Confronting "The Fate of the Artist"

For all of the previous texts we have read in this class I have been able to pinpoint what exactly I like and dislike about them. However, I am having a difficult time pinpointing what it is about Eddie Campbell's The Fate of the Artist that captivated my attention. As I said in class, the book as a whole made me feel incredibly anxious, but I am not entirely sure why. There is no uniformity to the style, so I never knew what to expect when I turned the page; I could be faced with all text or a Honeybee comic-strip or pictures of Campbell's teenage daughter. Perhaps it was this element of surprise that contributed to my eagerness to finish the book, but it was not a particularly enjoyable read at the time.

Upon finishing The Fate of the Artist I read the interview with Campbell in "The Comics Journal" and my mind was changed completely. I went back over the book and was not consumed with the same anxiety I had the first time around. Obviously, I knew what was going to happen this time so there was no room for surprise, but I think it was the things that Campbell had to say which made me feel more at ease. I personally found him genuinely likable and proud of his contributions to the graphic novel genre. I did not pick up on the same air of pretension that many others in the class did, but instead I found him to be a truly ambitious and dedicated artist. Re-reading the book with this interview in mind made me more aware of the stylistic risks Campbell took and how the lack of structure was more of a personal experiment in form than a mind trick on the reader. Though this is by no means my favorite book we have read thus far, it is probably the one that I most admire.