In sync with our Years Have Pants roundtable, Isaac Cates looks at page rhythms in Daren White and Eddie Campbell’s The Playwright.
Scroll down for some comments there by Mr. White and Mr. Campbell themselves!
As you may have noticed, our roundtable paused today — but we should pick up tomorrow and go through Saturday, with hopefully another bit next week.
We got a couple of really thoughtful comments on the Years Have Pants roundtable, so I thought I’d highlight them.
I’d hoped to put this post later in the week and run more positive assessments first. But bumps occurred, and here we are. For Campbell fans, I’d urge you to read Suat’s preamble for a more loving assessment, or check out Robert Stanley Martin or Charles Hatfield for discussions of the Playwright. And of course the roundtable here runs all week.
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Eddie Campbell’s “How To Be An Artist” ends with Campbell writing an angry letter to the Comics Journal excoriating them for mistaking a Bill Sienkiewicz drawing for a Stan Drake drawing in the latter’s obituary.
At The Panelists, Charles Hatfield discusses the Playwright. Here’s an excerpt:
Billed as a comedy about “the sex life of a celibate middle-aged man,” The Playwright is an austere book about an austere life: a life lived at a remove, so to speak, one of productive loneliness, sexlessness, distance, and disconnection. As if to match, the book is narrated in a kind of arid, emotionless third person, and the main characters lack names. There are no balloons, only boxed captions. You can feel the chill.
Go read it! We’ll have more Campbellania here later today….
We’re now at a new home; https://hoodedutilitarian.com.
In sync with our Years Have Pants roundtable, Robert Stanley Martin has published a review of Daren White and Eddie Campbell’s The Playwright
The Roundtable Has Pants
Next week we’re going to have a roundtable on Eddie Campbell’s Alec: The Years Have Pants.
Or at least, it was supposed to be on The Years Have Pants. We’ve had a slight bit of mission creep. Specifically, the good folks at have agreed to join us, and over the course of the week they’re going to talk about The Playwright and some other Eddie Campbell works. Also, Robert Stanley Martin writing here is going to talk about The Fate of the Artist.
So it should be a feats for Campbellphiliacs! Hope you’ll join us, both here and at The Panelists! (We’ll link to their posts as they go up, just so you don’t miss any.)
Here’s the ongoing roundtable.
And now for your regularly scheduled Utilitarian Review.