The pandemic. Devastating fires. Floods. The climate crisis. You can get an apocalyptic mood, as described by David Bowie in “Five Years”. It says that the earth would “really die”. It will all be over in five years. The British pop icon wrote the song 50 years ago and it appeared on June 16, 1972 on the legendary album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”. The comforting thing about it: In the song “Starman”, Ziggy Stardust is announced as a savior. An alien rock star who wants to bring love and peace to humanity. Unfortunately, in the end he will fail because of his excessive lifestyle and after a final gesture of reconciliation he will die on stage.
Reinhard Kleist wrote in his comic “Starman – David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust Years”, which he published on January 19th in Munich House of Literature presented, both shown. The apocalyptic mood in “Five Years” and the last concert by Ziggy Stardust, which was not only on the album, but actually. It was on July 3, 1973 when Bowie in the role of Ziggy at the Hammersmith Odeon in London announced to the surprised audience that this would be their last show. And yet the album and the tour had led him to success. In the comic you see Bowie / Ziggy afterwards in a rainy side street. He tears tour posters off the wall, sets fire to his wardrobe and disappears.
David Bowie was globally successful in the role of “Ziggy Stardust” – here on a Russian tour poster.
(Photo: Reinhard Kleist / Carlsen Verlag GmbH, Hamburg 2021)
Kleist shows David and Ziggy as divided personalities
Why did Bowie, who would have turned 75 on January 8, break up with Ziggy? So that Ziggy, who according to Kleist represented “a cold, ruthless part of Bowie’s personality” and helped him “to the top in the rock business”, doesn’t eat him up. And in fact, the musician, who died on January 10, 2016, was afraid that he would only be identified with this role. But Kleist goes further in his interpretation. He recounts how Bowie grew up as David Jones in a suburb of London and how his brother Terry was schizophrenic. And he portrays the story of David and Ziggy like the split into two personalities. The tour for the album forms the framework story, the prehistory is told in flashbacks. In addition, there is the illustration of individual songs as a third level.
The tour is in bold colors, the flashbacks are shown in warm sepia and the songs in an overdone color aesthetic. And anyone who knows Kleist’s great comics about Johnny Cash or Nick Cave and their haunting black and white aesthetics will be amazed. In fact, the Berlin-based draftsman did not dare to try Ziggy’s gaudy world of colors on his own, but instead called on the colourist and graphic artist Thomas Gilke. Together they have created a visually impressive and atmospherically dense comic portrait of Bowie, which admittedly is not the first.
Bowie on his knees next to guitarist Mick Ronson. Reinhard Kleist from Berlin brought colorist and graphic artist Thomas Gilke to his side for the bright color scheme of Ziggy.
(Photo: Reinhard Kleist / Carlsen Verlag GmbH, Hamburg 2021)
David Bowie will also be honored with a postage stamp and pack sets
For example, the US cartoonist Mike Allred told the first phase of Bowie’s career in “Bowie. Stardust, ray cannons and daydreams” in 2020, with Ziggy’s “death” as the focal point. There are many anecdotes in it, even more facts, as with Kleist, stars like Lou Reed or Warhol appear. The only thing missing is the psychological depth that Kleist strives for in “Starman”. In this Bowie year (the 75th birthday and 50 years of “Ziggy Stardust”) a few more devotional items should come our way. Like the “lost” album “Toy” from 2001, which will be released posthumously on January 7th. A Bowie special postage stamp came out on January 3rd and 5000 Bowie DHL packsets are also available from January 7th.
In addition to the comic, Reinhard Kleist has also published a Bowie book and appointment calendar as well as a luxury edition of “Starman” with a hand-signed print. Otherwise, it wasn’t the anniversary year that gave him the impetus, but supposedly advice from Nick Cave. With “Low – David Bowie’s Berlin Years” a sequel is already in the works, in which one will find out, among other things, who the narrator is in both comics. In “Starman” that is not revealed until the end.
Reinhard Kleist: Starman – David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust Years, Carlsen Verlag 2021, 176 p .; Talk and reading on Jan. 19 at 8 p.m. in the Literaturhaus (live and digital), www.literaturhaus-muenchen.de