Episode 545 – Eddie Campbell

Virtual Memories Show 545:
Eddie Campbell

“There’s probably a memento mori that runs through all my work, including The Fate of the Artist & The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell. The reminder that life is short and don’t take it for granted.”

With the publication of The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell (Top Shelf), the great cartoonist Eddie Campbell brings his decades-long autobiographical comics project into the COVID era. In this return conversation (go listen to our 2018 episode & our 2020 COVID check-in) we talk about the meta-narratives that haunt his books, the culture of masks that prompted his latest work, how it felt getting back to making long-form comics again, and whose idea it was to publish this one like an Ace Double along with the revised version of The Fate Of The Artist. We also get into how he learned to make art with computers and how that learning curve accelerated when he was making the color version of From Hell, the temptation to revise past work, why his last two major autobio books involve his fictional death, and a lot more. Give it a listen! And go read The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell!

“The pictures in my head all those years ago were in black pen & ink. Ideally, the pictures in your head are slightly ahead of what’s possible. You picture things that are going to challenge you.”

“At every minute of the day, I’m working on a story.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

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About our Guest

Eddie Campbell has been making a living from comics since the 1980s. He is best known as the artist of From Hell (with Alan Moore), and made a splash with Bacchus, whose monthly comic ran for 60 issues. His semi-autobiographical concoctions however form his favorite strain of his own work. The former material was gathered in Alec: The Years Have Pants, all except the full color book The Fate of the Artist and his all-new book, The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell.

Follow Eddie on Twitter.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Eddie by someone else. It’s on my instagram.

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