Separation of Campbell and State

For me, it’s very interesting how disorientated I become not only when reading The Fate of the Artist but in perusing interviews of Eddie Campbell, and trying to assemble a coherent message. The more I try to do so, I think the more I’m bound to fail. He’s a bit like a moving target, pontificating a bit on one subject and then heading down a road quickly to something else (and then often doubling back on his own message). For an artistic representation of this confusion (and sense of humor), read his 8-panel comic self-interview about The Fate of the Artist - http://www.powells.com/ink/campbell.html.

Thus, I think overall I come away a bit impressed with the amount of thought, the aura of “ground-breaking” artistic flexibility (and indeed passion) exhibited by Campbell in his book but wanting a lot more clarity (a criticism others have made about Fate). I don’t think that Campbell himself knew what he wanted. In an interview with Tom Spurgeon, http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/resources/interviews/4621/, Campbell refers to Fate as a “colossally elaborate jest” and “postmodernist soup,” and then toward the end of the interview, he even states “What all of this means I leave to somebody else to figure out. I got my brain in enough knots just creating it.”

And the graphic novel controversy? On page 83 of the Comics Journal interview, Campbell fires a general broadside at the “definers” to throw out the riffraff, when they should be discussing: “Does this thing make us wiser, does it make our lives better, would the world be poorer if it disappeared?” and then of course barrels along trying to define the thing, later throwing out his manifesto to the world. He has even come to verbal blows with a fellow cartoonist over the subject, and this naturally has been turned into more comics fare - http://nickigreenberg.blogspot.com/2007/08/smackdown-campbell-vs-greenberg-title.html.

OK, Eddie, I’m going with your idea above because the rest has become a big jumble. I think I’m wiser for your book, I’m not sure it made my life better, and I’m 50/50 on whether the world would be poorer if it disappeared. I guess the tie goes to the cartoonist (whoops ... I mean graphic novelist).