Eternal Britpop band Blur wants to take you to Hong Kong in new comic book

You might've forgotten about Blur, but then you hear "Parklife" playing in a passing car or – more likely – you hear "Song 2"'s iconic 'WOOOO HOOO!' while you're staring at the scoreboard at a sporting event. After 16 years of solo records and side-projects, the one-time Kings of BritPop have returned with The Magic Whip, an album written in, inspired by and largely about Hong Kong. The lyrics reference everything from Buddhist monasteries, boats to the island of Lantau and the residential neighborhood of Happy Valley. ("We definitely drew on influences from our time there," guitarist Graham Coxon told the South China Morning Post, pointing out the obvious.) As a companion piece, the band collaborated with Hong Kong-based artist KongKee to develop a comic book called "Travel to Hong Kong with Blur."

The band members approached KongKee after reading his previous work Pandaman and asked him to help them write and design the comic, that would present a version of Hong Kong that was simultaneously "nostalgic and futuristic." In a YouTube video, KongKee said that he was immediately taken with Blur's understanding of his home. He said:

This album surprises me even more when I see these boys from a foreign land can be so in-depth with these topics, like the lost people of the city, the path of a civilization, even how humanity is going in general and can still resonate with us.

Blur's observations on The Magic Whip allowed him to understand how visitors see and interpret Hong Kong. That "feeling" of the city is what he hoped to capture in his illustrations. The 24-page comic will be available on Blur's website starting on June 12 and it will also be sold at their concerts later this summer.