THE WUTHERING HEIGHTS SOUNDTRACK

I think I've talked publicly before about my condition where I dance involuntarily when music plays. If I haven't talked about it or if you're just meeting me for the first time, I dance involuntarily when music plays. Doesn't even have to be good music, I can't ignore a groove. If it is good music, I start to sing along. Not on purpose.

I didn't notice it until my 30s when I worked in a record store (best job I ever had by a lot and I've had a lot of 'em) and my coworkers started commenting on it. Then I started noticing it everywhere, not just at work. The grocery store, public toilets, wherever. It was true, all of it.

It would start with a little shake of the leg, a little bob of the head, and before long I was doing a full-out routine, whipping my head around and full-ass footwork and belting out “Say it ain't sooooo!” Everyone said it was fun, but that's also what you say about a puppy crashing into a wall, so. At least they didn't call the facilities on me.

Sometimes when it's dead quiet and you can hear that vague 60-cycle hum along with the static of the universe and think "Oh, yeah, that's kind of a bop."

As I'm writing this, Rori's in the studio with me picking license-free music for a video. She'll play 10-20 seconds of a song before skipping, and more than once I felt let down because it was a good tune and I was grooving on it. I'm not saying anything, because what the hell, she's working, man.

Honestly, the best sound for me when I'm writing is ambient room noise in a semi-populated place. I could go on and on about the value of being in the world when I'm writing, but I haven't had as much of that during the past few years, as you may imagine, so I'll often put on some kind of background noise in the studio when I work.

I can't listen to anything but the droningest music when I write because I'll start grooving instead of typing. Still, every time I sit down to write and put on a one of my playlists which are all good tunes and there I go, weirding. For example, exactly as I was writing this post, I put on the Wuthering Heights playlist I made on Spotify.

Wuthering Heights Soundtrack on Spotify

With Wuthering Heights, I leaned deeply into “lingering melancholy daydream” and a range of traditional and modern musical schools. I wanted it moody and sweeping, so naturally, throw in some Lorena McKennitt and top it off with The Cure.

Sooner or later, I make a playlist for every project I work on. I call them Soundtracks (because why shouldn't a comic have a soundtrack?) and they're great at igniting a mood for a particular book. It's a real kick to pre-create the atmosphere of the book to help you write it. But then I start grooving out to it and I get no work done, so what are ye gonna do?

Not everyone thinks of storytelling as being accompanied by music, but it works for me.

And that's a little look into my writing brain. More will come soon.

Oh, hey, and to let you know, because one of the gross side-effects of being an artist is promoting yourself, we do have a store where you can pick up some of our stuff. We like to think some of it is fun, and if you enjoy our work, you might too. Our Comics