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An interview with
Eddie Campbell
conducted by
John Anderson
Appropriately enough, as I type these words, I've just returned from my local pub, having enjoyed a few pints with a mate. Anyone familiar with the work of Eddie Campbell is likely to understand the "appropriate-ness" of that last comment. As for the rest of you, well, you're in for a treat, and you'd be hard pressed to find a better introduction to his work than the just-released autobiographical trade paperback Alec: The King Canute Crowd, which Eddie has gamely agreed to discuss in this exclusive interview with MarsImport.com.
Mars Import: Much of the material in Alec: The King Canute Crowd was formerly collected (in 1990 under the inappropriate title The Complete Alec, and long out of print) by Acme Press/Eclipse Books. Can you tell our readers a bit about your decision to release an expanded version of the book at this point, and why you consider this the definitive edition?
Eddie Campbell: I've always felt that a work, once created , should continue to evolve and be interesting. There's always much more to it than is at first put before the public. The director one day gets to present the version he would have ideally presented in the first place, his 'cut'. The important thing of course is to preserve the spirit of the original. One should treasure one's own naivete of many years ago. In fact, it's possible to highlight and purify the original vision by a judicious bit of editing. It's also possible to ruin it, but let's hope I'm ahead of that one. With one chapter I've gone back to a version which is earlier than both the Acme/Eclipse ('90) and Escape ('84-'86) versions, reconstructing my earliest, unrevised version of '80, which meant saving bits of art pages which now had finished art on their reverse sides. A lot of delicate cutting and pasting and retouching of damaged areas. With another chapter which was reduced from five pages to two for all earlier collections, I've reverted to the original five which had only previously been seen in a very limited photocopied mini-comic. So you see, revising doesn't mean updating the work to look like it was done to my present level of skill. In the earliest chapters, I was wrestling with a problem of how exactly I expected the finished work to look. I hadn't yet decided if I was doing a 'funny' strip in the manner of Doonesbury, or a more heroically serious thing like Steve Canyon. Given that the work has it's own unique stylistic territory, this now seems an odd consideration. But, seriously, before I created the book I was still seeing it in my head in those kind of hybrid terms. So in the revisions of those pages I'm always trying to resolve this dilemma. Hopefully in this version I've solved the problem. Anyone interested in this area of nit picking is invited to check out my Bacchus #51, where I show an earlier attempt to start the King Canute book, never before published, where the art is actually more confident and polished than the Acme/Eclipse version. So, once again I was trying to get back to an earlier vision there. (I say this without seeing yet how that's printed, since the originals are in pencil.)
MI: In your preface to the new edition, you mention that if you were to redo the book today, you would "get rid of all that 'Alec' and 'Danny' stuff." You've commented in past interviews that the reason behind the "Danny" alter ego was an effort to protect the guilty, so to speak. With that in mind, what was your rationale for using Alec as your stand-in?
Eddie Campbell: Actually, now that I've dropped the phony names in the current work I'm doing, I've come to realize that the real reason for it is that it enables me to be more honest in my depictions of the past, by half convincing myself that I'm talking about a fictional other person, and indeed other people. Thus, in the pages in Canute where Alec imagines how other people do sex, I was able to rationalize that since these were all 'fictional' characters of my own invention, I could envision them doing any foolish thing I pleased, such as tying balloons to their dicks or whatever, and that I need never be confronted by real people wishing to punch my lights out.
MI: The new edition is a handsome little volume at 6 3/8" x 8 1/2". To me, the new size feels more appropriate somehow, almost more comfortable - a feeling that lends itself to the material. What prompted your decision to go with this format as opposed to the more standard 8 ˝ x 11" format of the Eclipse volume?
EC: Knowing how one's work is going to look when reduced and printed is a thing we just have to get used to by experience. I remember Brian Bolland once bought a
reducing glass, the opposite of a magnifying glass, for this purpose. I'd never
heard of such a thing, and indeed have never come across another one since. After
trying out the Canute material in the back of Bacchus, I realised it gained
something in reduction. I tended to be too cautious about the process at first,
drawing overlarge, leaving no room for error. In later Alec material I've used a
smaller dot screen, so running the earlier pages at a greater reduction ratio
helps to make up the difference. this is another aspect of revision.
MI: You'll forgive the cliched nature of this next question I hope. Looking back on this snapshot of your life as a twentysomething from your current vantage point as a husband and father, as well as a seasoned comics professional, what advice (if any) would you give your younger self?
EC: Actually, I tend to be astonished that I was as confident as I was. I think my
younger self should be informing the older one. I think he would like me to take
more risks.
MI: Along similar lines, would you care to note any key similarities and/or differences between the Alec of The King Canute Crowd and the Eddie Campbell of today? I'm thinking particularly about Alec's genial, beery philosophies on life, as well as the nature of the "waster," presented herein as an almost venerable aspiration for a young man.
EC: The growth is an important part of the picture. Fighting to preserve the ideals involves different tactics at this age than it did then. So the picture changes, and it's worth recording the changes. I find that the adventure of life becomes, if anything, more complex and more interesting. I find myself wrestling with bigger antagonists now, like Hollywood or whatever. The fight gets more challenging, the arena bigger, but I'm pleased to tell myself that I haven't compromised what I'm doing, or at least , my occasional lapses have not damaged the overall path of my career. I'm still the same conceited bastard I always was.
 MI: Alec says at one point, "I just don't feel at home in the world" (bk. 1, pg. 27). Would it be fair to say that that particular comment could be said to reflect that peculiar aimlessness which seems common in young men and women in their twenties? By extension, do you now feel more "at home in the world," having made a home for yourself, as it were?
EC: Actually, it did surprise me that so many people identified with the book.
Perhaps I thought that the likelihood was that they'd enjoy the narrative
vicariously rather than identify their own experience in it. As for feeling at
home in the world, the challenge is to bend it to our own requirements, in which
I feel some degree of success.
MI: In response to Danny's comments on impressionism (book 2, pg. 16), Alec says, "you're in danger of losing an idea, which is more important than a word; the capturing in paint of effects of light, air, time of day." This seems to me to be an apt description of your approach to autobiography in comics, which is to say, rather than slavishly depicting events from your life, you massage and rework those events as necessary to better tell the story at hand. Would you agree with that assessment?
EC: I don't think that's a conscious thing, but I would say that the impetus to draw these pages derives from an urge to record the world around me, to record a little piece of now and save it for tomorrow. The original Impressionist movement in painting was a group of painters in the late 19th century who wanted to make something of the world as it was rather than compose pictures around great events from myth and history. Capturing the moment was everything. For instance, when they had figures in their paintings, they tended to avoid anything that could be construed as anecdotal, or implied a story. There is never anything 'illustrational' about a true Impressionist painting. This 'moment' does not imply a preceding or a following one. it's just this one, isolated. So in a way, what I was saying there is perhaps at odds with your reading of it. If we were to apply what Alec is saying to my own work (and I'm not implying that we shouldn't) then it would show in the way that I do not force an anecdote to produce a punch line. The humour, or meaning, resides in the moment for its own sake, from the joy of seeing an accurate representation of ordinary behaviour that we had not expected previously to find under a spotlight, and not from some point that it leads to, as in the typical 'joke' kind of story.
 MI: "The nicest thing in this life is just to be with your friends. No big story need come of it. The adrenalin may not flow." So reflects Alec (book 2, pg. 17), and again, in addition to being an unassailable observation on the necessity of friendship in one's life, this comment strikes me as an authorial aside to the reader, as if to say "This is real, this is a man's life. As such, it may not flow as neatly as a narrative 'should,' the punch-ups may happen at unexpected junctures (and be few and far between), and the quiet, thoughtful, periods may linger on ... and that's life." Care to comment?
EC: Actually, that's one of the soppy passages that older Alec in his middle aged
disgruntlement would feel like tearing out.
MI: Alec mentions (and demonstrates) the use of photographic references (book 2, pg. 39). To what extent did you use photographic references when creating this book, and how much do you use it these days in your work?
 
EC: I really don't use a lot. They tend to get in the way of a deeper and better kind of observation. Photos are useful to have around to check my memory
against, but they generally fail to represent the real physical presence of a
person, which is always more than just a visual thing. For instance, some small
physical defect may rivet the eye in a photo which in the flesh might be
negated by the force of personality. A chubby individual may be very sensual and
lovely in person and suffer badly under the camera's unforgiving glare. A
complete bore may come across well in a photo, and that would be most unjust.
The cartoonist has a chance to set the record straight.
MI: On a more technical note, your use of Zip-a-Tone throughout the book is delicate and understated in support of the art at times and almost abstract in it's boldness at others (and, for that matter, frequently completely absent). On the whole, however, the different techniques blend seamlessly. Can you tell us what your thoughts on the use of Zip-a-Tone in service to a particular scene or single illustration?
EC: The mechanical tones were adopted early by me as a way of representing light and atmosphere. I think even the non-artist can see that this would not be so difficult to render in paint, or half tones, as it is in black ink line drawings. I thought about this kind of thing even more in my earlier Ace Rock'n'Roll Club series where I had occasionally had whole seven page stories with every panel rendered in layers of tone. By the time of Alec it was just another facet of my style, something I wasn't thinking about too consciously. Steve Lieber is the only other contemporary artist I know of that thinks about these matters. It was studying the great newspaper strip artists Noel Sickles and Roy Crane that first got me into these investigations.
 MI: Dave Sim borrowed Alec and Bacchus to hilarious effect in his "Guys" storyline. Since the two of you are pals, I'm wondering if Dave gave you an advance heads-up that he was going to have you turning on the spit, or if it came as a surprise to you. I'd also love to hear what you thought of his treatment of you and yours.
EC: After I started the self-publishing thing I was in contact with Dave quite regularly. Don't forget that I gave as good as I got, and that during the period he was being accused of misogyny I took great glee, in the pages of Bacchus (Banged Up) in having him get accidentally married and then bobbited. Isn't that a fine way to treat a pal.
 MI: Warren Ellis, in a recent "Come In Alone" column, wrote an absolute love song of a review of Alec: The King Canute Crowd. Coming from a fellow writer and, perhaps more importantly, a former resident of the area in which you bring to life in the book, his words of appreciation must be particularly well received. Would you care to share some of the responses you've gotten to the book from other "locals," either those represented in the book or otherwise?
EC: I take pleasure in writing about that little insignificant part of the world from the other side of the planet, and as far as I know, none of the local population there, bar the illustrious mister Ellis, knows that I have written about them. It's much easier that way.
MI: Your autobiographical work is distinctively organic, with an incisive charm not often found in the genre. Are there any creators currently working the autobiographical beat whose work you particularly enjoy?
EC: I love them all, but tend to think that our goals are entirely different. Seth is particularly good.
MI: Final question, Eddie ... on the inside back cover of the new book, you list as coming soon, Alec: How to be an Artist and The Snooter. Can you tell our readers when we might expect to see the collected editions of these recent Alec stories which have been serialized in Deevee and your own Bacchus comic?
EC: The 'Artist' book probably needs another 30 pages to be complete. A part of this should appear in a Deevee special that they are doing for around the end of this year. The Snooter book may be a while yet. I'm working it out in the pages of Bacchus as I go along. The working out is part of the attraction. It's not just a 'serialization', but an additive and subtractive process, like the one I was talking about earlier in the words on the King Canute book. And part of the reading enjoyment is seeing the author wrestling with all the elements, and even having the opportunity to affect things by throwing in your own thoughts and observations as we go along. I've never understood this idea of waiting till some future mythical point when the book is 'complete' and 'collected'. Nothing is ever finished, as far as I'm concerned. Indeed, my current concern about the King Canute book is that the printing was much finer when it appeared in the back of Bacchus. These are the complications that an artist has to deal with. While it was my sincere wish that the new edition would be the definitive one, the next one is going to need a lot more fixing, and perhaps these things never have an ending...
Life goes on ... the interview ends here - John Anderson, Falls Church, VA, 5/00
Links and Other ResourcesAlec comics:
Alec: The King Canute Crowd
Alec: How to be an Artist
Relevant links and books:
The Eddie Campbell website: http://www.eddiecampbellcomics.com
Eddie Campbell's choice of the best graphic novels. | |
HIGHLIGHT 
No Pasarán! 1
Italian clear-line master Vittorio Giardino (A Jew in Communist Prague, Orient Gateway) has his newest book translated into English, No Pasaran!, with the return of his hero Max Friedman. It's the end of the 1930s, and the Spanish Civil War is drawing to close, but Max goes back into fascistic Spain in search of a missing friend. Beautiful art, great sense of setting, and a fun adventure.
Only 12.55!
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