#Blogtour #Review - Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze by Tom Mandrake, DJ Ben Ha Meen and Mellow Brown

Purple Haze

DJ Ben Ha Meen and Mellow Brown (writers), Tom Mandrake (artist)
Titan Comics, 27 August 2024
Available as: HB, 128pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781787731899

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the graphic novel's blogtour.

From the publisher

This is a pure rock and roll space opera featuring the legendary Jimi Hendrix as you’ve never seen him before. 

Fully sanctioned by Experience Hendrix L.L.C.; Authentic Hendrix, LLC - this is the first ever full-length graphic novel inspired by the music of the legendary Jimi Hendrix – arguably the world’s greatest guitarist. 

This 21st Century psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll odyssey sees Jimi Hendrix embark on a quest to the very centre of the universe in search of a magical talisman powerful enough to unlock the incredible latent power of his music so that he can share it with a universe starved of the rock ‘n’ roll by a tyrannical intergalactic force hellbent on silencing all music from the universe and enslaving all life. 

What I thought

Space opera. Rock opera. Seemingly unrelated genres which the collaborators behind this graphic novel nevertheless pull together with aplomb. The result is great as an example of each, but put together, something much more.

Yes, we get zoomy spaceships, vivid alien worlds, combat and awesome vistas, that genuine sense of wonder that space opera must deliver. But we also get what is actually - so far as such a thing is possible - a pretty vivid visualisation of a musical high (is that a thing? I think it's a thing) as the central character here, Hendrix, takes to the stage on a galaxy-crossing tour. Lyrics stream by in a kind of diagetic cloud. The music ignites in the intense shades of a fiery sun, blazing across the page. At once, deeply SFnal, deeply musical.

But, as I said, there is more here too. The story finds Hendrix, mysteriously, playing on an endless tour in this far-future dystopia. The how and why of that's never explained, but that doesn't actually loom large in the story and it doesn't really matter. Rather we have this guitar hero pushing his message of peace and brotherhood in a galaxy embroiled in brutal war. He's doing all he can, he thinks.

But of course he's not (I had vibes here of Springsteen's No Surrender "There's a war outside still raging/ You say it ain't ours anymore to win" and there's a moment of realisation with attempts to coop the tour  for sinister purposes, a moment of truth and decision which leads to a fascinating quest. The ultimate test here is then very much one of those "surely there must be another way?" setups where, behind the spaceships and the zooming, the point is that the hero must, will, reject the constraints imposed on them and do the different thing. The Kobayashi Maru moment, in Star Trek language.

And who better, in such a moment, to use their humanity, their sympathy, their courage, than Jimi Hendrix?

A fine graphic novel with a powerful, beating heart. Recommended.

For more information about Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, or Waterstones.