"It's showtime, synergy!": Musical sequences in Jem and the Holograms

Abstract

This article discusses how the musical sequences (including concerts, rehearsals, and music videos) in Jem and the Holograms (Thompson and Campbell, 2015) depart from the conventions of the rest of the comic. Artist Sophie Campbell uses paneling techniques including bleeds and aspect-to-aspect closure to give these sequences a disorienting quality of occurring out of the regular time scheme of the comic. She presents the music as a physical element in the scenes: her song clouds float in the foreground of the image, similar to speech balloons but belonging to the realm of art instead of text. These song clouds help guide the reader through the scenes, by both separating the images into their constituent parts, and guiding the reader as to the order those parts should be read in.