ALEX de CAMPI p1: SO FAR...

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

Bursting on the scene with last year's Smoke from IDW Publishing, Alex de Campi has quickly jumped to the front of the line for burgeoning new talent. She recently released two books from TOKYOPOP, Kat & Mouse and Agent Boo, and has two books in the works with European publisher Humanoids. In addition, she continues delve deeper in the film industry directing short films and music videos.

Newsarama contacted the prolific writer to talk to her about her work thus far, and what got her this far.

Newsarama: You made a big splash fairly early on in your career. A brief stint for some small press anthologies and then BAM! Smoke with Igor Kordey from IDW. Can you tell us how that all came together?

Alex de Campi: Via the magic power of getting lairy in the pub with mates! I was moaning how the local comic artist I had commissioned to do the project (as well as £250 - that's $500, Americans!) hadn't put down the crack pipe long enough to do the sample pages in nine months, and Rich Johnston jokingly suggested that Igor (just jacked from Marvel) would be looking for work. He knew Igor's email address off the top of his head, and so I wrote it on the back of my hand and emailed him when I got home. Luckily, even after a hojillion pints, I can still construct grammatically correct sentences. Drunken writing: it's an acquired skill.

The truth is, I'm just about the most shameless girl alive. I'll ask anyone, for anything, at any time. But you'd really be surprised how often people say yes. And if they say no? Big deal. I'm only back where I started. I haven't lost anything by trying. Example: Igor said yes. Then IDW said yes.

NRAMA: If you can recall, what was your views on Igor and his work before Rich Johnston mentioned his name, and how that measures up to working with him on the book?

AdC: I really liked his art on Cable. I think what most caught my eye with Igor's work on that title (especially the Tischman issues) was the very strong sense of graphic design he brought to his work. I'm a fiend for design. Also, he wasn't afraid of backgrounds or difficult perspective. So many artists are, and cheat like buggery to get around situations that require these things. And it's so obvious! Bless.

I hadn't seen Igor's work with Chris Claremont or Grant Morrison at that point. I still like his Cable stuff best. But for the record, Iliked the pages he did for... oh, goodness, what was it called…Excalibur? Much better than that other chap's who replaced him. But then I've always liked a European style better than the US Jim Lee style.

NRAMA: Can you tell us more about your working relationship with Igor. Was it a give and take, or mostly him just taking your scripts and running with it?

AdC: It was lots of transatlantic yelling. AT&T made more profit off this book than we did. The biggest problems were when Igor decided he'd just go straight to inks, rather than doing full pencils first. So on the few occasions I was like, "dude, that's wrong", he'd fight me because he didn't want to re-do the page.

Don't get me wrong, I adore Igor and we had tremendous fun working on Smoke. It's just that we're both very strong-willed, so... it was high-decibel fun. He was always phoning me up with ideas: what if we add this? Maybe this character should do that? What would you think if I drew this thing in such and such a way? He added a tremendous amount to the book. He kept pushing me to take my ideas further, as when I started I didn't have a lot of courage. Now, perhaps, I have too much.

NRAMA: Any plans for a Smoke sequel or another book with Igor?

AdC: Igor's absolutely flat-out drawing books for Delcourt in France. We do want to continue Smoke at some point, but both his schedule and mine have gone a bit haywire. It will take Delcourt turning around and going, "Right, kids, we need another book by this date" for us to get our act together, I think.

NRAMA: In a previous Newsarama interview, you say the recently released Kat & Mouse is all about embracing your inner nerd. What were you looking to do when formulating that series?

AdC: Oh, I just wanted to have fun, really, and write a very strongly American book that combined what I loved about shoujo school-drama manga with the awesomeness of things like Nancy Drew and Mean Girls. Smoke was such a British book, I wanted to have a break after it and write something that reflected on class and regional differences in my own country - for they are legion.

I also wanted to have female heroines that weren't simpering idiots or boys in skirts. I wanted to give girls role models that showed them yeah, it's OK to be smarter than boys and show it. It's OK not to look like everyone else. You can do that in manga. You can't seem to do that at DC or Marvel. And you can't do it in animation - so many times I've heard from producers that they don't think a female-hero kids' series is viable. Yeah, because nobody watched Kim Possible. Or Spirited Away. Or Dora the Explorer. Sigh. But rather than argue, I just want to do the work, and hope that it becomes so popular that it changes these producers' views about making shows starring girls.

NRAMA: Which character do you see more of yourself in, Kat or Mouse, and why?

AdC: As Goethe said of his best-known work, "Some days I am Faust. Some days I am Mephistopheles. Some days, I am both." So: I am Kat, I am Mouse, I'm Chloe, I'm Peter, I'm Kat's mother; my name is Legion, for we are many.

NRAMA: Intense girl-girl friendship, New England private school, CSI-teens. Based on elements from your own life?

AdC: Well, I went to a minor private day school in Wilmington, Delaware, and I was always really frustrated as a kid that the great teen shows were all set in California. I wanted East-Coast in-jokes! And besides, they played weird sports out West, not like our sensible and normal prep-school sports of field hockey and lacrosse.

My parents now live in New Hampshire and since my artist lives in Rome, I could do the photo-ref thing fairly easily. I love New England; it's my favourite part of the States. And of course, I was (and still am) a nerd. This is a great thing, as basically I'm not afraid of new technology or new software - I've just taught myself Final Cut Pro, which isn't nearly as hard as I thought it was.
But I never solved cool mysteries at school. Mostly, I just wore weird clothes, got picked on, and got better grades than everyone else. And had intense (but endlessly unstable and shifting) girl-girl friendships.

NRAMA: You have two projects coming out from Humanoids; Messiah Complex and Adam in Chromaland. Can you tell us about those, and when you expect them out?

AdC: I think Messiah Complex is coming out around February, possibly at Angouleme. Adam will be a bit later. Both are done being drawn and inked, and are with their colourists now. (Adam looks like it will be coloured by quite a well-known American colourist, whose style I just adore).

Messiah Complex is a hugely epic sci-noir about Miranda, a 14 year old girl who gets plucked out of total obscurity and basically told that she's Spartacus. But it's a massive tapestry, and there are several major side stories, such as the background of her bodyguard, a half-alien mercenary, and the tribulations of the Emperor's son, Constantine. Sci-fi writing tends to fall into two categories. The first is writing about technology or concepts, with some stock characters in there somewhere (hello, Warren Ellis!). The second is Westerns In Space. I'm Westerns In Space - well, actually, Greek Tragedies In Space. Messiah Complex is almost entirely character driven, and its main inspirations were The Tempest, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, and Aeschylus' Oresteia/Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis. Oh, and a dash of Schiller - he could write imperial politics like nobody else.

NRAMA: Who's doing the artwork for Messiah Complex, and can you give us some clue as to what we'll be seeing?

AdC:Eduardo Ocaña, who is Spanish, is the artist on Messiah Complex. He totally gets my Westerns In Space concept, and is fully 50% of the creative force behind the book. I've been really blessed with both my artists at Humanoids: Luigi di Giammarino on Adam and Eduardo on Messiah. I've thrown them huge, epic books, with massive and complex worlds behind them, and both artists have just run with the ideas. Ed has designed the most amazing architecture, borrowing from everything from Moorish castles to Philippine shantytowns, and oh, you should see his spaceship designs... Ed's another master of the fiendishly detailed background, and that contributes so much to bringing this imaginary universe to life.

And of course I'm in love with Luigi because in one of the very first crowd scenes in Chromaland, which was to be populated by all sorts of characters out of painting and sculpture, he stuck in Edward Gorey's Doubtful Guest next to a little character from a Hieronymous Bosch painting. 2,000 miles away, speaks a different language, but: ONE OF US.

NRAMA: Enough beating around the bush; what's Adam in Chromaland about?

AdC: Adam in Chromaland is an all-ages fantasy story about a little boy who gets stuck in a museum after hours and gets recruited to save the Empire of the Imagination from an evil prince who is attacking it. I usually say it's the Phantom Tollbooth meets Being John Malkovich. Its genesis was wanting to write a book that got kids interested in looking at art, and making up their own stories about what they saw, rather than being told it was Culture and they should Like It because it is Good For Them. We, uh... well, Adam is more slapstick comedy than anything else, but it's slapstick involving Picasso paintings, Wagner, and Freud. The kids aren't meant to notice, because we never say HEY THIS IS PICASSO AND YOU KNOW HE WAS A REALLY IMPORTANT ARTIST, we just go, look! funny painting of blue guy. Oh, he's blue because he's under water. Check out his swimming trunks under his coat! The book is basically me and Luigi di Giammarino making really lowbrow humour and visual jokes about things we love a whole lot. Like Cy Twombly. And Hiroshige. And Basquiat. But we don't stop to explain, or even say who made the images, because the kids are smart enough to go search out this information for themselves if they like it. Besides, I bloody hate "edutainment".

If I get remembered for one book, it will be Adam. Such a simple concept, so much to be done with it, so elegantly.

NRAMA: How has it been working for Humanoids?

AdC: I adore Humanoids. They act like proper grown-ups, and really care about making the art and the story the best possible. I can't recommend them highly enough as a publisher, and I'm really honoured that a group with such a strong reputation in sci-fi would want to publish two series by a relative unknown like me. Also, European artists!

Messiah Complex pre-orders have come in much higher than expected, which is a good sign. I think Adam will be a pretty big book in Europe, too. We're in talks with a US publisher (not a comics publisher - a book publisher) to distribute Adam in America, and of course there are the usual potential bids from producers for film-option rights. There's one European group who are putting in an option offer that would let me direct, which would be awesome.

Check back with Newsarama tomorrow for part two of the interview with Alex de Campi, as she talks about her film work and her career in comics so far.

[The Marvel]

SMOKE was fantastic. I can't wait to see the new stuff.

[BlueThunderArmy]

Alex de Campi continues to be my hero, both for her amazing writing and no-nonsense commentary.

Really looking forward to Adam... was there a specific museum in mind for the setting?

[whippis]

Smoke was fantastic. I'll be tracking down Messiah Complex as well

[AlexLothos]

Loved this interview! Very fun read!

[render man]

I've seen some pages from Messiah Complex and they look awesome! But I forget if there was going to be an english language version or not. anybody know?

[Cray_ws]

I almost picked up the Smoke trade yesterday, but I ran out of funds. It definitely looks to be a great read. Igor Kordey is one those artist that if you give him the time and freedom, his artwork can really shine.

Messiah Complex looks to be very intriguing. I would love to see some preview pages. I'm sure the work will be meticulously stunning like most Humanoid projects are. I just picked up a Metabaron trade yesterday too. I absolutely love the level of detail European artists pour over these pages.

[xomanowarfan]

Great interview, well done nrama! A smoke sequel would be the bomb.

[a_de_campi]

Thanks for the nice words, everyone! In answer to Questions Various:

1) Adam: there was no specific museum in mind. It's a magic museum, full of all my and Luigi's favourite paintings and sculpture. I suppose in some ways it was most inspired by the Met in New York, where I spent a whole lot of time when I was an Art History major at Princeton. I still know entire room layouts of that museum from memory. If you're ever there, go up the steps, through the Tiepolo Room, and in the next room on the right-hand wall is this mind-bendingly bizarre Lorenzo Lotto of a naked Venus holding a hoop and Cupid pissing through it. Imagine that one over the living-room sofa... We do a similar museum mash-up in book 2 of KAT & MOUSE, loosely based on the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum in Boston, but with paintings from the National Gallery in London and the Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

2) Messiah in English: As far as I know, there are no plans yet. I'm going to post a PDF of the English dialogue on my site when the book comes out. Because French series come out as 46-page instalments, 9 months apart, US publishers often don't pick them up until the first couple volumes are out.

3) Messiah and Adam page samples: I think Chris will post some in Part 2 of my interview. Otherwise, muck about in the back posts in my website; there's some there. Including one with dinosaurs rampaging through suburbia. Yay dinosaurs. I love my job.

4) Smoke sequel: oh my g-d, I just need to live through September without dying from overwork, going insane, or going broke. Ask me in October.

Anyway, if you have other questions, ask away. I'm on set all this week so it may take me a day or so, but I will endeavour to reply.

[EmeraldGuy32]

1. Will guys with only limited experience with Manga enjoy Kat & Mouse and Agent Boo (what's that about anyways)?

2. OMFG did I love Smoke. It was Grant Morrison meets Frank Miller. Kudos (and please live long enough to do a sequel).

3. There is no number three.

[Livewire2nd]

I loved Smoke can't wait to see more.

[Kolimar]

Great interview. Alex, your energy and enthusiasm are almost contagious (I would have been even more affected if I wasn't pathologically lazy ). Best of luck with your projects. I'm looking forward to part 2 of the interview.

[Arnout]

I was humbled by how good Smoke came out and it has also been very well received.
Certainly worth a look.

These Humanoids titles look quite promising (and I'm ashamed to say I overlooked the Tokyopop stuff, will have to take another look) and I was wondering: as these will be published in French, are they translated first, or do you / can you write in French?
Because, honestly, sometimes (I can't recall a specific title though) the translations aren't all that good.
Just wondering. It still sounds worth a look.

[a_de_campi]

Answers!

EmeraldGuy: Agent Boo is crazy sci-fi for kids 8-10. It's FLASH GORDON meets HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE, basically. It's what's known as a "manga chapter" book, which means it's a mix of prose, illustrations and sequential comic pages. Quite a fun challenge to write and plan. It may come off as a bit young for you, but it's certainly something that people (and kids) with limited manga experience could enjoy. Next to ADAM, it's the craziest thing I've written. I love polluting the minds of the nation's youth. As for KAT & MOUSE, yeah, again, my goal wasn't to create something that people could mistake for Japanese - it was to write a good story. The art is somewhat manga-styled, but Federica doesn't delve very heavily into the tropes of the style (which I can sometimes find irritating).

Arnout: I think in pictures, write in English, and oversee the French translation to fine-tune it to how I want. I speak enough French to do this, but it's not fluent enough for me to write in comfortably.

[Arnout]

Originally Posted by a_de_campi

Answers!

EmeraldGuy: Agent Boo is crazy sci-fi for kids 8-10. It's FLASH GORDON meets HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE, basically. It's what's known as a "manga chapter" book, which means it's a mix of prose, illustrations and sequential comic pages. Quite a fun challenge to write and plan. It may come off as a bit young for you, but it's certainly something that people (and kids) with limited manga experience could enjoy. Next to ADAM, it's the craziest thing I've written. I love polluting the minds of the nation's youth. As for KAT & MOUSE, yeah, again, my goal wasn't to create something that people could mistake for Japanese - it was to write a good story. The art is somewhat manga-styled, but Federica doesn't delve very heavily into the tropes of the style (which I can sometimes find irritating).

Arnout: I think in pictures, write in English, and oversee the French translation to fine-tune it to how I want. I speak enough French to do this, but it's not fluent enough for me to write in comfortably.

Thanks!
I thought something along those lines.
Great, now I have no excuses to not go for it...

[Kolimar]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

Bursting on the scene with last year's Smoke from IDW Publishing, Alex de Campi has quickly jumped to the front of the line for burgeoning new talent. She recently released two books from TOKYOPOP, Kat & Mouse and Agent Boo, and has two books in the works with European publisher Humanoids. In addition, she continues delve deeper in the film industry directing short films and music videos.

Comic book creators and their work in other fields. What do you think?

[tof]

Messiah complex seems to be the kind of story I like with some nice art but I'll check Adam when it's available too.

The good thing about Smoke is that the french translation is published by Delcourt. As Igor Kordey has been doing work only for Delcourt for a year (Secret History final volume will be out in November and Empire first volume was just announced to be out in October) I hope a deal can be found. Igor seems to draw fast enough to work on two books at the same time: he's been doing 5 BD in a year whereas most of the time artists in France are only doing 2 each year!