First Second Books - Doodles and Dailies

Amazing Remarkable Limerick

There was once a man who's amazing

He's the one who everyone was praising

Then he ended up dead

You get his nephew instead

In this tale of the circus and hell-raising. 

(I fully expect Eddie Cambpell to come around and deny any and all responsibility or association with such a limerick.)

Black Diamond Detective Agency reviewed on NewsARama

"Eddie Campbell has officially established himself as the master of turn-of-the-20th-century comics....

Mixing a mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end with great action sequences and compelling characters, The Black Diamond Detective Agency may have been intended for the screen, but it’s hard to imagine how the story will ever surpass the treatment it receives here. You can smell the air of Chicago in 1899, and John Hardin is one of the most engaging protagonists to grace the printed page in recent memory. Definitely recommended."

- Michael C Lorah, newsarama.com

Read the rest of the article at NewsARama.

Eddie Campbell radio interviews

Others have posted about this, but it's too good to pass up on Doodles & Dailies Two excellent Australian podcasts that should add to the ongoing conversation about FATE OF THE ARTIST!

This first one is a ten minute review, and a very intelligent one, by playwright Polash Larsen for a daytime national radio program called the Book Show (oct 30)

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2006/1776240.htm

The second is a fifteen minute interview with Eddie -- great fun -- for a Western Australia radio show titled Faster than Light.

http://www.fasterthanlight.org/podcast/20061122.mp3

Apparently they recorded over half an hour with the intention of boiling it down to half that, but they liked it enough to run the whole lot as a two parter. above is part 1 with presumably another to follow soon.

Guest Blogger: EDDIE CAMPBELL

[More Eddie Campbell artwork to be found online, plus another great bookstore to discover -- if you're in the hemisphere...]

"Readers of The Fate of the Artist looking for some other Eddie Campbell oddities are directed to the site of Bent Books Australia, where they will see displayed a dozen caricatures of famous authors (see how many you can name) on the store's exclusive bookmarks. Eddie draws six of these each year for Sean MacKinnon , who is reprtedly one of his dearest drinking buddies, and is looking forward to tackling the next set when he finishes the long awaited  Black Diamond Agency next week. Look for that book in First Second's Spring 2007 releases. Last we heard, Eddie's wife has got him on a gluten-free diet of cider. Sean MacKinnon was not available for comment. "

http://www.bentbooks.com.au/bookmarks.htm

Eddie Campbell interview

By far my favorite interview yet of Eddie Campbell can be found at at the Powell's Website. Eddie answered in cartoon form. Don't miss it.

More to come with First Second luminaries at the Powell site. Powell's, by the way, is the largest independent bookseller in America (I think) and my first and favorite stop whenever I'm in Portland.

My favorite Simpsons episode is the one where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse. And it's actually a Simpsons episode.

Salkowitz reviews Campbell

Mr. Rob Salkowitz at Emphasis Added gives a blazing wildfire of a review to Eddie Campbell's Fate of the Artist.

Salkowitz places his reflection on Eddie Campbell's book squarely in the modern artistic dilemna, and you can read it all on his blog here.

Meanwhile, an excerpt:

Reading The Fate of the Artist is one of the most life-affirming activities I’ve done all year. Every page gives you something to think about if you’re so inclined, or you can sit back and enjoy Campbell’s skill as a storyteller (and appreciate his craft as an excellent and inventive illustrator). But in my opinion, it’s always worth celebrating when someone at this late date in our decadent era of cultural exhaustion still finds the motivation to explore the knotty issues of art and philosophy, and is able to pull it off in such grand style.

There's a whole gamut of provocative material to be found in the rest of the article. Should stoke the fires of FATE OF THE ARTIST discussions for a while to come.

Of course, I can't help but wonder who he means when he says

Campbell decamped from the UK in the late 1980s to take up the life of a family man in suburban Australia. In his advancing years, he has turned into a “lovable eccentric” within the comic community – the kind of figure that the Gen-X editors now enthroned at the various publishers will give some work to when they want to seem edgy and adventurous.

Maybe he's talking about Marvel or DC. I'm too old to be Gen X anyway. And I'm not enthroned, I have a tiny office in the Flatiron building. Must be Marvel or DC.

THE FATE... progress notes on the media storm

It really is a media storm Eddie Campbell is provoking... We need to keep up with editorial reviews on the Fate of the Artist catalog page...

From Jeff Lester, who works at Brian Hibbs' THE COMICS EXPERIENCE store in San Francisco:

FATE OF THE ARTIST is not only far and away the release of the week but at this point in time, it's the release of the year, and, I think, the best book Campbell's released in about a decade.

Actually, the whole thing is too good not to post.... See what I mean:

FATE OF THE ARTIST SC: Really should be reviewed in the trade section, but since First Second launched all six titles on the same weekend (and then nothing for another six months! Just like a real comic book company! Woot!) and Graeme's review said everything I would've said (and, of course, said it better) I might as well hit it here so I can review another First Second book in the Trade section.
Fate Of The Artist is not only far and away the release of the week but at this point in time, it's the release of the year, and, I think, the best book Campbell's released in about a decade. When I first read the review copy a few months back, the book struck me as ineffably sad (although streaked through with rueful humor) as the artist prepares himself for his inevitable fate by ruminating on artists dead and forgotten, or remembered but not for their work, all while recounting his family's exasperated recollections of his absent-minded, pointlessly specific, self-amused artistic ways. I thought the book full of regrets that were twisted about, like ballon animals, in an effort to amuse.
But rereading the book yesterday, what caught me was how deeply funny it was, starting with the hilariously bold conceit of composing a self-elegy--Lycidas as written by...Lycidas!--and moving on through all the funny anecdotes, pastiche comic strips, that damn dog Monty, etc. Through all of it, there's an appreciation of how funny life can be, even at its most frustrated and unfulfilled, and that appreciation is infectious, giving the work not only the most difficult of emotional victories, a love of life that feels genuine yet unsentimental, but also something unique--a comforting sense of dread. Finishing The Fate of The Artist, I realized that if I was lucky, I would get to deal with sorrows, regrets, fears, fights and alienation, and if I was smart, I'd look forward to all of it.

As I said, it's the release of the week and quite possibly the year. Excellent work, and highly recommended.

And Eddie sent this in:

John Milton. Lycidas A Lament for a friend drowned in his passage from ... For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime. Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer: ...

Guest Blogger: EDDIE CAMPBELL

Diary of an author, staring out the window while simultaneously drawing page 110 of the BLACK DIAMOND DETECTIVE AGENCY. (part 23.)

(see yesterday's posts)

Guest Blogger: EDDIE CAMPBELL

Diary of an author, waiting. part 22.

"We usually learn to wait only when we no longer have anything to wait for." -- Marie von  Ebner-Eschenbach    

Having finished waiting for his book to come out, the author finds within himself an aptitude for staring out of windows.

Guest Blogger: EDDIE CAMPBELL

Diary of an author, waiting. part 21.

"The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting." -- Fran Lebowitz

Now that he's done waiting, the author can't stop talking.

[editor's note: indeed -- and there's more juicy Campbell talk here in another excellent piece from Jennifer Contino.]