New York Comic Con often brings an interesting mash up of creators. Think of the announcement of Stan Lee and Neal Adams teaming up with the NHL at NYCC ’11. This year has an equally interesting mashup. Film score savant Bear McCreary, singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, writers Mat Groom and Kyle Higgins and artist Ramon K. Perez, as well as other artists and musicians, collaborated on a graphic novel and concept album.
The album and graphic novel, both of the same name, The Singularity, was released in the Spring of this year, but some of the creators behind it, including the driving force of McCreary, Higgins and Groom, were at NYCC to promote and sign a special deluxe edition released through Mondo.
I had the opportunity to sit down with most of this group one on one to find out how such an ambitious project came together.
The Singularity was the pandemic pet project of Bear McCreary. It didn’t start out as a concept album or have the graphic novel component, but grew into those things over time. “It started as a lean mean rock record. But after, I looked at it and thought I think I made a concept album,” Bear explained. But he was hesitant to call it a concept album, adding “when you hear the word concept album, there are tracks that you skip over.” A concept album is what moved a young Bear McCreary towards a career in music. “For me, it started with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I saw Alan Parker’s film of it has a kid and thought “What the fuck is this?”
As the album progressed, McCreary reached out to his longtime friend Kyle Higgins with the idea of creating a companion graphic novel. The pair have known each other for 15 years, becoming friends shortly after Higgins gave McCreary a copy of his student thesis film at SDCC one year. Higgins recounted McCreary reaching out to him about The Singularity. “When Bear called me about The Singularity, it was very exciting and a very easy yes.”
The next person to join the lineup was comics writer Mat Groom. Bear McCreary had one hard rule for the graphic novel. Bear explained, “The biggest challenge of the album is that you change singers every song. The one rule I gave Matt was I don’t want an anthology.” Matt told me of the story he came up with. “It’s about a guy who keeps being reborn into different lives in different universes.” McCreary didn’t just hand off the graphic novel though. Mat explained, “It was back and forth with Bear to figure out the specifics of the script. You know how they build bridges and they meet in the middle? It was like that.” McCreary further explained, “The story becomes about the accumulated trauma of all these different lives. It was deep but it was also fun with spaceships and zombies. We had steampunk and fantasy.”
Each track on the album has a different singer, and each chapter of the graphic novel is illustrated by a different artist. Ramon K. Perez said Kyle Higgins approached him after Deep Cuts and Jim Henson’s Tale of Dand, both of which are music driven. Perez said Higgins told him, “We’re missing an artist who can tie the whole thing together. Can you bring that energy over to The Singularity?” Perez described The Singularity as “It’s this amazing metal opera.” When asked to describe how he prepped to work on The Singularity, Perez said, “I did this over a two to three month period. Also, listening to Ghosts. I have a couple of metal playlists and was rolling throgh it. A lot of european stuff too.”
Mat Groom wouldn’t mind a follow up collaboration. He said, “Sequel? I would love that. I tell people this is my favorite thing I’ve written. It would have to be something of the same quality and high concept.”
Rufus Wainwright may not be a singer you’d associate with metal, but the singer-songwriter was happy to help his longtime friend, Bear McCreary. He sings on a track titled Type III. Wainwright described his enlistment by McCreary into The Singularity like this, “We’re both from different worlds. They’re not obviously similar, but they are. I’ve written two operas. He came in and said there is this heave metal song he wanted me to do. I got to use my operatic leanings. We had a meeting of certain worlds that get to meet but should.” He went on to explain, “I think it’s more of a general passionate unveiling of the fold that is occuring. There are so many high notes and massive moments that it becomes a prayer that is very stately.”
This was Rufus Wainwright’s first time attending a comic book convention. He had this to say after spending some time exploring NYCC. “Wow, there is real passion here. There is a desire to go forth and make the world a better place. Things that bring us together is so important right now.”
And while this NYCC was Wainwright’ first one, the singer is very familiar with the world of comic books. “I started out drawing comic books. I went to art school. I was very part of the early 90s zine culture. I had one called Bella Von Hertzgel (sp?). I created an alter ego about a deposed Argentinian.”
Wainwright described that when performs, he tends to black out. I asked him to explain that further. He responded, “When I’m up there, I tend to go kind of blank. I’m very thankful because I’m able to present an idea to the heavens, i.e. a note I’d like to hit, and then I black out and it’s usually hit. I know this note is going to come and I say my prayers.” He’s very into self care and went through his regiment for maintaining his voice after all these years. “I don’t really drink. Alcohol is not great for singing. I gurgle a lot. Hot salt water. Everybody should do it for their general health. I like to listen to really intense opera before so I can say at least I don’t have to do that.”
“Some things that have come out of Singularity have been quite surreal for the creators. Mat Broom recounted, “I wake up and Slash has reposted my Instagram and I’m like what is my life this morning?”
Stay tuned for more NYCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
