Neil Young's Getting A Graphic Novel

...so reports Pitchfork, beginning this morning's news item with "Nerdy folk-rock fans, rejoice!" That sums it up pretty well, but since I AM a nerdy folk-rock fan, I'm awesomely excited (and I am rejoicing). It's based on Greendale, the legendary songwriter's 2003 concept album, and it'll be coming to stores near you via DC Comics (Vertigo) some time in the (hopefully) not-so-distant future. Apparently Neil Young approached DC with interest in creating the project himself, which is a little more confidence-inspiring than if it were the other way around. Newsarama's got an interesting interview (from this year's Comic-Con, which just wrapped up this past weekend) up with the artist, Joshua Dysart... here are some excerpts:

DYSART: It takes place on the eve of the invasion of Iraq and it's the story of a young high school girl on the road to finding her inner-activist in a small fictional town set in northern California. Two truly incredible things are about to take place in this town: one is that a visitor of supernatural proportions is arriving to shake things down to their very foundations. The other is that our protagonist is about to discover something miraculous about herself and all the women in her family.

DYSART: Unlike the Unknown Soldier, there will be nothing ambiguous about the politics of this book at all. Everyone knows Neil Young is left of Lennon and I'm looking forward to being unapologetically leftist right along with him. The book will be anti-war and pro-planet. It will be humanist and righteous and fun and sad and hopeful-assuming I don't screw it up.

DYSART: He is directly involved. I pitched him my take. We got notes back from him. I even met his whole family-his son and daughter, his wife, and of course, the man himself. (Crosby, Stills and Nash were also there, but now I'm just namedropping… heh). He's a wonderful, wonderful person-when I met him it felt like he'd been in my life forever; which, through his music, I guess he has.

Oh, and Dysart also happens to be the guy who wrote Avril Lavigne manga last year? Uh... yeah, I'm gonna pretend I didn't read that either. Who exactly buys Avril Lavigne manga?

ON THE WEB:
Neil Young's website
DC's Vertigo site