The best thing about reading Eddie Campbell’s news of the re-release of his Dapper John /Ace Rock ‘N’ Roll Club tales – this line: “This exists only as an app! Whatever an app is.”

Yes, lots of Eddie Campbell’s early work is now available on those new fangled app things…. available to do that downloading thing from that iTunes shop thing. Eddie talks about it here and here:

“In the Days of the Ace Rock’n'Roll Club was a book, or an ongoing series of 7-page stories which I drew between March 1978 and March 1979. The stories interlocked in various ways, with characters from one piece showing up in another. The ‘arc’, as we say nowadays, came to a logical conclusion after the eighth story, by which time Dapper John had emerged as the main character. A proto-Alec MacGarry appears as the second key character. It was in these pages that I started to get the idea of using autobiography as a starting point for a big serious book.”

“I had self-published an earlier book in 1975 (when I was 19) and with that I had realized the hard fact that I knew no way of selling 500 copies of a book. Unwilling to venture into that again, but still clinging to the notion that I was a comics author of some merit, the completely finished art for the ACE book sat on the floor of my Southend bedsit in a neatly folded bright blue plastic laundry bag for the next three years. The parts first saw the light of day in the years 1982-83, in random sequence, in a variety of small press photocopied booklets. Alan Moore was writing a review column (in addition to his many more important endeavors) in 1983 and he reviewed one of these little chapters. This was the first contact between me and Alan, and well, you know where that led.”

The publisher of the Dapper John App is Panel Nine, part of iEnglish.com, a Hong Kong based ebook publisher. Although, as Campbell points out, the man behind iEnglish is Russell Willis, whose connections with the UK Small Press scene goes back to the early 80s.

Now, the big problem I have with all this. When even Eddie Campbell has an iPad, you know it’s time to get one….. I wonder if Mrs B has taken those hints this year? [UPDATE - she just read this over my shoulder, I think her manic laughter as she leaves tells me I'll probably be buying my own at some point then].

Coming in September – The Best Of Will Eisner’s P.S. Magazine. The link between Eisner’s Spirit and his later work, an instructive series designed and executed with wit, flair and, of course, great skill.

This was pretty much a must buy anyway for a lot of people but I can only imagine these words from Eddie Campbell being the icing on the cake:

“Charlie Kochman at Abrams Arts commissioned me to write an intro and I barged in and wrote an ‘overview’ and made all the selections too. So I’m rather proud of it. It’s the best of Will Eisner’s PS magazine. 272 pages on coated stock, all in full colour. This is what Eisner was doing after the Spirit and before A Contract With God. Previous attempts to publish selctions of the material have failed to properly addres the style and art in the manner that I, as a felllow artist, would have liked. So I’ve tried to put things right with this one.”

Here’s what Campbell put up as a sneak peak:

P.S. Magazine was a fascinating title, starting in 1951 when the US Army employed Eisner to create instructional material for it’s soldiers, all designed to prevent equipment failure.

I hadn’t realised that not only did Eisner serve as artistic director until 1971, but that other artists involved inthe magazine at some point included Murphy Anderson, Dan Spiegle, Alfredo Alcala, Mike Ploog and Joe Kubert. And it’s still going strong, although the artwork lacks the skill and flair Eisner brought to it sadly.

Speaking of which, no idea if Campbell included these, but ….

And since Campbell’s back blogging, he’s talking a little bit about the prep work he’s doing:

“I’m scanning and preparing Bacchus for its big printing coming up soon. This spread was tricky. It’s four pages that all connect up to show a huge absurd brawl in a pub. In the original comic it was printed on two spreads, and will be probably be in the same configuration this time around.”

And here it is, by Campbell and Pete Mullins…

Click to make bigger. A brilliant image, a great 4 pager, and all because Campbell wanted to follow Steranko’s lead… from Strange Tales 167 (1968):

(Big image from Bully’s blog)

Mr Eddie Campbell’s blog, long dormant, has suddenly sprung back into life. This is a good thing. Why is it a good thing? Because we get lines like this:

“My local paper had an article about the long running Uncanny X-MEN being put to rest. It was very salutational. The press pays so little interest to comic books that it didn’t realize how these things work. They’re just closing down the one X-men comic so they can start up again with two. It will be a pincer tactic. One goes downwind of the readers with the bucket of shit, while the other creeps up behind and holds their mouths open for the first one to drop it all in. They could just have handed out knives and forks.

At the same time DC is restarting all their comics. They called a board meeting. “It’s no good,” they said, “We’ve made such a mess of it, the only thing to do is start over and see if we can make it come out right this time.” Hollywood has also realized that in the comic book genre everything gets less interesting the further it gets from the origin story. So Batman gets rebooted after the next one. The X-men is back to the prequel, etc etc. There was a spark of creativity a long time ago and the car was still coasting except now they’re at the bottom of the hill and they all have to get out and push.”

Welcome back Mr Campbell. Keep going.

Tim Hayes drops us a line to let us know that the new Moonlight Art magazine #1 is out now and features interviews with Camilla d’Errico (who also provides the distinctive cover artwork, seen above), Aunia Kahn, Beth Post, Dame Darcy, Eddie Campbell and John Higgins, plus comics from Frank Kane and Christopher Moonlight. And best of all Moonlight Art is available as a free download, so you have no excuse for not having a read; I’ve just been having a quick skim through the first issue and will be going back for more later – go and have a look and give them a bit of support and spread the word (and donations are also welcome!).

First we have a very interesting and thought provoking analysis piece on Campbell, his classic How To Be An Artist (included in the magnificent Alec) and the connection with Alan Moore, Bill Sienkievicz, Big Numbers, Chaos Mathematics and Mandlebrot. It’s over on The Mindless Ones blog, and it’s well worth your time.

Secondly we have Eddie Campbell on Australian ABC Channel First Tuesday Book Club discussing Graphic Novels. Yes, the term Campbell absolutely hates. But as you’d expect, his contribution is well worth a watch.

“I hear that we’ve finally been accepted by the culture at large… but if this was true I’d be invited on shows for being an interesting personality but we still get invited everywhere as a gang ….it’s not actually a gang - the collective noun for graphic novelists is a whinge.”

(Via Tom)

Eddie Campbell @ POPstore (Parma, Italy) 1/2 from mind the closure on Vimeo.

Part two:

Eddie Campbell @ POPstore (Parma, Italy) 2/2 from mind the closure on Vimeo.

Gaiman writes about it here, five minutes of edited video is here and the complete story is here.

Molly and I listened to it earlier and were in agreement that Gaiman really does have a wonderful storyteller’s voice. There’s a richness to it and a perfect pacing to his spoken word performances that really envelops the listener. I maintain that Alan Moore’s deep, sonorous Northampton accent is equally impressive, but Molly, aged 11 (but only just), can’t hear it, she only hears a booming, rather scary man talking of weird things she doesn’t like. Whereas Neil Gaiman talks of weird things in a way she does like very much.