The Fate of The Artist

Eddie Campbell

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The Fate of The Artist
Eddie Campbell
First Second
As a memoirist, Eddie Campbell could be described as willfully obscuring. His minimalist artwork on Alan Moore’s titanic Jack the Ripper tome From Hell tended to reveal truths in the darkness, whereas his Alec series (the titular hero a character standing in for the author), though also based on purported actual events, is impressionistic at best. It’s also damn funny, and strangely absorbing. After The Snooter started to clear things up, but now we have this slim book adding photography (and interview with daughter Hayley), prose and crayon to his sketchy style, telling a dramatized story of Campbell’s own “disappearance.” The artist remains, still adumbrative, still risible.
Carsten Knox
type: graphic novel
category: best of 2006