McCartney Times

Coo coo ca-choo!

The Beatles are so inextricably linked with rock n’ roll and 1960s culture, that it’s almost impossible to imagine our world without them. At the same time, their profound impact on music (and society in general) offers up some interesting “what if?” questions about the tenuous nature of history. Had things gone even a little bit differently for the band, what would reality even look like?

In his 2017 alternate history novel, Once There Was a Way, author Bryce Zabel dared to ask: “What if The Beatles stayed together?” Two years later, director Danny Boyle probed a world where the group never existed in Yesterday. And now, writer Paolo Baron and artist Ernesto Carbonetti (the duo behind Punk is Undead) are the latest creatives to ponder their own Fab Four conundrum: “What if Paul McCartney died during the recording of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in November of 1966?”

On sale next month from Image Comics, Paul is Dead: When The Beatles Lost McCartney presents a fictionalized account of the famous conspiracy about Paul dying and being replaced with a perfect lookalike. The hoax cropped up at the tail end of the ‘60s and captivated the world’s collective imagination as fans attempted to discover the truth, going so far as to try and discern hidden messages in Beatles records by playing them backwards. It was absolutely nuts…or was it?

“First, me and Ernesto are both musicians, we feel a special attraction to music legends. I had a band for more than 20 years and The Beatles were my first idols, never to be surpassed,” Baron said in a statement to Forbes Entertainment. “The urban legend known as P.I.D. was always hard for me to believe. I always laughed it off, but still, I was curious about it for years. So, now that I am working with this amazing medium, the comic, I can share, with people, all my research from newspapers, books, documentaries, and interviews about the conspiracy of Paul being dead. It is just like investigating a ‘cold case’ and giving a very personal opinion.”

Day trip below to feast your eyes on three exclusive interior pages from the graphic novel. You’ll find that Carbonetti adopts an impressionist style that recalls the psychotropic decade in which the story is set. It’s like being flung into the trippy universe of a Sgt. Pepper song as John, George, and Ringo set out to investigate the site where Paul was said to have died in a tragic and fiery car crash.

After reading these pages, I can’t be the only person who wants to see a Hardy Boys-type spinoff about The Beatles rocking sold out concern by day and solving mysteries by night. I mean come on — how awesome does that sound?!

“We’re talking about the greatest band of all time. It’s a way to let the readers take a tour of Abbey Road Studios while the band was recording one of the most important albums of music history (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band),” Carbonetti said in a statement of his own. “We’ve scrupulously reconstructed the studio of the ‘60s: the same recording rooms, instruments, clothes, and so on. It’s a psychedelic experience for the eyes, and it’s touching to see how the Fab Four get along during the sessions and their everyday life. At the same time, it’s a detective story about the search for a missing friend in the special atmosphere of London in the ‘60s.”

Paul is Dead goes on sale Wednesday, June 3.

Source: ‘Paul Is Dead’: New Psychedelic Comic Explores Beatles Conspiracy Theory (First Look)