Remember the first time a record sent a divine shiver down your spine or when a band changed the way you dressed forever? How does something that is just noises arranged in sequence do that? No one knows. It’s just… magic.

Music is literally magic – that’s the premise behind PHONOGRAM, a modern dark-fantasy miniseries debuting this August from Image Comics.

The debut miniseries from award-winning journalist Kieron Gillen (Plan B, Busted Wonder), PHONOGRAM features artwork by Jamie McKelvie (LONG HOT SUMMER) and is already being dubbed “one of the few truly essential comics of 2006” by Warren Ellis, who added with caution: “Read this or lose.”

“We want PHONOGRAM to move people as much as the things which inspired it – both the best pop records and the best pop comics – moved us,” explains Kieron Gillen. “I just feel incredibly privileged for this to be my first book. If I die without ever doing another comic after this… well, I can’t really complain. If I only have five minutes on stage, these are the five minutes I’d want.”

PHONOGRAM traces the misadventures of Phonomancer David Kohl as he hunts for whoever is interfering with his old patron, the long-dead Goddess of Britpop, Britannia. If he fails, history itself will be rewritten – and him entirely out of it. To do so the contemptuous Kohl must survive the most brutal corners of his world, while his mind is slowly being unravelled. Appropriately, the covers for the six-issue series are inspired by a handful of album covers associated with the Britpop boom of the mid-90s. Issue #1 pays homage to Elastica’s self-titled freshman release, while subsequent issues will reference Oasis’ DEFINITELY MAYBE, Blur’s MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH, Back Grape’s IT’S GREAT WHEN YOU’RE STRAIGHT, YEAH!, Manic Street Preachers’ THE HOLY BIBLE and Suede’s self-titled debut.

“When I read the script for PHONOGRAM I just thought ‘He’s written a script for me to draw, even though he doesn’t know me’,” says Jamie McKelvie.

“It’s my love letter to music,” says Gillen. “It’s an honest letter – I’ve been shacked up with her for long enough to know EXACTLY what she’s like, but I’m still hopelessly in love with her. Songs have made me kinder, crueller, smarter, dumber, funnier, happier, sadder, better and worse, and PHONOGRAM is me and McKelvie telling you all about it.”

PHONOGRAM will be available for preordering from the June PREVIEWS and the first issue of this black & white miniseries is in-stores August 2nd, 2006. For more information, plus downloadable posters, flyers and single-page narrative flyers called B-sides, please visit phonogramcomic.com