I got my copy of Kickback City on Tuesday afternoon. I really like the package- it's all contained in a hardbound book about the size of a DVD box set.
There are 3 discs in it, the first is a sort of sampler disc of Rory's studio work ranging from his earliest post-Taste band with Wilgar Campbell up to his later work featuring Mark Feltham, of Rory's songs with a film noir/pulp fiction sort of theme. Then a disc of Rory's live performances, and finally an audio disc of the novella, The Lie Factory, narrated by Aidan Quinn. The text of the novella is interspersed with the graphic-novel type pages throughout.
Clearly, the creative minds that formed this little book- author Ian Rankin, graphic artist Timothy Truman, and actor Aidan Quinn, are aficianados of Rory's music. As another Rory fan told me today, this work is very much a labor of love.
When I first took the box set out of the package and opened it, I was struck by the similarity in presentation to my collector's edition of Tarantino's DVD Pulp Fiction, and that makes sense, they are an homage to the same genre. Both have the same pulp fiction/true crime/ mystery theme, with the Tarantino set mimicking the appearance of a pulp fiction mag. However, Kickback City does an excellent job of actually representing one of those old mags- having the flavor and appearance of one of those old crime magazines as I remember from the 60s.
My mom was an avid reader of those pulp fiction, true crime magazines. They were all over our house growing up, and I'd read them all the time- the graphic artist must have been familiar with them, too, because the back of the little book even features the same type of tacky, cheesy advertisements that one could always find there, even down to the super cheap 50s-60s prices!
I really enjoyed this- I like this genre of writing anyway, and it is very cleverly done, with loads of references to Rory's work, both in the illustrations and in the story itself. Throughout the text there are references to Rory's songs- little easter eggs of Rory references- for example, the panel that depicts the main character meeting up with the victim's sister, in the corner of the page you can see the headstock of a Gallagher guitar- granted, to my knowledge Rory never played one, but I believe one of his favorite guitarists, Doc Watson, did!
The story itself is very well done, in the tradition of crime stories/mysteries.
Not every Rory fan will enjoy this package- his oldest fans, we who already have just about every recording he ever made, and a fair number of bootlegs that he never really intended to make (but I'm glad someone did, in retrospect, they're all very precious now, as are all the YouTube videos) will be disappointed because there isn't any new musical material there. And there are the die-hard fans that want to hear only the music, don't care about what inspired it, don't enjoy reading, and don't want to know about anything else as concerns Rory will not be interested in the least in this offering, and that's okay- to each his own. But for so many who did see him in the day, and maybe no longer have any of his old albums but would like to reacquaint themselves with him, this has a nice sampling of his work through the years, and for younger fans just meeting him, so to speak, this is a fun way to start.
And it also introduces many of Ian Rankin's fans to Rory's music, perhaps for the first time. People who follow and collect his works, who read the references to Rory's music through the Inspector Rebus books, but maybe never heard Rory before will finally be introduced to the soundtrack to Rebus's world.
And then there are the fans like me, who enjoy the opportunity to take an albeit brief glance into Rory's world, into some of the things that fired his imagination, fueled his work. I think he'd be flattered to have his work recognized and honored in this way.