Linkage: Thomas Dolby, The Smiths comic book, ‘120 Minutes,’ WHFS, ‘Retromania’

A collection of some interesting links we stumbled across recently:

The Science of the Floating City: Interview with Thomas Dolby The “She Blinded Me With Science” star opens up about his first new album in 15 years — due in October — as well as his online game, how MTV both helped and hurt his career, and working with Prefab Sprout, among other topics. [Culture Brats]

The Smiths Inspire New Comic Book Anthology This fall will see the debut of the Shawn Demumbrum-helmed, 13-volume anthology “Unite and Take Over: Comic Stories Inspired by The Smiths,” which will feature different writers and artists telling stories based on such songs as “Handsome Devil,” “William It Was Really Nothing” and other classics. […ology]

Is MTV’s ’120 Minutes’ Still Necessary? After the premiere of the resurrected, Matt Pinfield-hosted version of MTV’s “120 Minutes” a couple weeks ago, Judy Berman examines the show’s place in the 21st century music world, and concludes it needs to “give us something we’re not getting anywhere else” if it’s going to serve the same role it did back in the ’80s. [Flavorwire]

Alt radio station WHFS returns The classic Washington, D.C.-area alternative station — killed by a format switch in 2005 — returned to the airwaves this month at 97.5 FM (and online as well) with former ‘HFS DJs such as Tim Virgin, Gina Crash and Neci returning to the air. [Pop Candy]

Pop Will Repeat Itself An excerpt from the new Simon Reynolds book “Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to its Own Past,” which appears along side a review by Tom Payne. Reynolds notes, “The world economy was brought down by derivatives and bad debt; music has been depleted of meaning through derivativeness and indebtedness.” [New York Times]