Review by Sabrina TVBand

Over the years musician Joan Jett has appeared in a variety of comics. The Runaways, her original band, were parodied in a handful of music magazines, and she’s been used as the basis for thinly veiled reference characters, such as Bloom County‘s Tess Turbo. She’s also been the subject of at least one unauthorised comic biography.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts 40×40: Bad Reputation / I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll is the first officially licensed Joan Jett-related material. It’s an anthology featuring short stories relating to songs from each 1980s album mentioned in the title, and as such not everything one might hope for.

While not intended as a slight against Jett, it’s worth mentioning a little over half of the songs adapted here are songs Joan Jett covered, and since her auditory component is not included they are technically only her songs by association. Unfortunately, a collection that only adapted songs that Joan Jett had a hand in writing wouldn’t have been able to include songs like I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll and Crimson and Clover.

Some stories stand out. Make Believe, illustrated by the mononymous Norzine, and I‘m Gonna Run Away, by Evgenia Vereli, both have visuals that are gritty, cute, chic, and they provide the sample art.

I Love Rock & Roll, written by Brit and Brianna Winner with art by Manuela Pertega, has shaky artwork but is one of the better stories on a narrative level. Some strips are vibes-pieces without much in the way of plot, but this tells an effective story about a single mother and her blind daughter in eight pages. Bits and Pieces, written by Barbara Kesel and illustrated by Aneke Murillenem, is effective as a tribute to Joan Jett in a way that a lot of other contributions aren’t. Victim of Circumstance, written by Cat Mihos with art by Marguerite Sauvage, is one of the few stories that captures something about the milieu from which Joan Jett’s music emerged.

You’re Too Possessive by Hannah Templer and Don’t Abuse Me by writer Camilla Zhang and artist Claudia Aguirre are both solidly written sci-fi. The former features a woman turning into a punk demoness, but the latter, while cool in isolation, has almost nothing to do with the song it’s adapting and is aesthetically removed from Joan Jett’s music.

This is a problem a handful of the stories have in not evoking the music, neither the music scenes into which it was born, nor the straightforward no-frills mentality, and sometimes not even the narratives implied by the songs. Doing Alright With the Boys, by Wiktoria Radkiewicz, is very at odds with how Jett has deliberately only rarely engaged in genre experimentation. Some of these comics, if placed into a different context, would give no indication that they were inspired by Jett’s work.

A handful do use song lyrics verbatim. These can be awkward to read, because one can’t help but conform the tempo of the actual songs in their mind to the speed at which the comics move. It’s a device that sounds good in concept but doesn’t work in practice.

About half of the strips in Bad Reputation / I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll are decent, with a small few being good, but even the best strips don’t provide a lot to chew on in the long term. Casual Joan Jett fans should stick to the relevant albums; hardcore fans will mostly find value here on a collectable level.