Music References in Comics

[NanettesClouds]

So I was thumbnailing a page today and I decided to have a character sign a song, It's not something I would typically do but I think it turned out pretty neat. Added a nice moment of levity after a pretty stressful set of pages.

I've been reading a lot of Bryan Lee O'Malley's work lately and I really like how he uses music in his comics so I guess that was sort of an inspiration for this.

Have you used musical references in your comic? Or do you have a favorite example of a musical reference? How do you use them?

[Valalaraptor]

I usually use song titles for my chapter names, since I can't into naming things good. As for my favorite example of musical references, definitely the ones in JJBA lol.

[Kamikaze]

Heck yeah! I love seeing music references in comics! One of my favorites is how Blacksad references music for ambiance through out the books! He especially seems to have a thing for oldies music, though I guess that makes sense considering the timeline.

We have used a selection of music purposfully in our comic. One of our characters, Audrey, is a huge music nut, and we FINALLY got the chance to have her listening to music in the comic.

Specifically the chorus from Oblivion, by Mastodon.

I'm actually kinda curious. Say you're publishing a book that mentions lyrics like what I have above. How do you credit the music properly in a comic or written work? Like, I've read in a TON of novels music lyrics sang by the characters, or what have you. But how do you make sure you don't get sued into oblivion and properly credit the folks? :o

[SynergyEclipse]

I like seeing and making music references! I include a lot of them in my comic, but several of them are in the page titles only used in the SmackJeeves version of my comic and not the Tapastic version, because I upload multiple pages as episodes here. What works well as a title for a single page doesn't always work for an episode title.

Some scenes I have planned or have already made are inspired by music, and some of the characters' full weapon names and many attack names will also be based off of song titles.

[NanettesClouds]

Thats a really good question. I took a look at the small print in Bryan Lee O'Malley's "Lost At Sea", which references Elvis and Sloan. Neither of which are credited officially (But they do mention that the Elvis song is an Elvis song within the story.)

So if Oni Press can get away with it it's probably a non-issue.
EDIT: Unless you copy a whole album verbatum maybe? But I'm pretty sure most of this falls under fair-use law.

[joannekwan]

Just today I posted this update of Sarota Springs where I illustrated the lead's ringtone.

I challenge anyone to figure out what song it is. I literally just traced over the sheet music.

[NanettesClouds]

That's a really neat way to do it! My brother plays Piano so I might bug him about it later to try and figure it out :V

[sparky1505]

My comic is new so theres not much to talk about thats already happened, but when I plan out some events, I sometimes make certain things happen to make it fit to a song. One of my favorite things ever is those videos where people play parts of songs during things that remind them of it, (like ice castles videos on tumblr) so i guess this is my way of baiting them lol. like ex. making a character fall down and playing tubthumping "i get knocked down but i get up again"

[Knight_Wolf]

i think that if you use only just a small bit of the lyrics of the song there will be no problem if fact you advertising his song for freeater all!

im planing to do some pages whit a character singing in my series also just dint get to that part yet sadly!

[Kamikaze]

That IS clever!!! I have no idea what the music is, but dude, REALLY clever! Mind if I swipe that idea? xD

[joannekwan]

Yeah go ahed and take it! : D

[VermillionWorks]

I always kind of liked how the comic Dream Scar just had music/lyrics kinda floating on the wind:
http://www.dream-scar.net/?id=275

Also every chapter title in my comic Daniel is the name/tweaked version of a name of a song from either the 1930s or 20s.
A Youtube list of every song that's been referenced in the comic so far:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAsT1gClWEIUREduqa5kQNF-S7cfWcNqZ

[rebello94neil]

Hey so since this is about music references, I have a question:

Is it okay to put a link to a song in the description? I know it generally doesn't count as copyright infringement, but I just wanted to be sure the rules aren't any different here. I was planning on putting a song link at the end of each chapter (kinda like those tv show end credits) since many of the story arcs in my comic were heavily inspired by specific songs.

[shiftingverses]

I'm planning this for a side chapter in Templars. I was planning to do a straight up spooky story with voices on the wind etc, and even though it's a fantasy world not connected to our own, I wanted to have the lyrics to the Gospel song "You Better Run to the City of Refuge" mixed in to the whispers.

You better run, you better run, you better run to the City of Refuge.

Having said that, Nick Cave already did a dark, spooky version in the 80's and I've already ripped him off plenty. Maybe I'll leave it.

[PaulDevers]

In my comic Low-Tier Jane, there's a character/object who speaks almost exclusively in song references, due to being a radio. Mostly old country and folk, because that's primarily what I listen to. I like to put what song it actually was in the rant at the bottom, so that people can know what it was and maybe look it up for themselves if they feel so inclined! It's a lot of fun combing through my music to see what I can maybe make a joke about.

[Vanesalisa]

meeting with Mrycella the soundtrack is night in the woods Mae's house

[joannekwan]

Yeah that's totally acceptable. Plenty of creators do it.

[Emma]

I reference music sometimes. My chapter 1 cover is a reference to "Bubblegum Bitch" by Marina and the Diamonds. In chapter 3, Dave mentions Justin Bieber. And there's definitely gonna be more later on.

[rebello94neil]

Ah that's good to know, thanks!

[jurinova]

Originally I planned to use songs as chapter titles but I decided not to in the end. However I did manage to slip one song into my comic.

For most readers it just looks like random humming but my Finnish readers probably recognized it. At least a few complained about having the song stuck in their head after reading the page, hehe.