50

I managed to extricate myself from the boozy proceedings at a reasonable hour last night and so I was not there to see the young future husband lying in the gutter with his whole life before him and, in closer proximity, his dinner.

And since I wrote that before I got there, it may well have ended differently.

FIFTY! My fiftieth day of continuous posting. I am reminded of another boozy night, my fiftieth birthday bash, which took place about eighteen months ago. The photos were coming out looking all wrong, all cold and harsh, until I turned off the flash. With the longer shutter speed everything's looking a bit out of focus now, which is kind of the way I remember it anyway, and the colours are all rich and fruity, except I don't recall my pal Mullins having a purple head on the night.



For anybody interested in the characters in my personal sitcom here at Campbell-blogspot, that's mr j and Hayley Campbell at extreme right, Chalky White in the red shirt and I'm at the back acting like I just scored a goal by getting to the night's end without anybody falling out. I can't see my pal Best in among this colourful flurry. Perhaps he succeeded in 'extricating himself from the boozy proceedings at a reasonable hour', but a memorable moment in the evening was the halting of all eating and drinking so that we could listen to his singing of Meet me in the Alley MacGarry, complete with new verses written by him specially for the occasion, with me leading the chorus. This, you probably forget, was the song that the three tenors were supposed to be singing in our photo hoax in Bacchus #20, which is to be rendered as an 1890s type of waltz. Minty Moore and White, who wrote it (and were the other two tenors in this ridiculous display), had a different conception of the 3/4 time, so when I sing it (as I still do occasionally in the shower) I have to omit and add syllables here and there.


(click to enlarge if you want to read it. If you want to sing it, I'm afraid you'll have to improvise)

If you're new here and don't know who Alec Macgarry is, look here, where a wonderful fellow named Guido Weisshahn has catalogued all my books and the chapters in them, showing where everything has ever appeared. I have never thanked him enough, perhaps from a fear that acknowledging having looked at his impeccably detailed pages might in itself be an act of egotism. If I ever make it to Dresden I will Take Guido and his family out for a slap-up dinner.

And you can buy here, at Top Shelf where the Alec books are still in print.

And finally, a picture of me and the wife of my bosom from the same night. I seem to have lost my glasses, which I daresay is why everything was out of focus.

Here, there and everywhere.

First review of The Black Diamond Detective Agency appears in Kirkus Reviews this week, 15 jan. You can read the first sentence then you need an account. I'm sure my publisher will have it up in a few days.

While you're looking for it over there at First Second, Part two of the interview I did with Lat is promised to be up today. I have a few of Lat's books, but my pal mr j made up the deficit by lending me the rest so that I could do the email chat with the great cartoonist from Malaysia.

You will remember mr j from his previous appearances on this blog, here, here, here and here. Here's one you haven't seen before, just to remind you whom we're talking about.



Well, Hayley Campbell Funnies has lately evolved into a different strip titled On the Mat, which is about wrestling and the daft characters you find there. he's done loads of them already and they're starting to surface here and there. j warns these links may not be very permanent, but they're working as of this minute.

The same Hayley Campbell sat my old pal Ed Hillyer down in front of her laptop so I could talk to him via skype this morning ( I always hear of these things two weeks before Google buys them up for 19 fersquillion dollars). Ed drew two of the Bacchus volumes (2 and 4), which are both out of print at the moment. Forgot to ask him whether he knows he gave that lady two left feet in the image I reproduced here yesterday (in the floatation thingy, click to enlarge). Happens to all of us, my old friend (but not me this time, which is why I'm laughing my head off). Needed Hayley Campbell to point it out though.

Next panel's from my favourite scene in Bacchus: the Gods of Business. Ed drew the finished art over my roughs, an arrangement he was never happy about (my goodness, this would have been 18 years ago, even before From Hell). Ed's style is more frenetic than mine, so he felt quite cramped. This is from the Italian edition which came out three or four years back, but I can't find a date on it.



Following is the cover of same. This was one of my favourites (issue #5) from the Bacchus comic book series. Looks like all mine except for the painted colour which Pete Mullins took care of beautifully. On the Eyeball Kid's coat I made him use those colouring markers the kids play with, where when you use the white one over the others it changes all the colours where it touches them. Actually, it looks like my own hand in that part; in retrospect I wish I'd left it all to Pete to do it his own way. It's probably not very permanent and whoever bought the original will have noticed it change over the years no doubt (I'm sure I would have warned them about it at the time). We used the markers more successfuly on the following issue's cover (the background 'noise') and then lost interest in them and gave them back to whichever kid we pinched them from in the first place. I kept good photos for the purpose of using the images again, as in this Italian edition. A crucial part of the composition however, was the word balloon. The guy holding the gun is saying "YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT!". For some reason the Italian publisher, Alta Fedelta, has removed that. Maybe it's only funny in English. Perhaps in Italy the Polizia don't say a great deal as they bundle you into the wagon. Perhaps my regular correspondent, Nathalie, can tell me. Anyway, as you can see, there was a lot of police-procedural malarkey in this story.



Ed edited a big book of Manga for the English speaking market recently, and there's a good interview with him at the Forbidden Planet blog.

My editor mark Siegel once had a suspicion that I was acquiring a habit of quoting from Beatles songs, which the title of today's post will not dispel. And tomorrow's post will be my fiftieth consecutive day of blogging !! However, since I am now off to my pal Slattery's (mr Duds for anybody who has been studiously following the comments sections... he wrote and drew a classic one-off comic titled Everybody Loves the Lizardman) stag afternoon (they start early here in Australia*, but I hope to effect an exit well before my bedtime), do not expect it to make a lot of sense. (like this last sentence...but that's me off out the door. too late)

(*The time of day here does not correspond to the time on my blog as I have set it to USA east coast time.)

The state of the Independent.

Eddie Campbell interviews Lat at First Second Books. (part one)
* * * *
Hayley Campbell sent me a package from England. First out of it is a copy of the special edition of the magazine that comes with the newspaper the Independent on Sunday. This edition, of 10 oct 2006, is special because they've let the comics crowd take it over. A good idea in principle, and I get to see a few of my old pals appear 'in public.'



There are four pages of Chris Ware, one of text introducing three pages of his 'Building Stories'. I'm presuming its a new presentation of the set that ran in the NY Times, which ranks among Ware's finest works. There's a five page interview with Marjane Satrapi with a huge portrait of her by Charles Burns. Paul Gravett on Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie and Lost Girls for four pages, couple of other features, and then comics people get to illustrate the regular sections, instead of the usual photographs. Nick Abadzis on food and drink, Neal Fox on fashion, Ed Hillyer on style, Barnaby Richards on homes (right), Guy DeLisle on motoring. A lovely idea.

But I have found that the whole package tends to invite deconstruction rather than enjoyment. Looking at Ware first:
“The idea of serialised fiction in periodicals is by no means new, your literature-shaping and deadline-crushed countryman Charles Dickens being probably the best and most successful example."
Is that a wise thing to write? surely it's the parts of his work due most to the serial nature of the conception that make Dickens dreary to the modern consumer.

"It's probably immaterial to mention here that such cartoon serialisation gave rise to both the radio and television sitcom, but I'll do it anyway"
Again, in this consumer age, Is it a good and practical manoeuvre to tell the reader that there are available more up-to-date models than the one you're presenting?

"Most art forms don’t require an explanation or justification every time a new composition appears…but for some reason comics are still “emerging” as a viable art form in their own right… "
The term 'art form' strikes me as somewhat outmoded. The concern with an activity being an art form or not an art form belongs to another time when when the world thought such things mattered. Out of curiosity I googled 'art form' and the first thing to come up was:
"Art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An art form is a specific form for artistic expression to take, ... Are comics an art form, medium, genre, style, or perhaps more than one of these? ..."
COMICS! The last damn thing in the world that wants to be an art form!. Or maybe not. I have a book on my shelf: Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates. ed Alex Neill and Aaron Ridley there are a pair of essays arguing the case for food as an art form. "What I am about to show is that it (food) does not have the same kinds of meaning as the major art forms have." (Elizabeth Telfer). Art has meaning? where? For quite some time now High Art has removed itself beyond not just function and beauty but also meaning. In fact High Art does not tend to concern itself with 'form' either. In the postmodern, democratic world the question of whether this or that is an 'art form' is surely irrelevant. The danger in all of Ware's piece is to paint comics into a very conservative position, asking for the blessing of some imagined authority, which Is not quite what the medium needs.

I am sure that the casual reader must think of comics as not much more than a genre of image-types. The samples of both Hillyer's and Gebbie's work on show would encourage the presumption.
Long time readers of comic books may not be capable of stepping back far enough to see it, but these images, the way they are framed and the way they work, come unmistakably out of comic book culture:


Abadzis' figures on the other hand always have the look of worthy professional illustration. But that's not what the medium needs either.

In the Lost Girls article Gravett shows his usual tendency to run up and down his scales and arpeggios. He finds space to mention everything Moore has done in the last twenty years, even though he apparently visited him for the occasion. You'd think they'd have had more important stuff to discuss. We could only wish for some of Moore's dramatic declarations along the lines of the one about how everything will turn to steam in 2015 approx when the world's total information will be duplicating its size every second. That and a big Charles Burns drawing ito record his memorable presence, would have been very nice thank you. Still, the whole magazine probably hinged on Paul's contacts and expertise. So we shouldn't complain.

Oddly, Satrapi is what the medium needs. The blurb describes her:"Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian exile. And a former punk and drug dealer." I don't know about anyone else, but it's now so long since the punk era that the word, for me, at least as a singular noun, has long since resorted to it's original meaning: punk n 1. slang a) someone worthless or unimportant b)a petty criminal or hoodlum c) an inexperienced boy.
Nevertheless: "The people in authority have been peddling the illussion of 'civilisation'....Take Paris, cut off its electricity and water, and empty the supermarkets. In three days people will be murdering each other and eating the corpses.
...The struggle to preserve human life on Earth is already a lost cause. The world is in such a state that I don't believe it will recover.... But that will be a blessing because i believe the planet will be better off without us. With a few cats and rats, I think the world will be a much happier place."
It is difficult to imagine Satrapi asking for her work to be considered Art. That would be to recognise a heirarchy of authority. With her bold FUCK YOU she will not allow that.

And what the medium absolutely doesn't need is the clot who wrote the legend along the foot of the contents page:
"MR HUSBAND"S MODERN ETIQUETTE: Is it acceptable for ADULTS to read COMICS in public? the dandy or THE BEANO: best indulged behind closed doors, guily pleasure style. VIZ: the watch-out-for me-I'm-bonkers equivalent of wearing a FAKE TUXEDO t-shirt. Anything by Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, et al: FINE, because graphic novels pack more EMOTIONAL MATURITY into a single frame than any novel about BOY-WIZARDS many 'grown-ups' insist on reading."
I didn't even notice that until two minutes ago. I suddenly feel embarrassed about taking this thing seriously enough to write about it here. Actually it's worse. I feel nauseous. Having done the work I'm going to have to post it anyway.

In conclusion, why should all these folk feel an affiliation just because they like to draw their pictures sequentially? And to lump them all together in a magazine and write that baloney you see in the previous paragraph implies that they share some kind of cultural viewpoint.
All of the people who say FUCK YOU would be a much more useful aggregation.
* * * *

If you read my posts early in the day you might want to recheck yesterday's as I made a late afternoon edit that included adding a couple of links.

Otherwise

My pal White sent in this gag which I illustrated this afternoon. (original not available.)



It's in the same series as this from The Fate of the Artist



...which originated as a running joke between me and Hayley Campbell during a trip to Melbourne in 2004 for a convention called Continuum. There are some pictures of me doing a talk there, and here's a photo of my fellow artist, Shaun Tan, wearing Cthulhu on his head at a Continuum. It must be an initiation thing at this kind of event.

'Otherwise' is trying to be one of those one-panel gag comics that used to be popular, in which the punchline is a catch phrase or 'motto' and is the same each day. The humour comes from the sheer accumulation of variations. Noted examples from cartoon history include 'They'll do it every time' and 'Things you see when you're out without a gun.'

While I was getting the 'otherwise' logo out of the file, I came across this, by my pal Patrick Alexander, which is also a variation on a theme from Fate, the Angry Cook!



Patrick does a great little strip titled Raymondo Person. Well worth checking out.

(edited 4.04 pm for clarity, adding a couple of links, and ...spelling.)

FROM HELL: 9/13-14

Another in an occasional series of Alan Moore's FROM HELL script pages. Previous posts here and here.
Today's selection is my favourite script sequence of all the whole book. In fact if you saw me doing any of my stand-up presentations a few years back, you may have heard me do this sequence, edited, as a 'reading.' I also boiled it down into a short article on the old Eddiecampbellcomics.com site. But this is the first time the whole sequence has been presented uncut. Why is it my favorite? Not because it inspired great drawing, but perhaps because so much of it is beyond illustration. There have been times, while I have been reading it aloud to an audience, when I have thought, I really wish I had put a lot more detail in there. We were only able to rustle up a couple of small photos on the day and I figured we could use an educated sense of the presence of Egyptian statuary to get by. Upon reflection though, I'm sure that more detail would have killed the progression of the story. To get a sense of the morbid majesty and mystery that Alan is hinting at would require a sountrack. this is a scene I'd love to see done properly on screen. I have tried to contain it all in the body language, and at the same time, not look like I was doing it.
Alan's crack about Gary Groth was in reference to a remark Groth had made in print, I think during his interview with Alan well before we worked on this chapter, about me using photocopies to repeat figure positions, at which I had taken umbrage. Of course I never did that, except for this sequence, just to be contrary.




FROM HELL Chapter 9. PAGE 13.
PANEL 1.
THIS IS A SEVEN PANEL PAGE, WITH THE FIRST PANEL BEING A BIG WIDE ONE AND THEN THREE PANELS ON EACH OF THE TIERS BELOW THAT IN THE FIRST BIG PANEL WE HAVE AN INTERIOR SHOT OF THE EGYPTIAN ROOMS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM, FOR WHICH I’M STILL TRYING TO FIND REFERENCE. I IMAGINE IT AS QUITE BIG AND SPACIOUS AND ECHOING, ITS TILED FLOORS POLISHED TO A DEEP AND LUSTROUS REFLECTIVE SHEEN. IF IT SHOULD TURN OUT TO BE AT ALL POSSIBLE WITHOUT STRAYING TOO FAR FROM REALITY, I’D LIKE SOME BIG AND SIZEABLE EGYPTIAN STATUES ARRANGED IN THE BACKGROUND OF THIS SCENE FOR PREFERENCE. AS I SEE THE IMAGES HERE, WE ARE LOOKING AT ONE OF THE EXPANSIVE GALLERY WALLS OF THE EGYPTIAN ROOMS, ALONG WHICH THE TENTATIVE GIANT STATUES ARE ARRANGED, SEATED OR STANDING IN THEIR HIEROGLYPHIC POSES. WALKING ALONG THE GALLERY FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, QUITE SMALL IN COMPARISON TO THE HUGE STATUARY, WE SEE WILIAM GULL, HIS TOP HAT NOW IN ONE HAND AND A BAG OF GRAPES IN THE OTHER, HIS REFLECTION SHIMMERING IN THE TILED FLOOR AT HIS FEET. SOMEWHERE OVER TO THE RIGHT WE CAN PERHAPS SEE SOMEONE WITH THE UNIFORM OF A MUSEUM CUSTODIAN OR ATTENDANT. HE IS DEALING WITH SOME MENIAL DUTY AND PAYS NO ATTENTION TO GULL’S APPROACH.
No dialogue.

PANEL 2.
HERE WE HAVE CHANGED ANGLES BY ABOUT NINETY DEGREES SO THAT HERE WE ARE BEHIND GULL AS HE WALKS ALONG. WE SEE HIIM AS HE PAUSES, SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM US ACROSS THE TILED AND GLEAMING FLOOR, TO SPEAK WITH THE MUSEUM ATTENDANT MENTIONED LAST PANEL. THE ATTENDANT INCLINES HIS HEAD TOWARDS SIR WILLIAM, LISTENING INTENTLY AND RESPECTFULLY TO WHAT GULL IS SAYING. THEY ARE TOO FAR AWAY FROM US TO HEAR AT THIS JUNCTURE. ALL AROUND THEM, THE EGYPTIAN EXHIBITS LOOM, STRANGE, ANCIENT AND SILENT.
No dialogue.

PANEL 3.
SAME SHOT. GULL IS STILL STANDING IN THE SAME PLACE, BUT THE ATTENDANT IS STARTING TO HURRY OFF PANEL TO THE RIGHT, PERHAPS LOOKING BACK AT GULL AS HE DEPARTS AND TIPPING HIS HAT RESPECTFULLY SO THAT WE RECEIVE THE IIMPRESSION THAT HE IS HURRYING OFF TO DO GULL’S BIDDING. GULL JUST STANDS THERE IMPASSIVELY AND WATCHES HIM GO, COLOSSAL SLEEPING KINGS AND JACKAL HEADED DEITIES KEEPING THEIR ETERNAL SILENT VIGIL ALL ABOUT HIM. HALF-HOUR OLD ECHOES STILL WHISPER AND CLATTER FAINTLY. A ZOMBIE SIBILANCE IN THE FAR CORNERS OF THE ROOM. MAYBE GULL EATS A GRAPE.
No dialogue.

PANEL 4.
SAME SHOT. HERE THE ATTENDANT IS GONE FROM SHOT, SOMEWHERE OFF THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE PANEL, AND GULL IS LEFT ON HIS OWN, STANDING THERE IN THE GIANT MUSEUM ROOM WITH ITS SOARING PILLARS. HE GAZES ABOUT AT THE VAULTED ARCHITECTURE AS HE WAITS, WHICH, ON BALANCE, IS PROBABLY MUCH BETTER FOR ONE THAN LISTENING TO A MUZAK RENDITION OF “UP, UP AND AWAY IN MY BEAUTIFUL BALLOON” FOR FIVE MINUTES.
No dialogue.

PANEL 5.
SAME SHOT, WITH GULL IN THE SAME PLACE, ONLY HERE HE HAS STOPPED LOOKING AT THE SURROUNDING ARCHITECTURE AND PLUNDERED ART TREASURES TO GAZE TOWARDS THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE PANEL WHERE WE SEE THE ATTENDANT RETURNING, USHERING A SMARTLY DRESSED, PLUMP AND BESPECTACLED GENTLEMAN IN A SUIT BEFORE HIM, THIS MAN EVIDENTLY BEING SOME SORT OF MUSEUM OFFICIAL THAT GULL HAS SENT THE ATTENDANT TO FIND FOR HIM. THE MAN IS BREATHLESS AND HURRYING, PERHAPS WRINGING HIS HANDS SOLICITOUSLY BEFORE HIM AS HE WALKS. IT IS EVIDENT FROM HIS POSTURE THAT HE CONSIDERS GULL A VERY IMPORTANT VISITOR AND IS ANXIOUS TO PLEASE HIM IN WHATEVER WAY HE CAN.
FAT OFFICICIAL: Sir William. We are honoured, sir, deeply honoured by your visit.
FAT OFFICIAL: I am at your disposal, sir. If there is anything I can assist with …

PANEL 6.
CHANGE ANGLE NOW SO THAT IN THE RIGHT OF THE FOREGROUND, HEAD AND SHOULDERS AND FACING AWAY FROM US AT A SLIGHT ANGLE TOWARDS THE LEFT OF THE NEAR BACKGROUND, WE SEE THE FAT MUSEUM OFFICIAL, OR AT LEAST A PART OF HIM. OUR MAIN FOCUS, HOWEVER, IS ON GULL, WHOM THE OFFICIAL IS STARING AT HERE. GULL STANDS IN THE LEFT NEAR BACKGROUND, FACING THE OFFICIAL ROUGHLY HALF FIGURE AND US, THE OPEN BAG OF GRAPES STILL HELD IN HIS HAND ALONG WITH THE TOP HAT. HERE, PERHAPS, AS HE SPEAKS TO THE OFFICIAL, HE PICKS ANOTHER GRAPE FROM THE BUNCH IN THE BAG. HE FIXES HIS UNBLINKING AND UNNERVING STARE UPON THE CLEARLY DISCOMFITED AND NERVOUS OFFICIAL AND SMILES. THE SMILE MIGHT BE MISTAKEN FOR A FRIENDLY ONE WERE IT NOT FOR THE COLD, SARDONIC AND UNWAVERING SUPERIORITY ALWAYS EVIDENT IN GULL’S EYES. TO HIM, EVERYONE ELSE IS A PARTICULARLY AMUSING STRAIN OF PARAMECIUM.
GULL : Let us hope so.
GULL : There is in England a mummy-case from Thebes, currently in private hands. Does the British Museum intend to purchase it?

PANEL 7.
CHANGE ANGLE TO ALMOST A REVERSE OF OUR LAST SHOT, SO THAT NOW GULL IS FACING SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US, LESS THAN HEAD AND SHOULDERS IN THE RIGHT OF THE FOREGROUND. WE CAN ONLY SEE HIIM FROM THE BRIDGE OF HIS NOSE DOWN TO HIS CHEST HERE, WITH HIS EYES OFF PANEL ABOVE. VERY SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY, HE POPS A GRAPE INTO HIS MOUTH HERE AS HE LISTENS TO THE REPLY OF THE NERVOUS MUSEUM OFFICIAL, WHOM WE SEE OVER ON THE LEFT OF THE NEAR BACKGROUND, ROUGHLY HALF FIGURE AS HE FACES TOWARDS GULL, HIS HANDS SPREAD IN NERVOUS AND APOLOGETIC EXPLANATION. ALTHOUGH THE MAN LOOKS OBSCURELY AGITATED AS HE SPEAKS, WHAT WE CAN SEE OF GULL’S FACE REMAINS IMPASSIVE AND EXPRESSIONLESS AS HE THOUGHTFULLY MASTICATES THE GRAPE.
OFFICIAL : Ah yes. Yes, I have heard of the, ah, of the item. Excellent piece. First class.
OFFICIAL : Of course, there IS the matter of its, ah, reputation, so to speak …

PAGE 14.
PANEL 1.
NINE PANELS ON THIS PAGE, AND I WANT THE FIRST THREE TO BE ALL FROM THE SAME SHOT : WE SEE BOTH GULL AND THE FAT OFFICIAL FULL FIGURE HERE AS THEY STAND FACING EACH OTHER, WITH GULL ON THE LEFT. (THE ATTENDANT WE SAW EARLIER, NO LONGER NEEDED, HAS MELTED INTO THE BACKGROUND SOMEWHERE OVER THE LAST TWO OR THREE PANELS AND CONTINUES WITH HIS CHORES.) GULL, ON THE LEFT, STANDS IN PROFILE FACING THE OFFICIAL, WHO IS IN PROFILE ON THE RIGHT AND FACING LEFT, TOWARDS GULL. GULL STANDS IN A STOCKY AND SOILID LOOKING MANNER, HIS LOW CENTRE OF GRAVITY IN PERFECT BALANCE, GIVING HIS BODY LANGUAGE A SUBTEXT OF IMMOVEABILITY THAT HE WILL RETAIN THROUGHOUT THIS NEXT THREE PANELS (USE A XEROX IF YOU LIKE, JUST TO EXCITE GARY GROTH.) THE MUSEUM OFFICIAL, ON THE OTHER HAND, DOES CHANGE HIS POSTURE OVER THIS THREE PANEL SEQUENCE, EVEN IF HE DOESN’T ACTUALLY MOVE ABOUT VERY MUCH. BY KEEPING GULL’S BODY POSTURE STATIC, I WANT TO FOCUS ATTENTION ON THAT POSTURE OF THE OFFICIAL THAT HE IS TALKING TO, SO THAT OVER THIS THREE PANEL SEQUENCE WE CAN WATCH THE MAN’S WILL SLOWLY CRUMBLING BEFORE GULL’S SUPERIOR RESOLUTION, AS REFLECTED IN HIS POSTURE. AS I SEE IT, THE OFFICIAL IS PERHAPS STILL STANDING UP FAIRLY STRAIGHT IN THIS FIRST PANEL, WITH HIS POSTURE GRADUALLY SLUMPING INTO COMPLETE SUBJUGATION OVER THE NEXT TWO FRAMES. AS THE TWO MEN STAND TALKING TO EACH OTHER, THEIR REFLECTIONS WAVER INDISTINCTLY IN THE POLISHED TILES AT THEIR FEET, THEIR VOICES RINGING AND ECHOING IN THE STONE EARS OF THE DEAD PHARAOHS.
GULL : For shame! Do we approach the twentieth century beset yet by such chimaera, that pagan curses daunt this noble institution?
OFFICIAL : It-it’s not that, sir, it’s …

PANEL 2.
SAME SHOT, WITH GULL STILL IN EXACTLY THE SAME ROCK-LIKE POSTURE ON THE LEFT. THE OFFICIAL IS STARTING TO SAG HERE, HIS SHOULDERS SLUMPING AS HE STARTS TO GO UNDER BEFORE THE AVALANCHE FORCE OF GULL’S PERSONALITY. ABOUT THEM, THE DEAD LISTEN WITH VARIOUS ATTITUDES OF CELESTIAL INDIFFERENCE.
GULL : Think of it, man! What better place for such an artefact than here in this museum, next to Hawksmoor’s Bloomsbury church?
GULL : Shall superstition weigh against good policy?

PANEL 3.
SAME SHOT, WITH GULL STILL UNMOVED ON THE LEFT. THE MUSEUM OFFICIAL HANGS HIS HEAD ON THE RIGHT, COMPLETELY ABJECT AND COWED. TALKING TO THE POLISHED FLOOR RATHER THAN TO SIR WILLIAM AS HE SPEAKS.
GULL : Half London’s made for things Egyptian with the Royal household held alike in thrall.
GULL : It is, sir, an unconscionable oversight.
OFFICIAL : I’ll see to it, sir.

PANEL 4.
CHANGE ANGLE NOW AS GULL WALKS TOWARDS US OVER ON THE LEFT OF THE FOREGROUND, MAYBE HALF FIGURE HERE. HE SMILES IN SATISFACTION, HIS BACK TURNED TO THE DEFEATED OFFICIAL WHOM WE SEE STANDING TO THE RIGHT OF THE NEAR BACKGROUND, FULL FIGURE, TURNED TOWARDS US AS HE WATCHES SIR WILLIAM WALK AWAY FROM HIM, HIS SHOULDERS STILL SLUMPED AND DEFEATED. HE LOOKS AS IF HE IS ALMOST TREMBLING WITH NERVOUS EXHAUSTION FOLLOWING HIS CONVERSATIONAL WORKING-OVER.
GULL : Excellent. Then I shall not trouble you further. I take it that your Blake exhibits are still in the same location?
OFFICIAL : Yes, sir.
OFFICIAL : Th-thank you, sir.

PANEL 5.
REVERSE ANGLE ON THE LAST SHOT, SO THAT HERE WE HAVE THE OFFICIAL STANDING ROUGHLY HALF FIGURE ON THE RIGHT OF THE FOREGROUND AND FACING ROUGHLY AWAY FROM US TOWARDS THE LEFT OF THE BACKGROUND WHERE WE SEE SIR WILLIAM WALKING AWAY, HIS FACE TURNED AWAY FROM US, HIS DARK REFLECTION SHIMMERING, AN OMINOUS MIRAGE, IN THE TILES AT HIS FEET. IN THE FOREGROUND, THE OFFICIAL WATCHES SIR WILLIAM WALKING AWAY AND EXHALES MEANINGFULLY, PULLING A HANDKERCHIEF FROM HIS POCKET TO MOP AWAY THE SWEAT THAT HAS GATHERED ON HIS BROW, SPRUNG THERE IN THE SUDDEN EGYPTIAN HEAT OF SIR WILLIAM’S INTERROGATION.
No dialogue.

...but for me and thee.

Final on the Black Diamond Detective Agency for a while, but we will be back. In case the facetiousness here at campbell-blogspot should give a false impression of levity in the overall tone of the book, here is a page with a glimpse of the tragic. It's also the first appearance of a Black Diamond Detective. And I'm rather pleased with my colour scheme, if I may say so.


(click for larger)

* * * *
Joining in the spirit of proposed spousal address here at campbell-blogspot, Brad Weber sent me an email beginning 'The wife took me to the art institute in Chicago..." and apropos of my 'cork people', he attached a photo of some little figures made by Lyonel Feininger which are on display at the museum, of which this is an enlarged detail.



Feininger was one of the great early comic strip makers, and later a noted painter in the cubist manner.

For a look at his comic strip work, Andy at Bugpowder is a good place to start. Here's a reduced detail from one of the pleasing full-scale pages on show there, including some examples I'm unfamiliar with, presumably work published in Germany rather than the two famous series he made for the Chicago Tribune. The little figures above look like the Kinder Kids from that paper, which is where the panel below comes from.



My old publisher, Kitchen Sink put out a full collection of the pages back in 1994, but you ain't getting my copy.

* * * *
My pal White, chartered accountant with a legal firm, as you may or may not recall, sends the following:
"The defence lawyer of a Wisconsin man charged with having sex with a dead deer is claiming he's innocent of any wrongdoing - because a "crimes against sexual morality" statute prohibits sex with animals, but fails to mention carcasses, The Duluth News Tribune reports..."

* * * *
How to hide a comic book.
* * * *

“When I was a kid, if a guy got killed in a western movie I always wondered who got his horse.”

The Black Diamond Detective Agency (that's my next book, see previous two posts.) It's 144 pages , in full painted colour, which I wrapped up in july '06, to be released June '07. That's a whole year of waiting. The year I spent drawing it I was also waiting for my Fate of the Artist to come out. There was a comfort in knowing that if Fate was too pretentious and complicated for everybody, I had this more straightforward action-adventure waiting in the wings to redeem my reputation.



It's based on an original movie script by Charles Gaby Mitchell, who has a co-writer credit, I see, on the new movie, Blood Diamond. Everything he touches turns to diamonds.

Film Producer Bill Horberg has been working the BLACK Diamond property for some time. I'm presuming it was his idea to get a 'graphic novel' published, based on the script and preceding the possibility of a film. It appeared to be understood from our earliest discussions that a 'graphic novel' was necessarily a completely different thing from a movie, and that not everything that works in one can be expected to work in the other. So I was able to approach the work quite at liberty to imagine it as an Eddie Campbell book. The first thing I liked about the script was that it was about the arrival of the twentieth century, of the optimistic and shiny modern world. Except that it arrives with a huge bang,



and in the ensuing confusion everything is out of whack.

Nothing works.

The opening line of my Fate of the Artist is : "One day the artist wakes up with the disquieting feeling that it has all gone wrong." Black Diamond is an action adventure, but at the same time I've been able to carry my own theme over into it. In fact my version begins:
"The day it all went wrong
started out fine..."



* * * *
The quotation at the top of today's post is from George Carlin. I found it while looking for something else. It reminded me of a bit of business in Black Diamond. In the movie script he cuts his hoss loose before jumping a train for the city, which might be interpreted as a big symbolic gesture, but later when he's grubbing about in Chicago I was trying to figure out the finer points of where he could get some ready cash, to buy meals and stuff and the obvious occurred to me. He should have traded in the hoofs. Now, I don't know what the animal would have been worth back then, with there being so many of them around, but I figured you could live on the proceeds for a couple of weeks or more, so I went back and inserted a scene where he sells it.
I don't know from horses. they're so long ago.
Well, I don't know from cars either, and they're only last week . First car I ever bought was for 35 quid, which is a bout 60 bucks, a piddling amount in '80 as now. We poured two pints of water into the tank and watched it all come out of the exhaust pipe.

Ah! Nothing works.