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Waiting
for Tommy: Jeff Scott Campbell
By
Richard Johnston RICH:
You're in the fortunate position where you can pick and choose
comics projects - or not do them at all. What would it take
to get you back in the monthly game again? Is anything worth
that daily grind to produce?
JEFF: Well, that's kind of you to say. In truth though,
I've never been monthly. In the Gen 13 days, I believe I gave
the illusion of being monthly, but honestly, those books came
out anywhere between 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 months apart, with lots
of breaks in between. I'm not saying that a monthly would
be impossible, but I would have to cheat it by having issues
build up in advance of launching or something like that. And
it would probably have to be a solo character, and definitely
not a team book. Everything I've ever worked on, including
my top secret new project, has been a team book and they just
take too long to draw. But if I ever draw a run on Spidey,
or Batman, it will have to be monthly because that's just
how those books work.
Truthfully
though, I hate to compromise, and monthly comic books are
chock full of artistic compromise. It's so unbelievably depressing
to put out a product that you don't think comes anywhere close
to representing what you are really capable of. I'm far too
much of a perfectionist. That's not to say that I see my work
as "perfect", just that I have an obsessive compulsion to
strive for perfection. I feel that I would be producing the
equivalent of a daytime soap if I was forced to produce a
comic book monthly, and I'm striving to produce the feature
film quality of something like Gladiator or Raiders of the
Lost Ark. I also enjoy my family and sleep far to much to
kill myself with around the clock work (which I seem to do
anyway).
RICH:
Some creators, such as Travis Charest or John Cassaday have
found the European model of regular-ish hardcover albums to
be a valid format for their work - more preferable to the
US system. Certainly, seeing Danger Girl in that format seems
to have been a motivating force for the Absolute Danger Girl
volume (sitting beside me as I type this). Is that style something
you see for yourself in the future?
JEFF: Wow, you picked that up? That's great! Yeah,
I love those European books as well, and I have yet to run
into a comic book artist over here that doesn't. And there
are still so many great books from over there that comic book
fans in America still have yet to see. Some of my personal
favorites over the years have been Cyber Six, Franka, Sky
Doll, and the just recently translated Blacksad. Awesome,
awesome stuff. I don't see myself doing anything like that
anytime soon though because American audiences have yet to
embrace that model and I want my books to be as successful
and available to my fans over here in the states as possible.
And these days, everything is eventually collected into trades
anyway, and if you're lucky, a nice big oversized hardcover
that at least gives to appearance of a beautiful European
volume. Now that's the best of both worlds!
RICH:
You realize there's no way I'm letting you out of here until
you give some indication of this top-secret book of yours.
C'mon, no one reads this thing, they're all all looking at
more allegations about Micah Wright. Let something slip, you
big teaser you...
JEFF: Heh heh, nice try there, Rich. No, I can't. Believe
me, I wish I could because keeping this a secret is killing
me. I'm so excited about what I've been doing that I cannot
wait to spill it! What I can tell you, and this is kind of
a bit of news, is that you can expect a really big announcement
from me about this new project later this summer. Best I can
do for now. Oh yeah, and expect it to have all of those things
above that I talked about were missing from so many comic
books these days. There are a lot of clues in there if you
look for them. If you really want, I could answer five "Yes
or No answer questions" regarding the project? But then I
really am being a big tease, aren't I.
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