Blur’s Graham Coxon Announces New Graphic Novel Superstate and Original Soundtrack for August 2021 Release

Blur guitarist Graham Coxon has announced a new graphic novel, titled Superstate, which will release with an accompanying soundtrack on Aug. 27. The graphic novel will be released in association with Z2 Comics.

Superstate is described as a “high-concept world,” as the combination of the graphic novel and musical mediums converge for a “unique audio-visual landscape.” The graphic novel portion of the project is composed of 15 stories which feature the work of 15 different graphic artists, along with that of writers Alex Paknadel and Helen Mullane. The graphic artists featured in the novel include Christian Dibari, Marie Llovet and Ryan Kelly. 

The accompanying album portion of Superstate features 15 new songs, all from Coxon himself. Coxon also contributed the book’s cover artwork. Other musicians featured on the soundtrack include Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne, Sharlene Hector, Valentina Pappalardo and Vula.

The creative direction of the entire project was spearheaded by Coxon, as the writers and artists worked to realize concepts that were originally inspired by Coxon’s ideas. The whole process was led first by new music that he wrote exclusively for Superstate. Each story in the graphic novel is accompanied by it’s own individual track.

According to Coxon, “Superstate is about a dystopian world where angels and villains alike promise the people paradise, disenchanted children live feral in vast rubbish dumps and the masses are pacified by a drugged out, government-mandated digital dreamscapes and robot partners while they wait to perish on this dying planet. It seems all hope is gone but there might be one place in the universe where the most desperate can escape… heaven.”

The standalone soundtrack of Superstate will be available digitally, as well as on vinyl bundled with the book on Aug. 27.

Coxon is best known as the guitarist and founding member of legendary Britpop band Blur. He was responsible for composing several classic songs from the band, including 1997’s  “You’re So Great” and 1999’s “Coffee & TV,” providing vocals for much of the latter.

Coxon also produced the band’s most recent release, 2015’s The Magic Whip along with Stephen Street. The album debuted at No. 1 on the UK album chart.

Over the years, Coxon has also amassed a respectable solo career away from Blur. He has released eight solo albums between 1998 and 2012. He also composed much of the original score to the Netflix show The End of the F***ing World, including the song “She Knows,” which was released ahead of season two in 2019.

Blur, meanwhile, reportedly “have an idea” as to what another reunion for the band could be, according to frontman Damon Albarn.

Superstate Tracklist:

1.         Yoga Town (Artist: Kendall Goode)
2.         Uncle Sam (Artist: Eryk Donovan)
3.         It’s All In Your Mind (Artist: Andrade Estevez)
4.         Only Takes A Stranger (Artist: Anna Readman)
5.         L.I.L.Y. (Artists: Luisa Russo)
6.         Bullets (Artist: Goran Gligovic)
7.         I Don’t Wanna Wait For You (Artist: Ryan Kelly)
8.         The Astral Light (Artist: Soo Lee)
9.         Heaven (Buy a Ticket) (Artist: Koren Shadmi)
10.       The Ball of Light (Artist: Vasilis Lolos)
11.       Tommy Gun (Artist: Minerva Fox)
12.       Goodbye Universe (Artist: Kim Canales)
13.       Butterfly (Artist: Dave Chisholm) 
14.       We Remain (Artist: Ivan Stojković)
15.       Listen (Artist: Taylan Kurtulus)

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat