Alex de Campi: Ooo-de-lolly-golly

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FILM & TV

COMICS & BOOKS

29.6.07 Vote Margaritas. Vote Mad Scientists. Vote Moral Flexibility. Vote Alex.

I have returned from New York with a gorgeous Aaton S16 camera and many tales to tell. Many thanks to Dean Haspiel for putting us up (and putting up with us), and to the crew at MoCCA and Act-I-Vate for letting us crash all their parties and chase their women.

Stories to come later, but for the moment I very much need your help. See, I'm still struggling at this music video thing. I am doing lots of work, for excellent bands... who are struggling just as much as me. However I could do with being a little more high-profile and, y'know, earn some money. (Even though we both know I'll just blow it on making more free videos for deserving bands. And on booze.)

This is where Cravefest, a music video contest in Toronto, comes in. I've submitted a couple videos to it and could really use your help in voting for them. The videos are "Dogboy vs Monsters" and "Raindrops" by Flipron (in Signed / Rock), "Bedroom Superstar" by Scarlet Blonde (in Unsigned/Electronic & Dance), and "Stress" by Kunta Kinte (in Unsigned / Rock).

Pick your favourites and vote for them as Best Music Video. I think you can vote once in each category. (Yes, I know that means choosing between "Raindrops" and "Dogboy", but perhaps you could vote for "Raindrops" as Most Original Video or something).

Honestly, please, I don't ask much of you gentle strangers - but if you could take five seconds to Vote Alex, my gratitude would be undying.

( 10:20 AM ) (0) comments

19.6.07 Terminally Mischevious: Travel Edition

I'm off to New York on Thursday for the weekend. In my absence, I offer you a few small pieces of entertainment.

First is a clip of The Real Tuesday Weld playing "Terminally Ambivalent About You" at White Mischief: Click here to go to the clip, which will be only up for seven days.

Second, a few lovely panels from my forthcoming graphic novel series Adam in Chromaland, drawn by Luigi di Giammarino and coloured by the incomparable Laura Martin:

Book 1 (of 3) is out around June 30 from Humanoids in France. We are still searching for an American publisher. As usual, I will provide an English script translation to any non-French speaker who orders the book from Amazon.fr.

Meanwhile, I am New York bound. If you reside in the Five Boroughs and wish to say hello to me, come along to the Brooklyn Social on Carroll Street this Thursday the 21st June anytime after 8pm. I'm the tall one with the sick sense of humour.

( 7:19 PM ) (0) comments

7.6.07 In Which Our Heroine Posts New Videos, And Has A Jolly Good Rant

A few things worth mentioning:

I've uploaded several new videos to my YouTube page: the three virals from February's cancelled commercial project*; and a 60-second promo clip from White Mischief. Do go have a look and let me know what you think.

On the subject of White Mischief, there will be more clips uploaded in the next few weeks from Flipron, Kunta Kinte, Evil Genius, The Real Tuesday Weld and our other performers, as we finish grading and sound mixing the concert DVD.

And further on the subject of White Mischief: yes, we are doing another. 'Round about Mischief Night. And perhaps a rather intimate Christmas special. Stay tuned for more info.

Also doing a new video, for probably the biggest band with which I've yet worked. If you wonder why I tend to do music videos these days rather than comic books, it's very simple, and can be illustrated by how I got my most recent video gig: drunk at 4am in Floridita chatting to a musician friend after the Dogboy single launch. Within 3 days, we had the video approved.

Meanwhile, there are creator-owned comics I've been pitching for years.

I've gone back to full-time day work as a secretary; despite everything I do, the writing life pays me almost nil and I was losing the debt war. I work for lovely people and am incredibly grateful for the job, but the side effect is that I've had to narrow my focus down to the creative projects I really want to do. So I will be doing less, but each thing I do will be more important to me. Other than the in-progress music video (the one I pitched at Floridita), there are two musicians I want to collaborate with on projects, and a couple little camera tests and visual experiments in the works. Then it's a short film and prep up to shooting my feature at end of year. I now have my own super8 and a (shared) super16, which makes shooting a lot more relaxed and - since I'm not paying for camera rental - economical.

As for comics... my heart is most in my two French series. I've burned out somewhat on Tokyopop thanks to the non-marketing of the two kids' series I format-Guinea-pigged for them, and frankly, given the restrictiveness of their contracts, they needed to deliver a lot more than they did in order to make worthwhile how little I was paid** and how much I gave up in terms of secondary rights. It's a shame, as their editors are wonderful people to work with; some of the most professional and inspiring I've come across.

I've just come out of a very frustrating nine month long process with a big US book publisher interested in taking on North American rights to Adam in Chromaland but unfortunately they seem to think because in a 130 page series there are 10 pages that happen in a museum, it's just like Night at the Museum. So that's stalled.

So what am I working on at the present? Ehn. I'm writing a girls' adventure series, set in 1909, during my lunch breaks at work - mainly to keep myself out of trouble. Still to find an artist, and not even a whisper of a publisher. Amusingly, I was prompted to write this series by the same big publisher who stalled on Adam. They wanted it as a prose series, got all excited about it, then asked me to write 3-5 chapters unpaid first. Now, that's fairly standard, but I just don't have the time to slave away doing more unpaid work for a publisher that's proven itself (with Adam) to be the epitome of flakiness. I threw up my arms and decided to write it as a graphic novel series instead; which ensures that publisher will never pick it up because They Don't Do Graphic Novels, And Why Can't I Just Write It In Prose Like A Normal Person?

Because I'm not a normal person.

Ugh. Why are there so many obstacles to creation? I am in a real hating mood towards publishers and agents and other people in desk jobs who profit off my ideas.

Anyhow. The girls' adventure series (think if Corto Maltese starred an 11-year-old girl with a Jack Russell terrier and a slingshot) is nicknamed Xanthe. I have that. And I have cameras. And I have other friends in the same boat who frequently collaborate with me in some sort of anarcho-syndicalist underground conspiracy of ideas, and eventually, if we keep at it, we'll make our own books and videos and music and, indeed, world. And there will be a lot of folks who won't be on the guestlist for it.

*For avoidance of doubt: the former client has approved in writing these versions of the commercials to be put on YouTube.

**For each 95-page volume of Kat & Mouse, I am paid $1,500. No royalties, as the books have sold poorly, partially to a failure to achieve any real marketing traction outside the manga community. Or even within the manga community, for that matter. Agent Boo ends with the next book, volume 3, for similar reasons. Or maybe because my writing sucks. Who knows. But if you think it sucks, you're shit out of luck, as I ain't quitting.

( 10:14 AM ) (1) comments

3.6.07 Coming Soon To A Store Near You...

...If you live in France.

Clicky for bigger. Words by me, pictures by Luigi di Giammarino, colours by Laura Martin.

Out circa 30 June, from Humanoids. It's The Phantom Tollbooth meets Being John Malkovitch. You want to know more about it? Buy the book.

Meanwhile, I have joined Facebook, because I don't have enough social networking sites in my life already. (I'm actually praying Facebook will supplant Myspace. Myspace is OK if you're looking for a band or a whore, but for anything else, it is the worst-designed, most frequently hacked, most user-unfriendly pile of rubbish I've ever seen. Tom: You're not my friend.)

Bah. Now back to editing the White Mischief video footage.