Bonjour to you too!
Tsecond volume of Alec in French, Graffiti Kitchen, is just out this week. Hopefully anybody likely to take offence can't read French. You can see it at left alongside the first volume. Ça et La have changed the cover since we last looked at it here. I expect they don't really want to hear who prefers the first one at this juncture, so keep it to yourself. The edition translates my Three piece Suit and it prints it very nicely. I'm working towards having all four of my autobiographical blathers in digital form. I've just sent the third, How to Be an Artist, now offically out of print in English, off to France on disc, so that's three down and one to go. When all four are done I'll be looking at putting it out a big omnibus in English through Top Shelf.
Seeing wee hayley campbell speaking French long before she knew how to:
... reminds that me she was in that lovely country around the time of my birthday and sent me a bottle of 1995 Coteaux du Layon Chaume, a grand vin d'Anjou, (11 years old? 12? living down here so long i've forgotten when we count from in the northern hemisphere), deliciously sweet. Didn't we bring that kid up right!! She included a cartoon of herself, 'french variant edition campbell with comedy beret': 
review
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Nicki Greenberg puts on a slide show at Avid Reader while in town on other business- finds herself a victim of the sort of mishap that happens to me regularly.
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Actress (I know we say 'actor' these days for the ladies but...) Deborah Kerr died this week, age i think 86. The bloke on breakfast tv reminded me of one of the great lines of all time:
"When you speak of this, and you will, please be kind."
Spoken by Deboorah Kerr in the movie version of Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy. (1956)
Controversial play about the difficult coming-of-age of a boy who is scorned by his peers for being "unmasculine," and the efforts of a sympathetic older woman to help him overcome his self-loathing. The movie version dilutes the effect, despite some excellent performances.
posted by Eddie Campbell at
00:15
13 Comments:
"When all four are done I'll be looking at putting it out a big omnibus in English through Top Shelf."
I'll buy that in a shot. I do hope you'll be putting in a new story or two. Sketches at lest...
I met Chris Staros a couple of years back and he mentioned he was trying to persuade you to let him put out a 'Complete Alec'. I said to him 'surely there can't be a complete one until Campbell pops his clogs'. He looked at me like I was deliberately misunderstanding him, for which I was sorry.
I'm sad How to Be an Artist is out of print, it's my personal favourite. And as a stand alone volume it was immensely helpful to me when I found myself moving to another country and where I had no community to share my creative endeavours with.
Have you got a name for the omnibus yet?
Ben Smith
A Coteaux du Layon?
That girl loves you dearly...
Oh and speaking of wine - a classical example of French esprit d'escalier that - I was looking up wine shops/bars in Rome two days ago and found one in Trastevere called "From Hell" which seems to have a Jack the Ripper theme.
I'll be in town tomorrow, prowling wine shops, with my favourite Canon. If the place still exists, I'll take pictures...
Nathalie
"That girl loves you dearly..."
mutual of course.
and if a photo materialises, I'd love to show it here.
Eddie
A From Hell wine bar? The mind boggles... Still, the Ten Bells pub in Spitalfields was known as The Jack the Ripper for a while.
Tea and Sympathy! I was in a production of that play in college, when playing a sexually timid and unmasculine boy wasn't much of an acting stretch. I haven't seen the film, and I suppose I should check it out. The woman who played the role in our production was a large and gentle butch lesbian; I suspect the end result was perplexing to folks who expected a Deborah Kerr stand-in.
That is a lovely line. "Please be kind."
I'm so fuckin' hilarious.
Eddie, I remember you once going on about stuff left out of the Acme/Eclipse edition of THE COMPLETE ALEC, explaining the title was meant more as a pejorative than a boast of the all-inclusive. (Tell Staros to get on that BACCHUS omnibus if he's in single-volume Campbell mode!)
Deborah Kerr, man ... I always think of her in those Powell/Pressburger movies, BLACK NARCISSUS and THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP. A classy dame.
Went to check on the wine bar today but unfortunately it was closed. I had wanted to have lunch there but apparently it is the type of place that only opens in the late afternoon. So no good picture, just one of the cage that bars the door. I'll have to go back.
On a better note, I had a glass of Trebianco today that was well worth a Coteau du Layon in all its ripe apricots and honey flavours and had a though for you...
Can't seem to post in your current blog... no idea why, but I don't know if you've seen this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7053982.stm
Interesting, in a way, isn't it?
No. it isn't. Like everything else about that stupid series of terrible books.
Say, Mr. Campbell, when they translate your comics into French, do they also flip them to read right-to-left, like all the other manga?
Just kidding! :)
-Peter U., Salem, MA
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