SUMMARY
Eddie Campbell lives in Scotland and enjoys playing football with his friends who are Celtic fans. He makes a shot that is important to him in a game. On the day when his father was scheduled to take Campbell to a match, Eddie is hit by a car and hospitalized. At the hospital, he begins reading comics and falls in love with them.
There were no artists living in Campbell's neighborhood. His father discouraged his interest in art as impractical. Campbell is the only boy at many events he attends. The first job Campbell gets as an artist is as a court room sketch artist for the local news station. An insect called a 'snooter' flies into Campbell's home at night and bites him, causing a rash. Campbell designs a 'snooter' superhero costume which resembles a quadruped fly. The goal of the 'snooter' is to reduce complacency but it has little effect.
He moves to Australia from Scotland. Against his father's advice, Campbell begins self-publishing out of his home in Australia and starts a family with his wife. He rents a home and enjoys the simplicity of the rental arrangement. A man from Georgia, US, represents Campbell's artwork in the United States.
A Hollywood company shows interest in Campbell's work for a film, and, although the movie is never filmed, Campbell receives a check large enough to buy a home for his family.
The family spends more than Campbell earns per year after buying the home and Campbell is stressed about money. Although Campbell sees no need for his family to have a dog, he buys his children a dog due to the children's demands. Neighborhood cats choose to hang out at Campbell's home rather than at the homes of their respective owners.
In the middle of the night, Campbell awakes to find an old man and the quadruped 'snooter' in his kitchen. While the old man is eager to drink, the 'snooter' lectures Campbell on the evils of alcohol. Campbell unmasks the 'snooter' to find that it is 'Mr. Dry' wearing Campbell's old 'snooter' costume.
Time passes and Campbell's income becomes more steady. Campbell goes on a lecture tour with a friend named Neil who practiced self publishing, just as he did. One of Campbell's movies is filmed and Campbell is invited to the premiere in Paris. Campbell goes on a world tour giving lectures and selling his graphic novels to precede the movie premiere. During breaks on his trip, Campbell puts the finishing touches on a new manuscript.
On his journey, Campbell visits all the significant places from his childhood. When he returns, his children tell him that they barely remember what he looks like. While Campbell is home, his daughter cuts herself breaking in through the window because Campbell's son locked the house doors as a prank while accessing pornography on the internet. Before long, Campbell goes to Spain for another business trip.
Campbell goes to Paris with his family for the movie premiere. He visits a famous cemetery where many artists such as Oscar Wilde are buried and pays his respects. While Campbell is watching the film, Campbell hallucinates the 'snooter' as a character in the movie, offering Campbell a drink. After the premiere, Campbell's wife congratulates him and while they are having sex, Campbell finds himself unable to perform because Campbell is comparing himself to his father and his wife to his mother.
ANALYSIS
Campbell is unsure of many of the decisions he has made in his life. He identifies the car crash as a life changing moment for himself where he chose the path of the artist. As an adult, he looks back on his life and imagines himself progressing in several different ways. At the end of each of these imaginary paths, however, he finds that he winds up living in a cliche.
Being an artist is not as much fun as Campbell imagined it would be. The insect he calls the snooter which bit him identifies his drinking alcohol and becoming complacent with old habits as the poison sucking the fun out of his life. Because Campbell's father is a drinker, and Campbell does not want to become his father, Campbell dislikes himself for drinking and behaving similarly to his father. What he most wants is to break free of a cliche and ordinary existence, and his alcohol and complacency in his lifestyle is the hindrance to that achievement.
In this graphic novel, Campbell tells several stories of people being bitten by the snooter and their lives being ruined. In each of the stories, the person drastically changes the direction of their course in life due to regrets. It is unclear if Campbell is suggesting that complacency saves people from making bad decisions to change, in certain instances.
My University recently added 'Comics' as a Major. This book is a graphic novel and makes an excellent case for the art form as a serious academic endeavor. Campbell is good-natured enough to poke fun at the parable-like nature of some of his stories, which lessens the feeling that he may be speaking down to his reader. While this book is 90% autobiographical, it contains enough fictional elements to be considered fiction, at least for me, and I'm the one who wrote the page.
SOURCE
Campbell, Eddie. After the Snooter. Paddington, Qld.: Eddie Campbell, 2002. Print.Book about a man on his journey to success in the art industry.
Eddie Campbell lives in Scotland and enjoys playing football with his friends who are Celtic fans. He makes a shot that is important to him in a game. On the day when his father was scheduled to take Campbell to a match, Eddie is hit by a car and hospitalized. At the hospital, he begins reading comics and falls in love with them.
There were no artists living in Campbell's neighborhood. His father discouraged his interest in art as impractical. Campbell is the only boy at many events he attends. The first job Campbell gets as an artist is as a court room sketch artist for the local news station. An insect called a 'snooter' flies into Campbell's home at night and bites him, causing a rash. Campbell designs a 'snooter' superhero costume which resembles a quadruped fly. The goal of the 'snooter' is to reduce complacency but it has little effect.
He moves to Australia from Scotland. Against his father's advice, Campbell begins self-publishing out of his home in Australia and starts a family with his wife. He rents a home and enjoys the simplicity of the rental arrangement. A man from Georgia, US, represents Campbell's artwork in the United States.
A Hollywood company shows interest in Campbell's work for a film, and, although the movie is never filmed, Campbell receives a check large enough to buy a home for his family.
The family spends more than Campbell earns per year after buying the home and Campbell is stressed about money. Although Campbell sees no need for his family to have a dog, he buys his children a dog due to the children's demands. Neighborhood cats choose to hang out at Campbell's home rather than at the homes of their respective owners.
In the middle of the night, Campbell awakes to find an old man and the quadruped 'snooter' in his kitchen. While the old man is eager to drink, the 'snooter' lectures Campbell on the evils of alcohol. Campbell unmasks the 'snooter' to find that it is 'Mr. Dry' wearing Campbell's old 'snooter' costume.
Time passes and Campbell's income becomes more steady. Campbell goes on a lecture tour with a friend named Neil who practiced self publishing, just as he did. One of Campbell's movies is filmed and Campbell is invited to the premiere in Paris. Campbell goes on a world tour giving lectures and selling his graphic novels to precede the movie premiere. During breaks on his trip, Campbell puts the finishing touches on a new manuscript.
On his journey, Campbell visits all the significant places from his childhood. When he returns, his children tell him that they barely remember what he looks like. While Campbell is home, his daughter cuts herself breaking in through the window because Campbell's son locked the house doors as a prank while accessing pornography on the internet. Before long, Campbell goes to Spain for another business trip.
Campbell goes to Paris with his family for the movie premiere. He visits a famous cemetery where many artists such as Oscar Wilde are buried and pays his respects. While Campbell is watching the film, Campbell hallucinates the 'snooter' as a character in the movie, offering Campbell a drink. After the premiere, Campbell's wife congratulates him and while they are having sex, Campbell finds himself unable to perform because Campbell is comparing himself to his father and his wife to his mother.
ANALYSIS
Campbell is unsure of many of the decisions he has made in his life. He identifies the car crash as a life changing moment for himself where he chose the path of the artist. As an adult, he looks back on his life and imagines himself progressing in several different ways. At the end of each of these imaginary paths, however, he finds that he winds up living in a cliche.
Being an artist is not as much fun as Campbell imagined it would be. The insect he calls the snooter which bit him identifies his drinking alcohol and becoming complacent with old habits as the poison sucking the fun out of his life. Because Campbell's father is a drinker, and Campbell does not want to become his father, Campbell dislikes himself for drinking and behaving similarly to his father. What he most wants is to break free of a cliche and ordinary existence, and his alcohol and complacency in his lifestyle is the hindrance to that achievement.
In this graphic novel, Campbell tells several stories of people being bitten by the snooter and their lives being ruined. In each of the stories, the person drastically changes the direction of their course in life due to regrets. It is unclear if Campbell is suggesting that complacency saves people from making bad decisions to change, in certain instances.
My University recently added 'Comics' as a Major. This book is a graphic novel and makes an excellent case for the art form as a serious academic endeavor. Campbell is good-natured enough to poke fun at the parable-like nature of some of his stories, which lessens the feeling that he may be speaking down to his reader. While this book is 90% autobiographical, it contains enough fictional elements to be considered fiction, at least for me, and I'm the one who wrote the page.
- Man becomes an artist
- An insect bites the man and begins speaking to him as his good conscience
- Man self-publishes and ends up with a movie deal
- The insect still haunts the man after he is successful
SOURCE
Campbell, Eddie. After the Snooter. Paddington, Qld.: Eddie Campbell, 2002. Print.Book about a man on his journey to success in the art industry.
