A page from the Apparatjik comic book

Award-winning British comic book artist Mike Perkins has created a new comic about Apparatjik, which will be used in connection with upcoming Apparatjik concerts.

“It’s in black and white and fairly short, but I’ve shown it to Magne Furuholmen, who liked it. It will be published in concert folders in connection with upcoming Apparatjik concerts. Later on, it will be available in other media as well”, Perkins says.

Perkins, known for his work on Captain America and Stephen King’s The Stand, was in Bergen at the Raptus Comics Festival last weekend. In an interview with Aftenposten he says that he’s also planning a comic about a-ha’s Scoundrel Days album:

“For a long time I’ve wanted to turn Scoundrel Days into a comic book. It’s the darkest and most melancholic of a-ha’s albums, and I was a big fan of it when it was released in the fall of 1986.

The title track immediately caught my imagination, and gives me hints to manipulative politicians and things like that. There’s a certain film noir feeling to it, which can also be seen in the music videos, for example in “I’ve Been Losing You” which includes the line “The gun on the bedside table”.

I’m hoping to do Scoundrel Days in noir-style with limited use of colours. I would also want to use several of the music videos as inspiration, plus songs from other a-ha albums like Hunting High and Low and more recent songs like “Butterfly, Butterfly”. In the “Hunting High and Low” music video, Morten Harket transforms into a whale, a dolphin and finally a wolf [sic]. This is also something I’d want to incorporate into the comic book.

The main characters will be humans with the ability to transform into animals and jump to parallel worlds.”

Magne Furuholmen says that he’s all positive to a-ha songs being turned into a comic book:

“I think this is really exciting, and I can’t imagine the others in the band being negative to it. I have never been a comic book nerd myself, but I did read comics as a kid, like everyone else, and I have seen some of his previous work. He is very skilled and it will be interesting to see what he can come up with.”

– What do you think about an album living on in other art forms?

“This will be like a reinterpretation of something we’ve done. Having one expression living on in a different form is exciting. There’s something good about having created something that triggers someone else’s imagination in ways we couldn’t have originally envisioned”, Magne tells Aftenposten.