The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell & The Fate of the Artist

Eddie Campbell is not himself. But these days, who is? It’s meta-fictional mystery and mischief as the award-winning artist of From Hell sets out to find his own imposter. Plus, on the a deluxe new presentation of The Fate of the Artist , Eddie Campbell’s classic work of graphic meta-memoir! SIDE The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell , by Eddie Campbell, is a spiritual sequel to his acclaimed graphic novel The Fate of the Artist , in which the author was missing from his own autobiography. Many years later, during an endless Covid lockdown in which everybody wears a mask and needs a haircut, Eddie’s wife is certain that he has been supplanted by an imposter. She hires a detective, the square-jawed Royler Boom, to solve the mystery. What follows — interspersed with Campbell’s trademark wry anecdotes, dreams, parodic pastiches, and pandemic peccadilloes — is a thrilling investigation that builds to a car chase and a violent conclusion. The author cunningly passes this off as another piece of autobiography. SIDE The Fate of the Artist : In an autobiography, the author and the subject are the same person… but now they’ve both gone missing. The Fate of the Artist is a complex weaving of different strains of invention including a mock prose detective story, an imaginary Sunday comic strip, a mock fumetti-style interview with the author's daughter, intertwined with Campbell's beloved brand of autobiographical comic storytelling. In this deluxe reissue of a groundbreaking book, the award-winning cartoonist of From Hell and Alec presents a complex, caustic, and fiendishly clever meditation on the lonely life of the artist and the busy life that swirls around him.