The Complete Alec

Writing and Art by Eddie Campbell
1990
140 pgs.
Originally Published By Eclipse
Currently Published By Top Shelf

Eddie Campbell is best known in America as the artist for Alan Moore's ambitious From Hell, but across the shores in the UK, Campbell is recognized primarily for his auto-biographical "Alec" series.  Using the pseudonym "Alec Macgarry."  The three stories collected in 1990's The Complete Alec are now published under the title The King Canute Crowd, both due to the collapse of Eclipse (his original publisher) and the fact that Campbell went on to write more material under the "Alec" title.  As the series is autobiographical, it can be read in any sequence, still, Complete is the only portion of stories where Campbell's success as a writer/artist do not figure into the narrative; by the time of the later works, Campbell's honesty does not allow him to ignore his own celebrity (however meager it may seem to the non-comics reader, Campbell is a widely respected and emulated talent.)  Literary critics like to compare Campbell's autobiographical work to luminaries such as Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller, and in the case of Complete, the comparison is apt.  Regardless of how accurate he may portray of Campbell, Alec Macgarry is a fascinating individual.  Full of the same blue-collar intellectualism and alcohol based friendships that abound in Kerouac's work, The Complete Alec is an exciting story of happy young men and their loose attempts at maturing in a dead-end town.  Although the story itself would come across as cliched in plot synopsis format, Macgarry and his friends are so realistically imagined and frightfully optimistic that the story cannot help but be fresh and innovative.  The art is Campbell's own brand of pen and ink sketching, able to seem both dashed off and intricate; it both foreshadows his later, more refined work and portrays a youthful version of the style which brought him later success. 

Considering that Complete Alec was originally published using the copy and staple method still employed today by thousands of hopefuls, it's amazing that this collection even exists, much less that now, more than twenty years later, they are still being read.  For people interested in independent art, Campbell has proven that he has staying power in a field with no love for history.  The Complete Alec is worth any serious reader's time.

Comments

[Ben]

I'd like reviews of little miss sunshine and the new outkast cd stat, before I make mistakes. Or great life decisions. You have to tell me. Do it.