The Beatles: Yellow Submarine

Titan Comic is justifiably proud of its recent release of The Beatles: Yellow Submarine, a graphic novel adaptation of the animated movie to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary.

I’m told that it’s a faithful reproduction of the movie — KC liked it, for example — which I believe, although I think I’ve only seen the film once or twice. The book definitely made me want to watch it again, because the print version I found mostly effective as a reminder of how wild and wacky the movie was.

Here’s a trailer for the book, which in its silence demonstrates one of its unfortunate but unfixable lacks. The book can’t include the music, which I found the best part. In fact, it can’t even include the lyrics.

Here’s the song, for comparison:

The book is illustrated by Bill Morrison, based on the design and art by Heinz Edelmann, with additional inking by Andrew Pepoy with Tone Rodriguez, and adapted from the story by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn, and Erich Segal, based on the song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Originally developed 20 years ago (as a project for Dark Horse Comics that fell through), the additional inking seems to be how they got it finished off in time to release now. But having experience staying on model for work for Disney and The Simpsons, Morrison does an excellent job evoking the original look. The colors, by Nathan Kane, are particularly important for faithfulness.

To keep the book more than just a movie copy, Morrison plays with layouts to capture mood and feeling, inspired by psychedelic poster design, as you can see from some of the preview pages below. It’s a fun reminder of a long time ago, an excellent idea for the aging Beatles fan in your life.