Kurt Cobain: The Graphic Novel – iPad App Review

This past September 24 marked 20 years since Nirvana released Nevermind, the album that became the grunge movement’s sonic template. A little over two years later the band’s leader, Kurt Cobain would be dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound. Kurt Cobain: The Graphic Novel covers Cobain’s short life from his disjointed childhood to his rise to fame and finally, his seemingly inevitable descent into depression, drugs and death.
This app is definitely not appropriate for anyone under the age of 17, or for any reader who is squeamish or easily distraught. There are frequent drug references and profane language and the subject matter is unquestionably “adult” in its tone. However reading about the details of Cobain’s lonely and emotionally bankrupt childhood was actually more difficult to tolerate than any of the story’s coarser subject matter. Cobain is sympathetic, yet lost, throughout this tal. Even his enduring love for music is not strong enough to keep him safe from the “white noise” to which he ultimately succumbs.

Any fan of Nirvana will already know the major actors in Cobain’s drama, but writers Barnaby Legg and Jim McCarthy take some liberties with their portrayal of the leads. Courtney Love is cast almost as an almost sainted mother-to-be who only tries heroin because Cobain foists it upon her. The kid-glove treatment that Love receives at the hands of the authors will likely chafe most readers.
According to this version of Cobain’s life, he hated pretty much the entire world, except for his wife and daughter, his bandmates, and ex-Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail. There’s a nod to Cobain’s well-documented wish to sound like the Pixies. The Melvins are portrayed as inspirational. The story devotes a few panel to Cobain’s disappointment in Steve Albini’s reaction to his music. The dudes from SubPop, who initially sign Nirvana, are portrayed as buffoons who are “experts at taking Generation X’s consumer dollar and exchanging it for limited edition purple vinyl.”

The story is told from Cobain’s perspective, which might explain why his wife never gets the grilling she usually receives in the media. Cobain comes across as nihilistic and angry — “I hope I die before I turn into Pete Townshend” — and is never really able to escape the physical pain of a congenital stomach ailment and the emotional torment of a child scarred by a broken home.
It is the app’s original illustrations by Flameboy make the graphic novel such a compelling read. Flameboy writes about the process of creating Godspeed – The Kurt Cobain Graphic, on which the iPad app is based saying: “The art for Godspeed (which included the pencilling, inking, colouring & lettering) took eight months solid, locked away in a room with no windows & just the music & videos of Nirvana, plus a copy of Kurt’s journals for company.”
 
Kurt Cobain: The Graphic Novel is available to download in the App Store for $5.99

What I liked: The UI offers the choice to read each panel in its entirety or to let the individual cells flow from one to the next. The very end of the story is handled well.

What I didn’t like: Suicide is a difficult subject matter. The death of a famous and well-loved performer makes the subject both more intriguing and difficult to cover even-handedly. Though I appreciate the effort the authors make to keep Cobain’s story alive, it is hard not to glamorize, even accidentally, some of the choices that Cobain makes.

To buy or not to buy: Big Nirvana fans will probably find more than a few nits to pick, but for the casual listener who is curious to learn more about Cobain, this graphic novel turned app offers an artful version of the rocker’s tortured life.