A link and an open letter to The Spaniard in the works.

Argentina's national daily LA NACION, 1st July, has a huge 3,680 word (counting them has become a disturbing trend here at Campbell blogspot.) article on The graphic novel. La edad adulta del cómic (link thanks to Loris Z)

There's nothing here that we haven't heard before, but let's bookmark the event as an indication of the growing international recognition of this movement. And Campbell's manifesto is quoted in two places.

To Jose Torralba,

You keep going back to the so-called manifesto. You know, when I wrote that I did it for a specific purpose. When one or two places asked if they could use it, i said certainly, but please explain in a short paragraph when and why it originated. That is, I wrote it as part of a thread on the old Comics Journal site. There was a big article in The NY Times weekend magazine. Spiegelman, Clowes, Brown, Seth, Tomine were all interviewed and photographed. Everybody was complaining that the article had got it all wrong. I said, they got it wrong because as a community we constantly give out confused information. We send the signal that arguing about the meanings of the words is important, that we can't all agree on what it is we're supposed to be about. We're stuck with 'graphic novel'. Instead of sneering, put it on the flag and get behind it. So why don't we all agree to a set of principles. They won't be absolutes, they're simply a guide to stop arguments so that we can all move forward in the same direction and promote the thing we're all involved in. Thus, we say 'novel' but we don't necessarily mean that in the sense that it's understood in the book world. You fastened upon my criticism of Manuel Barrero, but he was in a situation where he was addressing people in or more familiar with the book world than the comics world: Literaturas.com. He quoted my manifesto but he was doing the very thing the manifesto was written to head off. He was arguing about the words. 'Perversion of a publishing label'- he insists I left out the word 'genre' in that title, but that's just another one of those words that makes comics into a hillbilly town on the map of culture. My metaphor misfired there, because he took it personally. In a better world I might have had the foresight to think that he could actually be from the provinces, but in these internet driven times, everybody is just online in a great equality. It certainly wasn't meant personally except in the sense that it was he who wrote the words I was criticizing.

But, you know, hey! If you and Manuel want to say it's a publishing label, you never heard any complaint from me. I was just saying that's not what Eisner had in mind. Go for it. Enjoy yourselves. Who said you couldn't? I didn't. Eisner didn't. Nobody owns individual words exclusively. (unless they're trademarks of course) Just for god's sake stop arguing about it.

The manifesto wound up being reproduced and posted all over the place and in several languages. I quite liked the way Santiago used it because he understood the spirit of it. He has a paragraph about Toeppfer not wanting to be seen to take his concept too seriously, and he shows Campbell likewise. The introductory paragraph is generally no longer attached, and it's a document I no longer have any control of (I once deleted it from Wikipedia, but that couldn't suppress it) so I expect when you first saw it you took it at its word as being a manifesto. When you took the so-called manifesto and pissed all over it, with your ten-part satire, it probably never occurred to you, as it may not have done to Manuel, that I might one day see it. But that's all right. You had a sense of humour then. Today you have left it in your other suit.

Now I wait to see whether you will also piss all over my olive branch.

sincerely,
Eddie Campbell