In her new song Rock N Roll Avril Lavigne revisits Sk8er Boi by way of Def Leopard and Joan Jett, and it’s… a pretty limp track, to be honest. It’s a pre-fab hit in waiting, with too-pat girl power exultations, and it’s going to curl up in darkest region of your brain for a month of surprise!torture. (B the B, Sudoko cures earworms!)
The video though, a Tank Girl/Sy Fy masterpiece of camp, is a bratty sendup of the eternal girl herself. Avril smirks, flips off the collective Man, and battles knife-wielding lobsters, baby dolls, and bearsharks, in the name of rock and roll. Sure, Avril’s girl’s-own-rebellion is a bit silly in the face of her marriage to terminally uncool Chad Kroeger, but… Billy Zane rides a rocket-Segway, ok? Blah blah, the constructedness of pop punk.
Reaction to the video has been all about the stunt-kiss Lavigne shares with that woman, who played that girl, way back when in The Wonder Years, and hey wow, look at those Sin City-style title cards. (Oh bless).
But more important for comic book fans is this as yet unasked question: would you read that comic?
Let me break this down for you:
1. Somewhere beyond Thunderdome, a fourth wall breaking Avril Lavigne…
2. Battles land-bound bearsharks…
3. Using a chainsaw-guitar, a tiny knife, and her fists.
I’m pretty certain that I would read that comic, but you should decide for yourselves.