Book Review - Fall Through by Nate Powell

 reviewed by CT Lim

Nate Powell. Fall Through. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2024. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/fall-through_9781419760822/

So what do you do as a follow-up after creating the biggest books of your career? Well, you go for broke as Nate Powell has done here with Fall Through. Let's back up a bit. 

If you have been following comics or comics that have won acclaim and awards, Powell's previous books on American civil rights icon, John Lewis (the March trilogy and its sequel, Run) are as respectable as you can get. Notices in the mainstream media, national TV coverage and good reviews in all the right places. National Book Award winner!

But just like the Sex Pistols, who broke up after releasing one leave it or take it album, and right after their one-and-only shambling USA tour, Powell decided to go back to his punk rock roots which most of us have no clue about and what a story he has to tell. (although like a true punk, Powell, through his lead character, is critical of the Pistols for being the manufactured group they were).

The connections between comics and punk are not new. John Holmstrom, Love and Rockets, that cover of Sub Pop 200 by Charles Burns. Recently, I reread old issues of Peter Bagge's Hate, the run in which Buddy was managing a band and how everything just self-destructed while on tour. The story did not age well. 

The synopsis of Fall Through reads something like that: an "all-new trippy original graphic novel that's a love letter for fans of the indie punk scene of the 90s. Fall Through is one trip after another as a band, held hostage by their lead vocalist, are forced to repeat the same sets, same stops, same tour over and over again until one of the band members realizes what is happening and has to make a choice—the music she's struggled and fought so hard for, or reality?"

So what are Powell's punk credentials? Because it is all about street cred in punk rock. The notes say: "As for his music career, Powell was introduced to the hardcore punk community in 1991, played over 500 shows across North America and Europe in various bands, including underground legends Soophie Nun Squad and Universe, and managed the do-it-yourself label Harlan Records from 1994 to 2010."

Not bad although I have not heard of Soophie Nun Squad and Universe. But then again, most people in Singapore have not heard of the dumbass band I was in in the late 1980s, the Primitive Painters. But punk is an attitude, a way of thinking, an approach that I returned to from time to time. I can be good for only so long, but I can’t be good all the time. Punk prevails.

Fall Through captures that spirit quite nicely. How punk brings us together and pulls us along, but we need to return to real life after some time. But that is also not forever as the call of the punk goddess sirens will beckon us over and over again. Why do you think after slogging for 25 years as a chump and all burnout at work and having to take a year off of no-pay leave that I am attending gigs almost every weekend? Why would they even tolerate me and let through the door when immediately once I enter, I raise the median age of the room? Why bother when I need to know where the nearest toilet is and always look for the op corner (that's the old people corner). Why bother indeed when I have no chance in hell to chat up the cute punk women no matter what my loins say?

But. Punk embraces and punk can be inclusive.

To his credit, Powell has a compelling narrative (or beat, yes, we got the beat!) that drives the story. Something weird is going on, almost like a curse that keeps the band on the road with no end in sight. It's not all punk philosophy ramblings like what I have written above. I like it but I am not sure those not in the scene can get the references and the drift. But who cares? Powell doesn't over-explain or over-romanticize those days and nights of wine and roses. Being in a punk band can be stifling despite rhetoric of independence and freedom of expression. Pretty much like in a cell group or commune. There are equal parts of love and loathing, much like everything else in life. 

Reading Fall Through is like reading A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309 by Aaron Cometbus and Scott Satterwhite and Going Underground: American Punk 1979-1989 by George Hurchalla. The only thing missing is a 7” as part of the book. 

You just go along for the ride. And it is good to be on the road. While it lasts with the wind blowing against your face. You squint and you drive straight on. 

Stand aside, open wide.