Sunday 31 December 2006

'Another year over.'

I have a long post I'm going to split into two or three parts. It will be titled 'The pick-up truck of Hieronymus Bosch'. But I don't want to split it over two months, never mind years, in the archive, so I'll save it till tomorrow. Meanwhile, I was clearing out my wallet for the end of the tax quarter and came across this scribbled on the back of a receipt. I lifted it from a women's magazine while waiting for my lad, Callum, at the doctor's the other day. He has a gaping hole in his shin from a skateboard accident, but it appears to be healing.
On women taking their husband's name. "Anyone who gets married is a fool. I can understand why a man would get married. Everybody can use a wife. it's just that nobody needs a husband. If women are fool enough to get married it really doesn't matter if they take their husband's name or not. Marriage is a very odd arrangement. A contract with no terms, a sacrament with no ritual. you don't know what it is you promised until you're told you didn't do it and you're being divorced." Germaine Greer.
* * * *
And while I'm having a clearing out, a few links that have gathered over the last couple of weeks:
TIME magazine's 10 Best Books of 2006, By LEV GROSSMAN, RICHARD LACAYO, December 17. I like that Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is no.1 without any qualifiers about it being a 'graphic novel' (sorry, but that expression is now permantly spelled with the quote marks around here). The next step after the 'graphic novel' being recognised as just another illustrated book is for it to be recognized as just another book. Then it will no longer exist and we will have achieved something.
On the same theme: Dirk, I loves ya, but I think you're being counterproductive in your first item here.
* * * *
Alan Moore's old strip from the British weekly, SOUNDS, 'The Stars my Degradation' is being assembled online here. There's a special long Christmas edition from dec 25 1982 which comes up on my screen as a load of code, so it's lucky that this other guy here has posted it too (thanks to Dirk Deppey for the link, see above). Alan was drawing this series when I first met him in '82. (1979-1983) When he stepped out of the Sounds spot Bryan Talbot had a go for a year and then Phil Elliott and I collaborated for two years, 1984-86. It was a great spot, a quarter tabloid size (down from Half when Alan was doing it), going all the way across the page. Not sure why Sounds was the site of so much activity. It's not like they were very bright or had any notions about the comic strip having cultural value. Mostly Phil and I tried to do good work while throwing enough toilet jokes to keep them distracted. Anyway, that was my first regular job as a cartoonist. Here's an example from 6 august 1984. Phil and I would draw alternate weeks, and I'd letter and sign them all 'Charlie Trumper', while Phil handled the paperwork and dealing with the publisher as I had a daytime office job. That's how we did it at the beginning anyway, and this is one I made myself. The title reads 'Everybody loves the government' and it's as true today as it was back then. (click enlarge)

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good review of Fate of the Artist in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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In comments a few days back, Steve Block linked me to this. Josh Lacey signs up to Daniel Pennac's wise and liberating 10-point manifesto, The Rights of the Reader from The Guardian of Saturday October 28, 2006. And I'd like you to go into 2007 with this thought from Pennac: "By making time to read, like making time to love, we expand our time for living."

May all of your gods, false or otherwise, go with you.

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11 Comments:

Blogger Kelly Kilmer said...

I don't know about that Greer quote...she sounds a little bitter...hmm...Hell, I know I need my husband. Who else would've fixed the spark plugs on the car on Christmas Day?
And, it's our 11 year anniversary on New Years Eve...

Also, thanks for pointing out about Bechdel's book as the #1 book of '06 on Time's list...very interesting, indeed!! One huge step in the right direction.

Thank you for sharing "the rights of the reader". I could never understand why my parents never went to bed with a book at night or why I could never find them with a book in the middle of the day (or on their lunch break or whatever...). My husband, our son and I surround ourselves with books.

"When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food." —Desiderius Erasmus

That pretty much sums up this family! Books and art supplies!

Thanks again, Eddie. I hope your boy is alright and that you all have a Happy New Year,
Kelly

31 December 2006 at 02:25:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

Kelly
you mentioned everything except whether you caught my remark to you in christmas day's post

and Erasmus is a hero of mine. I spent 500 bucks on a 1933 facsimile copy (with the Holbein marginalia) of his In Praise of Folly in the year we made a bundle from FROM HELL.
Eddie

31 December 2006 at 02:52:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

D'ya reckon Greer thinks a book is ecologically more vulgar if it ultimately proves to be shite?

Daren

31 December 2006 at 07:59:00 GMT-5  
Blogger James Robert Smith said...

Women:

Got a kick out of that quotation. Good stuff. If I believed in gods, I'd thank them every day for my wife.

Speaking of folk named Erasmus--was it Erasmus Darwin who got into trouble for suggesting that Mount Vesuvius was millions of years old (after examining the layers of sediment in a gully on that volcano), or am I thinking of Bertrand Russell's grandfather (who was not named Erasmus)? (Shit. I read too much for someone with a lousy memory.)

31 December 2006 at 11:01:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love Germaine Greer - I might not agree with all of her cynisism but she has a great way of saying it!

I just want to say that I enjoyed Fate of the Artist, (and Alec that I was lent a couple of months ago) and your point of view - which have all helped alot in the dissertation I am desperately (and pretty hopelessly) trying to write on 'graphic novels'. I'm a bit new to all this comics stuff and I am now regretting ever starting it, the subject is too huge, the definition of why a graphic novel exists, what it is or where it came from seems to change depending on who you speak to - a bit like 'a wife' in fact.

So just wishing you and your family a Happy New Year...
Becky

31 December 2006 at 11:46:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I printed the Rights of Reader poster rightaway - not only it contains sensible points, it also is illustrated by Quentin Blake! That did it for me.

Have a fun 2007!

31 December 2006 at 13:31:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Kelly Kilmer said...

Ha! Eddie,
I did catch your comment but didn't think you were talking to *me*!!!
I thought of what you did to Hayley's mask as quite clever actually-more of an "art collaboration"... Hell, if I was in the same situation and needed a mask, I would've done the same thing! Did Anne have to get masked up though?? If so, hope she was taken care of ;) (Daughter to the rescue!!)
I still have a hard time letting go of my son's artwork. He's 9 and draws on everything he can get his hands on...But he brought home a ton of stuff for Christmas & the holidays and we went through some of it (what he didn't like and didn't want to save) and actually tossed some in the recycle bin.
The boy wants to either make comic books or own a comic book store when he's older.
If he could only figure out how to spell...

31 December 2006 at 15:23:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting that the Guardian article only considers readers to be those who read novels - no room for someone like me who reads biographies, autobiographies, history, diaries, and all manner of other non-fiction...but very few novels.

31 December 2006 at 18:54:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

Hemlock,
Erasmus Darwin. yes, he palys a big part in a favorite book of mine, the Lunar men, by jenny Uglow.

and anon, who likes biography and history, that is a book i heartily rccommend. i even intend to telk about it here a little further down the track

Tita, i checked your blog. excellent. yes, Blake is one of the great illustrators,,, what was the book he did about the clown? it was a story with no words, just the pictures...?

Becky, keep coming back... I 've still got a million things to say on the subject.

kelly, Anne had a big fancy feather mask, but she looks a bit severe in the photo and i left that one out...

and finally, my pal White... I think you must have posted on your way to the bar fridge.

1 January 2007 at 02:52:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought you were saving that for my wedding speech?

-The male Svengali

1 January 2007 at 03:03:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, I think you're right.

Daren

2 January 2007 at 03:40:00 GMT-5  

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