This business used to be a solitary sit-at-home kind of thing

To Melbourne for the Tv shoot. That's around 900 miles from my front door to the rendezvous, at a pub called the Builder's Arms. All that way to a pub. The crew started setting up in the restaurant room which I thought looked a bit bright with its crimson upholstery, and I took myself into the public bar for a 'loosener' as my pal White would say. TV journalist Emma Crimmngs stuck her head in and said there was a change of plan, we're going to the comic book store to shoot. Well I've nothing against Minotaur Comics, but my purpose in all of this is to get the whole subject out into the real world. It must have been written on my mush, because one sour look was all that was needed and within ten minutes we were set up to shoot me sitting sideways at the bar with a full glass of Cooper's Pale in front of me. I was to be televised in my natural habitat (voice over by David Attenborough). I blabbed for forty minutes, and threw in a disc with photos and scans. Nicki Greenberg and Shaun Tan did a simlar time each in other locations earlier in the day, and the whole lot is to be boiled down to ten or fifteen mnutes, to air on the ABC Sunday Arts program. As to the date, I'll let you know when I know myself. Had a couple of beers with Nicki Greenberg before flying back. I have to appear with Nicki again again later this week (see below), which will be the fourth time in a matter of weeks, counting the Age article and the Melbourne festival. She says we've become the Statler and Waldorf of Australian strip cartoons and sends this picture:

BRISBANE WRITERS FESTIVAL
The official site

These are all evening appearances , in contrast to Melbourne which were all during the day.

Thursday, 13 September 2007, 8:15 PM - 9:15 PM
EDDIE CAMPBELL IN CONVERSATION WITH BRYAN TALBOT
Visy Theatre - Brisbane Powerhouse. Of Graphic Novel Fame
Eddie Campbell in conversation with Bryan Talbot. Brisbane’s award-winning graphic novelists Campbell and Talbot discuss their work as it relates to the larger history of illustrated literature.
Bookings essential. Tickets $12/$10 at PowerTix.

Thursday, 13 September 2007, 9:30 PM - 10:30 PM
AS IT HAPPENS: AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN GRAPHIC NOVELS
Visy Theatre - Brisbane Powerhouse
Join Nicki Greenberg, Guy Delisle and Leigh Rigozzi, three of the sharpest self-styled graphic novelists, to discuss how they use their everyday lives to produce acclaimed graphic novels. Chair: Eddie Campbell.
Bookings essential. Tickets $12/$10 at PowerTix.

Friday, 14 September 2007, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
DOES THE LITERATURE OF OUR TIMES HAVE PICTURES?
Visy Theatre - Brisbane Powerhouse
Eddie Campbell, Guy Delisle, Bryan Talbot and Shaun Tan.
Hear four of the world’s most renowned graphic novelists talk about the rise and rise of the medium and the ideas and issues that propel their work. Chair: Daren White
Bookings essential. Tickets $12/$10 at PowerTix.

The saturday one is part of the Children's and Young Adult Writers And Illustrators Conference
15th September 2007, at the QUT Creative Industries Precinct in Kelvin Grove at 2.50 to 3.30.
topic: The Graphic Novel Manifesto.

Talking statues

Melbourne has a few examples of humorous sculpture around the city. Here's one the skinny blokes, and me. I'm the talking one.


I see this kind of thing all around the world, like the bronze suitcase in the central rail station in Madrid, if it's still there. And I find myself thinking about the fate of sculpture in public spaces over the last thirty years, such as Serra's Tilted arc that was put in front of the Federal Government building in Manhattan in 1981 and after much public contoversy, removed in 1989. It was intended 'to alter and dislocate the decorative function of the plaza', cost $175,000 to erect, $35,000 to dimantle, and $50,000 to re-erect in another location.
Melbourne has a similar story (I'm sure most cities do): Vault, more popularly know as The Yellow Peril, a sculpture erected in 1980 at a cost of $70,000 and, after much controversy, moved the following year. Here is an article titled What the sculpture said:

The sculpture, however, was not banished from the City Square simply because people didn’t like it, but because a group of Councillors finally won the debate that Vault was not appropriate to the City Square of Melbourne. Vault, it was decided then, did not represent the aspirations of Melbourne for its City Square, did not say the things they wanted it to say...
Vault, as a sculpture in public, was not only contemporary in its style, material, construction and colour, it did not tell Australian stories. Melbourne was faced with a new type of public sculpture that spoke in a different way.

Perhaps the real problem was that its big blank spaces were an invitation to scrawl slogans, such as the one for 'JOBS NOW' in this old photo:


I am inevitably and mischievously reminded of the tradition of the Talking Statues of Rome. "In 1501 Cardinal Oliviero Carafa put in a small square near Piazza Navona the battered torso of a statue representing Menelaus with the body of Patroclus. Each year on April 25 the Cardinal chaired a sort of Latin literary competition and poems were posted on the statue and occasionally this happened outside the competition period." In this way Pasquino (the name given to the statue, said to be after a well known deformed dwarf) became the first talking statue of Rome. The trick was to sneak out under cover of dark and paste your inflamatory verses or satirical squibs onto the shapeless lump. At one stage the Pope wanted to chuck it in the Tiber to put an end to the mockeries. When guards were put on the statue, the practice was relocated to the colossal staue of a river god at the foot of Capitol Hill. This one was named Marforio and the whole thing became more interesting as Pasquino and Marforio started having conversations. A mutilated colossal priestess of Isis became known as Madam Lucrezia and added a female voice to the comedy.
I love this one:

Via del Babbuino (Baboon) is named after an old statue of a Silenus, which was referred to in derogatory terms as il Babbuino. Its location in the Strangers' Quarter of Rome made it an alternative site for posting pasquinades without a high risk of being caught. Il Babbuino was also used by the large community of foreigners living in the area for lampooning members of the community.

(lots of photos at the link.) update. edit to fix mistake caught by second commenter.

Melb 3

I was on a panel yesterday with two ladies much older than myself, and most of the audience too. Not sure I talked very many of them into coming over to the dark side. When these old school literary types sign books, I noticed that they have no concept of making that scrawl on the titlepege into an attractive visual flourish. And, perhaps recalling blue carbon papers, they lean very hard with their ballpoint, otherwise you won't be able to still see the imprint on page nine.

In Melbourne, me.

Flew out yesterday. Stopped to get book out of bag as the wife of my bosom approached the check-in desk. Looked up and followed her halfway towards the security gate before realising it was the wife of someone else's bosom wearing a similar coat. A McCauley Culkin moment. Anne was at the check-in desk shouting "oi! Where do you think you're going?".
*******
panel with Nicki Greenberg went very well.

That'll be me off up the road.

Packing to go to Melbourne. here's a review I wrote a few days ago. Recommended. Unless you're an eejit.

say 'cheese' (but don't mention the oyster).

D id I get a photo of me and Wee Cal in San Diego? No, Anne, I completely forgot. How could I possibly forget to take a photo of me and the apple of her eye on holiday in sunny California! Look, I'll email around and see if I can find one. Charles Brownstein took this one on Thursday. He regrets it's not a good photo, but we don't look any more out of focus than Charles himself did on the night.


Film producer Bill Horberg might have a better one from Friday, and it may be in focus since he is a teetotaller. In an email titled 'The world is my oyster ' he told me he woke up with a bad case of food poisoning and a doctor had to be called. Since I had half the oysters , it must have been a prawn that got him. I told him his trouble is that he isn't drinking enough beer.
My pal Wayne Beamer has one from Sunday, and I'm looking very tired. I went and upset the dear fellow and I deserve all and more that he says about me.
Unless somebody else out there has one, that's the lot.
**********
Speaking of Bill Horberg and me, Anne Thompson in VARIETY- Sun., Jul. 29-: Horberg's 'Agency' on drawing board
Dormant scripts get graphic novel treatment- As movies based on graphic novels such as "300," "Sin City," "Road to Perdition," "A History of Violence" and "Stardust" become more common, frustrated Hollywood filmmakers are taking dormant screenplays and commissioning graphic novels in hopes of boosting their onscreen potential.
And on her blog two days later: : Campbell's Black Diamond Detective Agency, with photo of me and Bill, presumably before he knew about the prawn.
***********
Authors in couples make for unhappy endings Guardian blog- August 1, 2007.
Writers are often drawn to each other romantically, but very often a sorry tale ensues...
(link via Mick Evans)
***********
BECKHAM TURNS DOWN SIMPSONS CAMEO OVER AFFAIR JIBE
***********
in other news:
Odor leads to illegal dung depot
MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida man stockpiled 20,000 cubic yards of horse manure on his property and was charged with running an illegal composting operation, ...investigators suspect Duque had been accepting dump truck loads of horse manure from nearby equestrian communities in Palm Beach County."

That's that.

Home.
The bastards at the airport went through my case behind the scenes and put all the books back in a very lousy way. Wouldn't that rip the fork out of your nightie, as the wife of my bosom would say. I found the saying listed here with an assortment of other Great Australian sayings including:

* May your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down.
* He's a six pack but he lacks the wrapping.
* Laughing like a fat spider up a Christmas tree.
* So hungry I could eat the crutch out of a low flying duck.
* It's about as useful as a waterproof teabag.
* It fits like a stocking on a chook's lip
* Full as a goog (always a favourite of mine, a goog being an egg)

*****
I suggested wee Cal go to school, but he's gone to bed instead.

that'll be me off home then.

Funny how you get tired of eating out. I just want to sit at home with a cup of my own coffee, with Monty drooling on my shoe as he eyes off my slice of toast.
Normal service will be resumed upon my return.
Must rush. toodle pip.
Good bye, San Diego, Good bye America, good bye Mickey mouse, goodbye Buffalo bill, goodbye dollar bill.

The man...

The man who went to bed before midnight awakes fresh as a daisy, dresses and sets out for his San Diego appointment with his agent.
The man who wore lampshades when they were in fashion is safe in the knowledge that he was not seen riding on the hood of an automobile at three in the morning, and that no photos will appear to embarrass him.

saturday morning

L ast night had dinner and many laughs with Bill Horberg, film producer and Charlie Mitchell, writer of The Black Diamond Detective Agency screenplay. At left is a rare item you may never see. Bill gave me a copy, of which there are five hundred I think, last year. Without any pretense of being a graphic artist he fondly constructed, using collage and comic strip, an honest and engaging account of his meeting with Mickey Spillane and his attempt to develop a project with him. Artist Elsa Mora painted the cover for it in an approximation of the 1950s paperback style.
Charlie told me he's started writing another Black Diamond story.
Wee Cal is buying heaps of stuff. I'm curious to see how the lad thinks we're getting it all in the suitcases. I'm reminded of the time at con clean-up I scored a life-size cardboard stand up figure of Poison Ivy for my daughter Erin. For free. But then I had to pay a hundred bucks to get it on the plane. Having pictured her delight at having Uma Thurman standing around in her bedroom I wasn't about to back out.

Munch

I took up Don Murphy's invitation (in comments here last week) and went to the 'premeere' (as they pronounce it in the USA) of his new production Shoot'em Up written and directed by Michael Davis (who introduced the film with the bubbling enthusiasm of a real 'fan'), starring Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci. I enjoyed this thing, with its brazenly unpretentious title (I'll take it any day over the Bourne Preposterousness). And the title does indeed describe the entire contents of the ride. That plus a couple of unlikely characters, a gun-juggling tough guy shooter in the usual mould, plus a lactating hooker, being stuck in the situation of saving a baby. The explanation for why an army of asassins is trying to off the infant is clever enough to take our mind off the improbability of the premise, but much less interesting than the mayhem which it justifies. The story taps into something of an archetype and I'm struggling to line it up in my noodle. I did a wee story a long time ago titled Dapper John Minds the Baby, in which I was consciously lifting Damon Runyon's Butch Minds the Baby. In the latter a safe-cracker is minding a baby to help out a poor girl who is having trouble making ends meet, but he gets called off on a heist and takes the baby along with him. I mention this to suggest that there is in fact a lttle more going on in the present movie that just the relentless shooting 'em up, though that is done with enough imagination to keep Campbell awake to midnight. There is a fantasy in which we may momentarily in our imagination set aside the fear that being responsible for a wee'un will lead to cosy slippers and resignation to a life of unremitting dullness. And who'd have thought Paul Giammtti would make such a convincing heavy?
A few stills here. Owen eats carrots all through the piece, which is a fun schtick. I enjoyed the one I was handed on the way out. Thanks, Don. munch.

How my business trip turned into a vacation, almost.

It's the cardinal rule.
You don't get the important thing out to show off to show off to the assembled luminaries, when you're in a bar, jetlagged, and into your third beer.
The important thing in this case is the mock-up of my The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard. It took me and Anne four hours to photocopy in colour and wee Cal spent most of a day sticking on the word balloons.
And the problem with three beers is that they are apt to undermine your grasp of the cardinal rule.

It was around three o'clock the next day when I realized it was missing.
First place I went to of course was the bar. One day I intend to write a book about things left in bars. During the short spell I worked in one in Blackpool, while I was polishing glasses on a Sunday morning, an attractive girl came in and mumbled something with her hand half over her mouth. I cocked my ear. She mumbled again. She had lost her false teeth the previous night and was retracing her steps.

The mock-up wasn't in the hotel bar. But I hadn't been off the premises, to the best of my recollection. I went back to the room and consulted my external hard-drive. He was snoozing and objected to being woken up. I got through to him the intense importance of the situation. I was to hand the mock-up to my editor, the illustrious Mr. Mark Siegel that night so that we could discuss it over dinner the following night and map out all that had to be done on it before the absolute deadline three weeks away.
"While I was looking at the turtles in the decorative pond, you went to the bathroom."
The restroom in the hotel lobby. Of course. It wasn't there now. I asked a porter. he pointed to the front desk.
yup. They had it. I described page 15 in intimate detail to prove ownwership (since it hadn't occurred to me to write my name on it) and all was well.
Right, i'm off to breakfast.

captive audience.

New Zealand Air provides your own movie screen on the back of the seat in front, and your own set of controls, and a decent selection of recent films and classics, so I caught up with some of the movies I've been missing while I've had my head down finishing The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard.
300 to begin with. Greece must be one of the brightest places in the world. Here it's the colour of the varnish on old oil paintings. It's most interesting when Miller's still pictures are translated to moving ones. I can willingly suspend disbelief as well the next person, but some standard movie set-ups occasionally break my involvement, for instance the ending just like the one in Braveheart. But why is the bard leading the assembled armies of Greece?
A couple of lovely English historical things I was better able to lose my self in: Becoming Jane about Jane Austen's moment of truth. Hard enough to decide to make your way in the world as a writer, but being a woman and being in the nineteenth century.
Amazing Grace starring Ioan Grufudd and a some of the best living British actors Ian Richardson (no, wait, he was in the Jane Austen movie. must have been one he made before he died, as my mum would say. hi, Mum!) Michael Gambon etc.. the story of William Wilberforce, the Man who tirelessly railed against the evil of slavery and eventually won its abolition in Britain in 1807. A great movie about a great man whom we should all know more about. The title comes from the song written by John Newton who also plays a role in the story, played by Albert Finney.
Lonely heart with Travolta and Gandolfini, who also does the spoken narration, as a pair of detectives in a 1940s story that is probably based on a true case. It plays well, and convincingly, with none of the stupid compromises that usually go into movies, though some of that narration sounds a bit too self consciously hard boiled.
Wee cal chose Ghost Rider, that nutty skating thing with Will Farrell and The Shooter. He watched 300 for 15 minutes then switched to a vid game. I was sitting close enough I could probably review all those too, even without the sound.
When my eyes got tired i found a whole cd's worth of Jacques Loussier doing his jazz thing to two Mozart piano concertos (#20 and #23). Must buy the cd and listen some more.

I don't believe it, I've gone and done it again

I arrived at the check-in without my passport. Again. the problem this time is that I have two passports. I recently renewed it , but my resident's permit is still in the old one. I need to carry two, one to get out of Australia and another to get back in. And I only brought one. So the once again it cost me seventy bucks to tear home at high speed in a taxi and get it. The way I look at it is that It's that time of year when I have to pay the stupidity tax. The hard part was explaining to Monty that this wasn't actually me arriving home from my travels. Not to forget Wee Cal left sitting at the airport with a growing sense of dismay, and a little of that mortal terror I feel every time I travel.
It gives me the excuse to show the incident the way it played out the first time, as recorded in The Fate of the Artist.

Except that it doesn't.

Sitting here in the hotel lobby I have just accidentally erased two of the three images I placed in 'drafts folder' earlier (curse that damn 'autosave' that blogger introduced recently). So I'll show the one that's left. The idea was to show how the original black and white presentation looked before I colorized it at the invitation of the publisher, First Second. I sent him scans made through the tracing paper overlay. And the color was added delicately in gouache.

I'll show the rest at a later date.
Chris Staros just appeared in the lobby. I'm off for a beer.

Lempi.

I

had just arrived in Kemi, Finland, and the first thing they were talking about was getting me into a steam bath. Absolutely the very last thing I want to do is get in a steam bath. I LIVE in one. I have this little character to remind me of one of my most pleasant trips abroad. This is Lempi; she's an award. She is 13 inches tall, is made of solid plaster and weighs around five pounds. She's a character from a successful daily strip, I think. She's an old lady, which you can deduce from the handbag, though why her head is not attached to her neck as yours and mine are, I cannot say. It's difficult to find English language information on the subject, and Google doesn't translate Finnish. But the author is one Jope, and here's a profile of him. And since it occurred to me at the time I lugged Lempi up to my hotel room that I may need to explain it all one day, I picked up a little collection of the strips and here is an example. I haven't a clue what's going on here, I'm afraid, though I daresay someone will explain it before the day is over.

The lovely folks who made the statue and awarded it to me may have already noticed that there are a few chunks knocked out of it. And herein lies my tale. In our house Lempi has come to be associated with amorous attentions, which is not entirely inappropriate as the name apparently means 'love' in Finnish.

The statue has always been kept on top of my bookshelf in our living room. Right in the middle of the top, except I would from time to time need to move it back from the far end. I always presumed that this was because our house must be on a slant, but it turned out that on those special occasions when I and the wife of my bosom would take ourselves off to the bedroom of an evening, with a bottle of Riccadonna and a cd of Billie Holiday, Lempi would become somewhat animated, rocking backwards and forwards and go on a march along the top of the cabinet. Our young 'uns would look up from their televisual entertainments, shake their heads in disapproval and turn up the volume.

Recently Lempi came a cropper alas. The wife of my bosom had purchased a huge big Settee, and the guys who brought it into the house must have learned their trade from 'Charlie and me'.
"Right," said Fred, " Have to take the wall down,
That there wall is gonna have to go."
Took the wall down, even with it all down
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea.
The nitwits rammed the sofa into the bookshelf and down came Lempi. I made light of it of course, but I was broken hearted to see the pieces lying around. I managed to put it mostly back together, but this object carries a lot of symbolism in our house. The sound of Lempi plunging around came to be regarded as a good thing. It meant plentiful crops and a prosperous year, or at the very least a few days less of parental aggravation.

And I think Lempi brought herself to mind because the wife of my bosom is hundreds of miles far away tonight, helping her father move house.

All about Finnish Comics, in English.

Helvetista from Finnish publisher LIKE was our first foreign edition of the mighty work, appearing in five volumes from 1994-'97. I presume that's what the award was for.

And a big hi! to Ilpo who brought me out for that show in Finland way back in 2001. I have a fond recollection of singing Fred Astaire songs with the mayor in the middle of the main street at two in the morning. It was just starting to get dark. Funny place, Finland.

"I was waiting for a plane at LA airport at midnight..."

Oh

d e a r
When they opened the FROM HELL movie here in Brisbane the Australian publisher of the book spoke to the local Fox distributor who brought me in to spend a day doing promotional stuff. Newspaper interviews, magazine, telly. The whole day. I was given a bunch of tickets to the preview night and I got the gang along and we went out to dinner afterwards. Wee Cal was underage and he sat in the adjoining cinema watching Lord of the Rings. I joined him there after the first five minutes as I'd already seen the movie in LA. Anyway, the local newspaper, the Courier Mail was the sponsor and they put their guy up to introduce the thing. In retrospect I should have talked my way into that position, but I'd had enough of the blathering for that week.
The introduction unfolded in a rambling monotone, and just when the bit about the 'graphic novel' came up there was a guy across the aisle for me noisily trying to open a packet of Jaffas© .
"Orange / chOcOlate filled balls, with hard candy cOating - very pOpular at the mOvies in Australia"--
In fact he was making such a racket that I leaned Over and grabbed them
"Give them here." I grumbled.
I ripped the bag Open
and there were jaffas rOlling everwhere,
and a lOcal uprOar ensued.
I was embarrassed as blazes, but I slipped the guy
a nOte of my name and number and said I'd make it up to him and then I snuck Out and joined wee Cal. The name Obviously meant nOthing to him as he never called.
However, I was at LA airport twO years later waiting fOr a plane back to Australia and a fellOw came up tO me and said
"Are yOu Eddie Campbell?"
"Yes, I am."
"YOu know, I was sitting right behind yOu that night at the cinema in Brisbane when yOu
Opened that guy's Jaffas.
Funniest thing I've ever seen."

Have a great Easter Sunday.

***
Do They Still ROll the Jaffas Down the Aisle?

The day I was mistaken for an author.

I want to start an occasional series of anecdotal posts about travelling. First up, a trip to Europe in November 2001 that took me and Anne through Singapore. Earlier I had answered a few email questions for my pal Cheng tju ( who once gave me an old copy of Malaysian artist Lat's Town Boy, soon to be published in the States by my publisher First Second) to put together an article for the Straits Times, the English language paper of Singapore, in connection with the upcoming release of the From Hell movie. I had sent ahead an official photo from a set that Liz Pickering recently came round and shot as my last set was taken some ten years previously and they were starting to look like a memento of some other bloke.
Anyway, we boarded the 707 of Singapore Airlines at Brisbane airport November 10 and grabbed a newspaper to browse, when there in front of me was my own mug.

You should be able to click-enlarge that enough to read it. BUT THE ARTICLE WAS ABOUT SIMON WINCHESTER !!!- author of The Surgeon of Crowthorne( 1998).
"(from interview) There's a book by Jonathan Green called Chasing the Sun, which is a history of dictionary making. And I was actually reading this book in the bath one winter's day about two years ago. And there was a footnote which said, you know, in a rather offhand way that, of course, readers will be familiar with the extraordinary story of Dr. W. C. Minor, the American lunatic murderer who was imprisoned in Broadmoor and became a prolific contributor to the OED.
I remember vividly sitting up in the bath and saying I've never heard of this story. And I rang one person in your office, Elizabeth Knowles, who you'll know well, I dare say, and said, "Elizabeth, do you know anything--" well, first of all, I apologized and said, "It's rather vulgar. I'm calling you from my bath in America, but do you know anything about this chap called W. C. Minor?"
And she said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I know rather more about him than most people because I wrote a paper about him for a journal, a quarterly, I think, published in Madison, Wisconsin called "Dictionaries." And if you'd like, if you get out of the bath, I'll fax it to you and you can read it when you're'toweling yourself dry," and so she did.
And I read it and I thought if I can get access to the Broadmoor files on this man, then perhaps there's rather a good book to be written."

Cheng Tju, when we met up with him at the other end of the flight, was crestfallen. Eddie Campbell was in fits of mirth. The Campbell piece appeared a month later with the same photo, confirming in the minds of many in Asia that English people all look alike. As for Simon Winchester, did he get a tearsheet from his publisher's publicity department and wonder who the Hell that other bloke is?

Will the real Simon Winchester please stand up?


I know what it is! it's that thing we do with the hand on the chin, isn't it.

Paris in the fall.

My pal Evans sent this from the Weekend Australian, syndicated from the London Times:
From the gutter to the stars: The post-impressionist painter ridiculed for his small physical stature was in fact a giant among artists, writes Waldemar Januszczak
"THERE'S a painting in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris of two lesbians in bed. You can't actually see their bodies, only their heads. But it's clear there's no hanky-panky going on. They're just staring at each other sleepily. The girls always strike me as terribly young and vulnerable, as if they've just been tucked in by their dad. It's only a small picture, but there's so much fondness and empathy in it."



"That it was painted by Toulouse-Lautrec is also remarkable. Fondness and empathy are not what he's famous for. He's famous for all the other stuff. But most of the crowd knew only one thing with complete certainty, and that was that he was short. A dwarf. So that's his tragedy. Everyone's heard of him, but nobody knows him. His fame is immense, but worthless."

It's another case history to file under the Fate of the Artist.

Incidentally, Januszczak wrote an excellent early critique of the modern 'graphic novel' movement in the Guardian way back in '84: "... since the neurotics appropriated the comic strip we have seen the perfect marriage of form and content... They have subverted its innocence , and filled its thought bubbles with their wretched, guilt-sodden soliloquies." And that was before it had really got rolling, as far as the mainstream press knew about it I mean.

The 'other stuff', for which Toulouse-Lautrec was/is famous, centres around the antics at the Moulin Rouge. Here's a Photo of Anne and me in front of it in November 2001, taken by an obliging passer-by.



The US premiere of the From Hell movie took place the previous month (go on, click it. Would I give you a bum steer?), but it hadn't been released in Europe yet. Nevertheless, the folks at Delcourt, publisher of the French edition of From Hell, know how to make the best of things. I did a signing at Fnac, the big bookstore, that lasted for some time after they'd closed the doors, and I think I was even on television a couple of times. It all went too fast to take notes.