Alec: How to be an Artist - Softcover

Eddie Campbell is the illustrator and publisher of the enormously successful graphic novel FROM HELL, the gripping piece of crime fiction about Jack the Ripper that details the course of events that led up to the White Chapel Murders. FROM HELL will be released later this year as a major motion picture from 20th Century Fox, starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, and Robbie Coltrane. Directed by the Hughes Brothers.

Campbell, best known as the illustrator of Alan Moore's acclaimed graphic novel From Hell (2000), has created autobiographical comics featuring his alter ego, Alec MacGarry, for more than two decades. Although this book's intentionally misleading title implies that it tells aspiring artists Campbell's secrets of effectively slinging ink, it is actually the story of his long struggle to survive in the comics business. Simultaneously, it relates his courtship, marriage, and emigration to Australia; details a handful of idealistic artists' ongoing, uphill effort to transform the comics medium from pamphlets produced for kiddies to sophisticated graphic novels for adults; and ruminates on the nature of art. That is a lot for one fairly slim volume to tackle, but Campbell's deceptively simple drawing style and considerable narrative skills enable him to successfully juggle all those disparate balls. Furthermore, his droll playfulness makes the book far more entertaining than such an ambitious effort has any right to be. Gordon Flagg
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