One afternoon, Father Power pointed up at a red light to the left of the altar and said that when that light was glowing, God was in the house – it was powered by Him. I looked up at it, a red glowing bulb in an ornate brass cage, and asked why – if God was powering it – was there an extension lead running up the wall and down the chain that suspended it?
Hayley Campbell, All the Living and the Dead
Somewhere deep in my write-up of The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell by Eddie Campbell, I mention that the world Campbell’s comics used to chronicle no longer exists. This has always been the case, unless you’ve got a four dimensional brain like big beardy Alan Moore, but this seems to be a common feeling at the moment. Inasmuch as my peers and I can come to a consensus, we seem to agree that the pace of change has been speeding up since the global financial crisis of 2007/2008.
On a more mundane level, it’s also true that the world in which Eddie Campbell’s comics used to be discussed no longer exists. The hardcover edition of The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell comes bound with 2006’s The Fate of the Artist, and the book makes a show of the fact that the earlier work generated a lot of excited/insightful commentary.
I enjoyed reading the sly jokes and snippets of familiar reviews, including my own, that litter the inside cover of this edition. When I was done recreating the debates of the day, I found myself wondering whether the new book would generate a similar level of discussion. The world has changed, as it always does, and emphasising the strength of the comics community feels a bit like stressing god’s role in lighting up the altar.
My hope is that the situation with online commentary is more like this laptop wire in The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell…
I hope the discussion is ongoing and that it all connects together and that I just can’t figure out how it works at a glance.
In the meantime, here are some links to my previous writing on Eddie Campbell’s comics, the product of several eras long since past:
- Flowers in a Foreground – Eddie Campbell, Frank Miller and the art of everyday life.
- No Part is Saved – The Fate of the Artist and the pain of always being out for a story.
- Pieces of the People We Love – an attempt to break down what Campbell was up to with The Fate of the Artist, and how it fits with the other art comics of the moment.
- Little Big Numbers – How to be an Artist as a stealth adaptation of one of the great lost Alan Moore books.
- The Like Trap – Alec, Phonogram and the dangers of seeing yourself on the page.
- The Playwright – in which to observe is to distort.
- “In my dreams, I have a plan” – The Lovely Horrible Stuff, cash money and the deep abstraction of everyday living.
- No Bluebeard – Eddie Campbell, Audrey Niffennegers, and the marriage of words and pictures.
- For London <-|-> From Hell – The From Hell Companion, Alan Moore’s interest in everyday life, Eddie Campbell as master formalist.
Blue Box Recorder 