IDW Publishing and Southern California record label, Burger Records, have teamed up to publish Shahriar’s Fouladi’s novella The Scooter Chronicles: A Southern California Modyssey. This mod-themed novella, exploring an unsung sliver of SoCal history, will be released in March 2018.
Set in the 1980s, this story follows teenager Tommy Daniels. Although coming from a poor family, Daniels lives in a rich SoCal town working part time as a delivery boy for a pharmacy. Despite not really fitting in, Daniels life is looking pretty good: he’s about to start college, is days away from reaching a milestone with his girlfriend, and almost has enough money to buy the perfect scooter. Of course, when things look good, disaster is always right around the corner. Such as being hunted by a reclusive old rock star, haunted by a menacing police officer, indoctrinated into a cult, and accompanied by swine while catching a ride in a pickup. At least this epic comic journey is set to the soundtrack of Daniels Mod mixtape.
Drawing on the music from the Mod movement, extras for this collection include “It’s a Way of Life,” an essay about the 1980 Mod revival in SoCal by Bart Mendoza – lead singer of the band Manual Scan, noted music journalist, and prime player in the San Diego Mod scene. They also include a selection of color images capturing prime Mod moments from 1980s California and celebrated artist Ralph Cosentino’s cover for Dr. Harvey’s Victor the Vespa – the fictional book written by a character in the story.
“Burger is excited to delve deeper into the book publishing world with the release of The Scooter Chronicles! Since we have such an affinity for the Paisley Underground musical movement of the early ’80s and Mod culture in general, we thought this book would be a good fit for us and our audience. It’s a story about a scrapper named Tommy who is willing to do anything to take his life into his own hands and that’s something we can get behind, being the scrappers that we are,” shared Sean Bohrman, co-founder of Burger Records.
The Scooter Chronicles: A Southern California Modyssey by Shahriar Fouladi will be available on March 20, 2018 for $19.99. The novella is currently available for presale on Amazon and other online booksellers.
