The three high-schoolers who comprise Tina and the Tiaras exemplify an era of 60's pop singers: girl groups who typically went by names like the Chiffons or Chantels, Shangri-Las or Supremes. The sound of pre-feminist teengirls singing somebody else's hopes and dreams - it's a moment in pop history that's neatly captured in J. Torres & Scott Chantler's charm-packed graphic novel Days Like This (Oni Press).
Set in the early 60's (we see one character, a songwriter named Karen Prince - the name recalls Carole King, but there's also a trace of Wonder Woman in it - looking for Suites 1958-1964 in the Brill-like Harmony Plaza), the book charts the early days of the Tiaras, the young teenaged songwriter who'll compose their hits and the neophyte woman record mogul who discovers the group. Primary focus is on lead singer Christina, a fourteen-year girl who we first meet singing along to a 45 in preparation for a high school talent show. As with mentor Anna Solomon, Tina has to contend with male scorn and resistance toward her talents.
In the case of the girl singer, this opposition comes from her hard-working father Luther, who couples wounded pride with an honest Christian fear that his daughter will be corrupted by this rock 'n' roll world. ("Have you heard about this Little Richard character?" he demands at one point. "The man who wears makeup? Only man I know wears makeup is a clown!") In Anna's case, it's from the disdainful reaction of her peers in the music business. Starting her own record label with the money she's gotten in a divorce settlement from her ex-husband Abe, Anna is disparagingly called a "housewife" by her wormy former brother-in-law Ben. "How things would be different if we housewives ran the country," she says at one point to Tina's supportive mother.
Article comments