Eddie Campbell is best known to many as the artist on Alan Moore’s From Hell, but throughout his career he has been putting out book after book of his autobiographical Alec comics. In 2009, much of his Alec work was compiled into the massive Alec: The Years Have Pants omnibus. Kumar catches up with fellow Australia resident Campbell for a chat about Alec, The Birth Caul/Snakes and Ladders, From Hell, and more.
Campbell to appear at Sydney Graphic Festival
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How often do you hear of two creators at the top of their medium, who set out to create their “magnum opus” and never complete it? Big Numbers is a famously unfinished comics project by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz from 1990. The theme of the project seemed to be chaos theory, symbolized by the fractal Mandebrot set (shown at right).
Meant to span 12 issues (or, rather, volumes, since the format is more paperback book than magazine), it only reached number two and then ceased publication. Rumors have flown since then about possibly existing third and fourth issues that never saw the light of day. Recently, new information has come out regarding the state of those unpublished episodes. Tim and Kumar sift through the rubble and speculate on just where Moore was going with this idea…
Bill Sienkiewicz explains the demise of Big Numbers
On Eddie Campbell’s take (from Mindless Ones)
What Al Columbia did with Big Numbers #4 (from CBR)
Sienkiewicz talks chaos theory on an episode of Prisoners of Gravity in 1991 (YouTube)
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Jamie Delano never set out to be a comics writer. His high school friend, a bloke by the name of Alan Moore, was big into comics, but Delano was not a comics reader. It was only at Moore’s suggestion, many years later, that Delano tried out, doing some work for Marvel UK, then landing the job writing Moore’s John Constantine character in the Hellblazer title as it launched in 1987. The rest is history. Delano is nice enough to give some of his time to Tim for an interview.
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Besides being one of the most highly regarded writers in the comics biz, Alan Moore has also, on several occasions, given artsy poetic readings. Two such readings that he gave in the late ’90s were turned into comics by Eddie Campbell. The text alone is dense enough with meaning, but Campbell’s images add yet another layer. Listen to Moore’s voice recordings of the works as you read and you have a full-on audio-comics experience. Tim and Kumar fawn and praise.
These two comics, plus a Moore interview, were later collected as A Disease of Language.
Another review, by page45.com.
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4/20/09 Watching the watchers of Watchmen
Tim and Mulele (and an unexpected special guest!) report from the movie theater before and after seeing Zach Snyder’s “The Watchmen”, then talk on Skype a week later about how a cerebral comic became an action movie, as well as reviewing the reviews of the movie by half a dozen other podcasts!
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10/6/08 An examination of Watchmen pt. 2
More on Watchmen, including the significance of the Black Freighter pirate sequences, the Institute for Extraspacial Studies, more things Douglas Wolk missed, and why Moore didn’t use the old Charlton Comics characters!
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9/29/08 An examination of Watchmen pt. 1
It’s one of the classics of the comics medium: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Watchmen.” Tim and Kumar try to unlock the meanings that others have overlooked…
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Tim and Brandon struggle with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, zip through Alex Robinson’s Lower Regions, revisit The Black Diamond, and go back in comics history for The Grendel Archives.
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We like this stuff! Hundred Bullets: Decayed, Fear Agent vol. 1, Tag & Bink Were Here, and Top 10 vol. 2!
Click the link above to save 30% on these books at ComicsNOW!
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