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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Alex de Campi Interviewed

Comic Foundry has a great interview with Alex de Campi, the author of Smoke.

Highlights include:

A discussion of her life experiences.

Smoke was an extrapolation of situations Igor and I have witnessed in all the various places we'’ve lived. I can safely say that with him having lived through the break-up of Yugoslavia and then experienced the bureaucratic nightmare of being an emigre, and me having lived through coups, protests, large-scale corruption, currency crises and financial crashes in the Far East and Latin America, we'’ve been around the geopolitical block a few more times than the average comic creator. I also, for my sins, have some knowledge of mercenary and covert-operations activities through some of my dodgier UK acquaintances.


Thoughts on company-owned work.

Doing licensed work is a mug’s game, and I'’ve watched good writers just lose the plot (quite literally) after a few years on the big licensed properties. I mean, why toil away writing only for The Man? People whinge and go, oh, but it’s so hard doing creator-owned in America, you can't make a living off it, but you can if you try.


Attitudes about women in comics.

I think DC and Marvel comics (outside, say, Sandman) have so failed to address any sort of female audience for so long, you don't have a lot of women creators who want to deal with all the BS you have to put up with to write one of the Great Holy Characters like Batman or Wolverine or whatever. We didn'’t grow up with any love for these characters - not in my generation, and then the generations below me are all anime and manga. So rather than pitch to the majors, we just go do our own thing instead. Sadly, despite the huge amount of female editors at the big two, things have not really improved. Vertigo remains a bright spot, but even its efforts are occasional at best. They just tend to hit the target a bit better.


Read the entire interview.

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