{"id":31430,"date":"2017-08-21T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=31430"},"modified":"2017-08-14T11:49:16","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T16:49:16","slug":"moonhead-and-the-music-machine-by-andrew-rae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/moonhead-and-the-music-machine-by-andrew-rae\/","title":{"rendered":"Moonhead and the Music Machine<\/I> by Andrew Rae"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0I’m a sucker for fantastic\u00a0 artwork and, lucky for me,\u00a0Moonhead and the Music Machine<\/em> <\/a>is packed to the gills with gorgeousness. I want to buy individual prints of various scenes in this story and put them on my walls. Author and illustrator, Andrew Rae, is a seriously talented graphic designer\u00a0who also\u00a0does animation in addition to illustrating a number of comic books, graphic novels, and zines. You can check out his work at Moonhead Studios here!<\/a>\u00a0Moonhead t-shirts, anyone? Sign me up yesterday.<\/p>\n

In terms of storyline, Moonhead and the Music Machine <\/em><\/a>is a classic underdog tale in which Joey Moonhead, the main protagonist, must\u00a0defy his bullies and wear his uniqueness (his strength) like a badge of honor.\u00a0\u00a0Early on in the book, Joey attempts to engage with his parents who are both aloof and neglectful. Subsequently, he spends a lot of time alone in his room and his mind begins to wander, quite literally. The thing about Joey’s head is that it’s a giant moon that can detach and float\u00a0through space\u00a0independent of his body. Naturally, I think about how perhaps Joey’s moonhead is allegorical with daydreaming or even escapism, hallmark characteristics of being a young person who is discovering his or her own dreams and ambitions but who also experiences a fair amount of alienation (from parents, authorities, peers, etc). Initially, Joey’s wandering head tends to get him into trouble with parents, teachers, and friends.<\/p>\n

That is, of course, until he learns how, with the help of willing adults and friends, to channel and harness\u00a0his creative energy and embrace his individuality. Sockets, his best friend, is a big part of helping him navigate the hallways and social terrain of high school where Joey posits that that the adults are “training us to conform…to be factory workers!” Of course, Socket’s response, which is the other side of an age-old argument about education, maintains that “getting good grades” is one ticket to being able to determine your own path without being self-sacrificial. Joey & Sockets share a playful and sweet\u00a0friendship in which they respect but still challenge each other’s opinions.<\/p>\n

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Enter music. Like many teens, Joey stumbles upon music in\u00a0an organic way after having a parent-teacher conference that results in Joey’s finding\u00a0a record player and a set of headphones. Whereas Joey’s head once\u00a0levitated just above his body, ready at any moment to float away, it now was tethered to his record player by way of his headphones. Music is very “grounding” and facilitates connectivity unlike any other medium due to its accessibility and transcendence of time\/space and language boundaries. To boot, I was overly excited about\u00a0how Rae re-imagined classic album artwork design\u00a0for album covers by musicians like David Bowie, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, and many others.<\/p>\n

Once Joey is infected by the music bug, there is no going back. After taking interest in a music machine-building project, Joey meets the mysterious Ghost Boy and together they dazzle their classmates during a talent show after building a key-tar esque instrument (half-keyboard, half guitar) and bringing the house down.\u00a0After their performance, Joey is overcome by the response of his peers who are inspired by the overall message Joey sends: to embrace and find strength in your individuality–in your moonhead. It may be important to note which of your friends stick by you\u00a0even at your worst, when you don’t have anything of monetary or social value to offer aside from your friendship. They are the real deal<\/em>, people. Read this graphic novel simply for the gorgeous artwork but find richness and multiple layers of meaning in its simplicity.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0I’m a sucker for fantastic\u00a0 artwork and, lucky for me,\u00a0Moonhead and the Music Machine is packed to the gills with gorgeousness. I want to buy individual prints of various scenes in this story and put them on my walls. Author and illustrator, Andrew Rae, is a seriously talented graphic designer\u00a0who[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,11,1,8],"tags":[4295,69,4164,4296],"class_list":["post-31430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-books","category-music","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-andrewrae","tag-graphic-novels","tag-graphicnovel","tag-nobrowpress","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-8aW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31430"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31458,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31430\/revisions\/31458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}