Them other Eddie Campbells

There's a book by somebody named Eddie Campbell, titled 44 Horrible dates:

Eddie has been on more terrible dates than entire villages. Now, for our amusement, our intrepid dater relates 44 of his most hilarious, unbelievable dates, ranging from the guy who immediately farted upon entering his car to the guy who drove him to a fast-food burger joint (Eddie is a vegetarian) before admitting he was high on cocaine.

I presume it's NOT by the Eddie Campbell who wrote the book about the TV soap opera Days of Our Lives, but Barnes and Noble have used HIS photo and MY bio, thus conflating three Eddie Campbells all in one promotional page.


How difficult can it be?

(link thanks to Aziz G in comments yesterday)

During the year I wasn't blogging there was another Eddie Campbell who became famous overnight after being arrested for having sex with an armless mannequin in a public park. He is not to be identified with any of the above-mentioned Eddie Campbells.

When the deputy moved closer, he found a shirtless Campbell sitting on a bench with his pants down around his ankles. On Campbell's lap was an armless mannequin - The apparent recipient of Campbell's lewd acts.

responding to my series of posts on 'them funny Professors' and more specifically commenting on Prof Bean's quotation from Sigmund Freud the other day, my father emailed me the following message:

Looking at your recent blog featuring Prof Bean and his lecture on Freud, I was reminded of Ken Dodd addressing his audience on the care of what he termed the "chuckle muscles". He quoted for them the famous man's pronouncement that "Laughter is the conservation of psychic energy." and then, after a moment's reflection, declared "Mind you, Freud never played second house Saturday night at the Glasgow Empire!"

My father is also named Eddie Campbell and I undoubtedly got my sense of humour from him. I was on a visit home once, when I was unemployed and obscure. I found that a young artist was briefly interviewed in one of the rock music magazines and mentioned me as an influence in a phrase carefully crafted for its effect in that it also included Shakespeare and Boy George. Naturally I read it aloud. My late auntie Ella, also visiting, and not quite getting the early '80s zeitgeist with respect to how a chap in second hand clothes partly held together with sticky tape could be a source of influence to another, said, "To be mentioned along with these famous show people, it must be some other Eddie Campbell they're talking about." My father, sitting in his big armchair reading his paper, muttered "Obviously it's me."

There were five of these Professor Bean cartoons, and they appeared in print more than once. But every time an editor wanted them he only wanted four pages, and i shuffled them so that each time it was a different selsction, but all five were never seen together. Admittedly this was twenty three years ago and I may be misremembering.


Here is the cover from one of those early appearances:

the problem with having a standing google alert for my name is that I've got to be constantly reminded of this bastard who is doing more with his life than I've been doing lately:


If only I could cut a swaggering figure in the world like this one here:


Instead, I am this indigestible lump:


The Inkstuds interrogation is here. If you think that's cranky, just you come round here and I'll give you cranky!

Men At Work's Down under 'ripped off' Kookaburra
ONE'S a pub classic, belted out at top volume by tipsy patrons around closing time. The other is a more dignified affair, a favourite of youth choirs and choral groups. Now, as unlikely as it seems, the classic children's ditty Kookaburra and the Men At Work hit Down Under are set to go head-to-head in court amid accusations part of the rock anthem is a rip off.

These idiots can bugger off. I'm sure the lady who wrote the old song, who i think died in 1988 was probably quite happy to see it quoted like that, an indication that it's part of the musical currency of her country. It's when Art becomes the property of accountants that this happens. But having said that, I cannot say that some of my fellow artists are not idiots too.

one of my pals, who won't allow himself to be named on account of it might look like he's sucking up (no, it wasn't Evans), just sent me this link to a t shirt obtainable at Amazon.com

Here's a closer view:

Obviously it refers to some other Eddie Campbell, perhaps this one:

Or this,

or this,

or this,

wait a minute, that one IS me. Anyway, I emailed the wife and told her i'd ordered her one for the summer. I haven't heard back yet.

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An Antarctic fur seal has been observed trying to have sex with a king penguin.

The South African-based scientists who witnessed the incident say it is the most unusual case of mammal mating behaviour yet known.The incident, which lasted for 45 minutes and was caught on camera, is reported in the Journal of Ethology.

WHA!!!????

This is shit. I just heard Dave Stevens died.It was only a few months ago since I was wondering what he was up to. And he was born less than two weeks before me! What's going on here? that's two great people in less than a month. "We're in mortality country now..."
Dave was a lovely bloke.

The rest of this post was put in here earlier and does not reflect my current mood.


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John C. in comments yesterday likened Mortimer's work to that of our contemporary British illustrator Paul Slater, (see left). His site is well worth a visit for some juicy laffs.

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Thought for the day: "It seems to me that men ask a lot of questions, but they're not willing to do the research. They're always asking, 'What do women want?' Why don't they try buying us a bunch of stuff and see what happens?-- Livia Squires.

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Hey, I could have been THIS Eddie Campbell:
Hurricane Fire Chief Hangs Up His Helmet- Hurricane Valley Journal- march 5-2008

Hurricane City Councilman John Bramall and Mayor Tom Hirschi present retiring fire chief Eddie Campbell with tokens of appreciation for his years of service, as Mrs. Campbell looks on. The Hurricane Fire Department hosted an open house to honor retiring fire chief, Eddie Campbell, for his many years of dedicated service to the community.

I thought it was just the Americans, but in London too:

LONDON (Reuters) - A 16th Century painting of Venus featuring the Roman goddess of love wearing little but a smile has been deemed too risque for the eyes of London's Tube travellers. London Underground bosses have banned a poster of the 1532 work by German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, promoting an upcoming Royal Academy exhibition. The Academy is outraged...

John Coulthart reminds us in comments that a few years back London Transport was previously outraged by Grien's cavorting witches (1514):

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I could have been THIS Eddie Campbell:

Monroe man jailed for sending Valentine candy, flowers -Monroe News Star- feb 15
Monroe police charged Eddie Campbell, 58, with violating a restraining order. He was arrested at his home after reportedly sending flowers to the victim’s work and Valentine cards to her Post Office box number. The arrest marks the second time he has had such charges against him, police reported. He was booked into Ouachita Correctional Center and bond set at $2,000.
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Funny cartoon about Alan moore, via Neil Gaiman

conservatism part 2

Why, oh why can't I be THIS Eddie Campbell:


instead of that other one, that Eddie Campbell the 'graphic novelist', the meanspirited bastard who speaks ill of his friends in public, that supercilious twerp who has made his poor wife's life a misery with all his vainglorious claptrap. I should give up this foolish seeking after Art, do charitable work for the community, find at last a humility that will enable me to live with myself instead of pacing the floor all night, unable to even escape from my own ego into the anaesthesia of slumber.
Maybe I could be THIS EDDIE CAMPBELL... no wait, he's dead:


The producer of the Arts program that flew me to Melbourne a few weeks back to explain what a 'graphic novel' is phoned yesterday to find out why I'm refusing to sign the customary release document for my appearance on the show. After I explained she offered to put up the podcast of my original interview. I said no, but I was thinking good lord no, I don't believe a word of that optimistic baloney I came out with. As a sidelight in relation to yesterday's blather, one of the several bones of contention was that they wanted me to name the first 'graphic novel', and I wouldn't do that because I thought it would be misleading to imply that firstness was important.
In fact if I'm ever asked, and you can quote it, this is Campbell's final theory of the graphic novel:
Once upon a time, in a place we shall call Comic-book-culture some guys stopped cataloguing their purchases for a minute. Now, this is the place where they bag and box their comic book collections and lose sleep worrying whether the acid in the paper will eventually destroy the books. Well one of them had the disquieting feeling that it was a bit embarrassing to be losing sleep over this juvenile nonsense, so what if we were to lose our sleep over something worthwhile instead! Another said, yes and if it was not dissimilar from the juvenile stuff then we could use the same boxes and not have to look for new ones. Okay, but we'll need a name for it, and a high flown theory of course if we are going to impress the world with it, and a few theorists to make it sound gee-whiz complicated. And thus was born the 'graphic novel.' And out into the world it went. Now, when they got it out there they found that it already existed in many various ways. There was loads of stuff that already fit the description of this thing they had sat up all night inventing. But that just wouldn't do if they were to impress upon the world that this was a great artistic moment in history. The most important thing is that it should have originality, and trailblazers and most importantly of all, originating genius. A first! It wouldn't do if there was stuff around before that looked pretty much exactly like this brand new idea. Thus they devised a defintion so that the other stuff could be clearly excluded. In fact they enjoyed the mental exercise so much that they spent the next thirty years writing ever more precise definitions until at last the new thing looked exactly like the thing they were embarrassed about in the first place. Except that it was on better paper of course and they no longer had to lose sleep on that account.

wait, it's the phone
"hi, honeybee. eh? the blog?"
"yes i've written today's. the public apology to Brian? well, yeah, kind of. And then the one where I start writing about trees from now on and forget all that 'graphic novel' shit.
well, uh...."

"gotta go
thanks for roning."