of my least favourites (NP). I think this one would round out my Top 5 Madonna albums. Sometimes it seems to get overlooked in her discography but I love it. • • Again, there’s a reference for every song and prints are available (link is in the bio). • • #madonna #music #donttellme #americanpie #madamex #queenofpop #comic #comics #comicart #fanart #art #illustration #illustrator #digitalart #photoshop #instagay #artistsoninstagram #artist #gayboy #artwork #gayartist #instaart #comicbookart #artofinstagram #artistic #artoftheday #madonnaart #queen

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At the moment, Alexander is working through Madonna’s 14 studio albums beginning with her self-titled debut.

“I fell in love with Madonna during the Ray of Light era, delved into her back catalogue and have loved her ever since so this collection was always going to happen,” he said.

He is currently just over halfway through the series, having released his cover for Music last week.

 

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Y Kant Tori Read Comic Cover Series • • Disclaimer: I will be doing the Tori Amos discography at some point but I won’t be diving into it yet. Tori is my favourite artist of all time so the series is inevitable but I’m not ready to dive in – I need more planning time. So for now, I decided to do YKTR as a ‘special edition’. • • I remember a time when the only YKTR track I could get was Cool On Your Island from Limewire so my introduction to this album was slow over the years. I adore all of the songs and there’s a lot to appreciate here. I’m glad Tori has finally made peace with the record. • • There was only one music video from the era and all of the promo images were pretty much the same but luckily Tori uses a lot of visual language so I was able to get one or two references for every song on the album. • • I’ll be starting my next project this week which will be another long discography of one of my faves. As always, prints are available through the link in my bio.

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So far, he says that Bush’s The Dreaming, Björk’s Post and Madonna’s Erotica rank as his favourite efforts.

In the future Alexander plans to dive into Tori Amos’ discography (his favourite artist of all time) having released a cover for her early band project Y Kant Tori Read as a teaser.

He has also previously illustrated FKA Twigs’ LP1 as a one-off, and plans to add the singer’s recent sophomore collection Magdalene to the series in the future.

Janet Jackson is another priority, as well as Missy Elliott, Robyn and “maybe Kylie at some point”.

All of Alexander’s Comic Book Project covers are available to purchase as prints on Etsy.