In which members of the rock community tearfully reveal their geeky comic obsessions, beneath their hardened irony-based exoskeleton.

“Modern art,” Eddie Argos proclaims unapologetically in the song of the same name, “makes me want to rock out.” The lead-singer (well, the lead talk-singer) of Art Brut naturally goes on to rattle off a number of side effects of said artistic period on his temperament, culminating with the head butting of a Matisse in Paris’s Pompidou.

The song is standard Art Brut—raucous, hilarious, and catchy as all get out. And naturally, anyone who has picked up the band’s self-titled debut on which the track appears, has little question about the frontman’s opinions on the world of fine art.

Most of us, however, didn’t catch wind about Argos’s sequential art obsessions until recently, when it was announced that the singer would be penning a column of comic criticism for St. Louis-based entertainment publication, PLAYBACK:stl. Argos, a self-proclaimed DC Comics junkie devoted the first installment of his
“Pow! To the People” column to superhero, Booster Gold. He’s subsequently tackled the world of Angel and Captain America.

After a too-long hiatus, we’re extremely excited to welcome The Daily Rock Hatch with a very special geeking out by Eddie Argos.

Who are you?

I am Eddie Argos. The “Singer” in Art Brut, and recently I’m also the “singer” in Everybody Was In The French Resistance..Now.

You should totally be my Myspace friend because:

You don’t want me as a Myspace friend. I never reply to messages and I’m always forgetting my password.

What are you reading [comic-wise, naturally]?

At the moment I’m enjoying Booster Gold. Jeff Katz and Geoff Johns have just finished there amazing run on it and I’m excited to see where it goes next. I’m about to start reading The Escapists by Brian K Vaughn. I really enjoyed the book by Michael Chabon and I love Brian K Vaughn’s writing so I’m really looking forward to it. I also read Fables/Jack Of Fables and the Angel comic regularly. I was a bit embarrassed about reading Angel as its based on a TV show and that somehow felt wrong but its pretty good and I’m still enjoying it although the issues do feel pretty short.

The comic shop that always makes me late for sound check:

I am genuinely often very late for sound checks because of Comic shops.The Comic shop that’s made me the latest, or in fact miss the sound check altogether, was in, I think, Winnipeg. It was a huge second-hand comic shop, full of very cheap comics that I’d been looking for for years. I stocked up on so many comics I had to buy an extra bag just to get them all home.

This time next year, I hope to be working on the soundtrack to major motion picture adaptation of which comic:

All three Essex County books by Jeff Lemire. They are a trilogy of books about the same small Canadian town. It’s a real place, but they’re fictional stories. Really, totally amazing. I can’t recommend these books enough. There on an independent called Top Shelf. I might write the songs anyway and release some sort of concept album so when it does inevitably turn into a film, I have a head start on everybody else

Assorted Eddie Argos-related comic fun facts:

Umm…I’m trying to write a book at the moment about DC comics. I don’t know if thats a “fun” fact though. There is also a song about DC comics on the next Art Brut album.

–Brian Heater