After the Snooter - Eddie Campbell
Eddie Campbell was the artist for From Hell, the series of comic books about Jack the Ripper which was later made into a movie. He's also done a lot of semi-autobiographical books, none of which I've read before, in which he pretends to be somebody named Alec MacGarry. (I only know this because in the earlier pages it mentions that in After the Snooter he drops the pretense of being Alec.)
This book is a collection of stories, some longer and some as short as a single page. They're more or less autobiographical, though it's often hard to tell fact from fiction. The title refers to a large mothlike insect with a large curly nose which appears early in the book, and signifies the "dark encroaching terrors of the night." It makes several appearances throughout, sometimes as a flitting insect and sometimes as a man dressed as the Snooter.
I really liked Campbell's drawing style: it's realistic and looks simpler than it actually is. Each page is divided up into nine evenly spaced panels, so there's a regularity to it, and it looks a little like a sketchbook, only neater. It's the sort of thing I find myself wishing I could write, if only I could come up with some theme to tie my own story together. Well, that and draw people realistically.
Fed to jonathan's brain | September 07, 2005
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