Writing and Art by Eddie Campbell
2000
127 pgs.
Originally Published by Eddie Campbell Comix
Currently Published by Top Shelf
Eddie Campbell had previously published Alec material before, using the character to tell an autobiography of Campbell's drunken adventures with his mates during the 1980's. By the time How To be An Artist was released, his name was as much of a household one as any comics artist can be: not much of one. Still, Campbell, by any account, was wildly successful in his chosen medium. His work was highly touted by the various critics in the field, his early friendship with Alan Moore had become one of the luckiest and most rewarding relationship with Moore's continually growing success, and he'd even gotten married--which may have been the most surprising development of all for those who'd kept up with him in the various British publications that his work had seen print of. The Complete Alec, eleven years prior, did not paint the picture of a young man headed for marital bliss at all, and certainly not the artistic success he found. That's part of what makes Complete such bizarre reading--Campbell spends most of his time watching friends pee in shoes after another late night boozing, but the reader only knows this because Campbell found the time, and the talent, to depict it so well. Alec comes across as a very fresh, very real person, but his art seemed hidden within a lazy man devoted to his friends.
The publication of How To Be An Artist strikes one as a direct response--at first, until the incredibly compelling narrative takes hold. Artist is the story of how Alec the guy becomes Alec the man, and the book ends with it's portrait of Alec as the success, telling it all with such frankness and humility that it doesn't just read like a story of triumph, it reads like a story that inspires triumph in it's reader. Succeeding as an artist in today's world, where art has been so far relegated from having any importance that entire careers are now built at the New Yorker treating the latest Justin Timberlake album as if it were worthy of deep philosophical thought, is incredibly difficult. It's a heroic pursuit for those with talent and a suicide-causing mistake for those without. Attempting to do it in the world of comic books, and attempting to do it without drawing Spiderman, seems almost like a terrible joke. Yet not only has Campbell accomplished it, in Artist, he pulls no punches to describe what it took for him to do so. While that in itself would make for interesting reading to anyone with an interest in pursuing a career outside of the mainstream world, Campbell ratchets it up and includes the types of artistic philosophy that kept him so motivated to continue when the times were hard. Make no mistake--this is not a story about a man unlike you or I, one who awakens at four AM to draw and spends his days begging for work. This is the rarest type of artist biography in the field: the story of a man who spent years being alive--and was able to find success through hard work at the same time. There's no drug addiction that was overcome, no shattered marriage or slimy ladder-climbing here. Eddie Campbell simply kept a mildly cynical eye on his dreams and spent every day doing something to get closer to them. During that time, he also developed and maintained friendships for life, brought a child into the world and married the woman he loved. He then was kind enough to write it all down, illustrate it beautifully, and publish it. If it's not a required textbook for art majors in the next 30 years, it will only be because our world has succeeded in closing those programs throughout educational facilities across the globe.
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