Review: The Fate of the Artist

The Fate of the Artist
Written and Drawn by Eddie Campbell
Published by FirstSecond Books. $25.00 USD

This review has really daunted me, for, well, it must be about seven months now! I read an advance copy back in January and had plenty to say about it to friends at that time, but didn't get around to writing the review. And unlike the majority of graphic novels I read, this one really demands that you reread it. There's a lot going on and it would be a disservice to forget some of these things just because some time has passed.

So I had every intention of sitting down again and rereading the book, then doing a very detailed, respectful review of it, because I really do like and admire the book and think it's a high point in Eddie Campbell's career.

Instead, though, I decided to just pick the book up once again, take a skim, and wind up and throw out my review. It's not so much a disservice as a challenge to the book--a challenge I think it can meet--to grab me and dazzle me even with just this brief, awkward grope before the guests arrive rather than the second honeymoon.

I was just watching the dvd of the fifth season of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and that show, or rather David himself, provided the connection for me. I was thinking about him and how, despite being a guy who shuns fame and whose onscreen persona is rather uptight, is nonetheless able to perform physical comedy and sight gags with aplomb. There's a showman side to him. Also, his humor is very confessional, and comes from both a recognition of his shortcomings and character flaws...and a celebration of them. I see the same thing in The Fate of the Artist.

Now, Campbell is an creator who is more comfortable confessing behind a more elaborate artifice than Larry David is. The book is structured partially as a kind of mystery--a missing persons case, with Campbell the one who's disappeared. The artifice continues as Campbell draws himself, but played by an actor who looks exactly like him, reenacting scenes from his life, while Campbell's wife and daughter appear to provide comments as in a documentary. By removing Campbell, Campbell is able to investigate himself--what constitutes his self at this point in his life--and try to make some sense of it, figure out if the direction he's going is the right or at least a suitable one for him. And as the title suggests, it's also a larger investigation about artistic integrity and how far one can follow one's muse until the family gets really annoyed with you.

Campbell is loathe to be earnest and obvious and instead provides marvelous devices for exploring his themes such as examining his marriage within a fictitious married couple comic strip called "Honeybee," which casts the Campbells as a kind of Victorian Burns and Allen. "Angry Cook" could be said to celebrate daughter Hayley Campbell's comfort in expressing anger much more directly than Campbell can. Campbell also uses photos of different objects such as broken crackers and empty wine bottles to represent the first letters in a paragraph, though they may represent other things, depending on how deep you want to consider them.

At first, I was a little underwhelmed by all these devices. I mean, they're delightful, but they distracted from what I felt Campbell was getting at. Later, I realized that was really the point. Not many people really fall in love with, or seek to understand, someone who screams, "Love me!" or "Understand me!" You have to drop clues and hints. It's a kind of seduction of the reader, really, and one ends up appreciating all the effort taken to attract.

The story does not build to a rousing conclusion or a great realization on Campbell's part. Like many of us, his self-examination finds him recognizing his flaws and the way they affect those he loves, while still vigorously defending these flaws as essential parts of who he is, the person they love. The devil, and the artist, they know.