Dapper John

Dapper John Reviews

There have been a few new reviews of the iPad version of Eddie Campbell’s Dapper John.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dapper-john-in-days-ace-rock/id484862579?mt=8

First, Martyn Pedler at Bookslut:

http://www.bookslut.com/comicbookslut/2012_05_018953.php

A review at Four Realities:

http://fourrealities.blogspot.jp/2012/04/dapper-john-by-eddie-campbell.html

and Persian Cat Press gave the collection a rave review in their graphic story review app:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/cat-nav/id492635915?mt=8

Thanks all.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dapper-john-in-days-ace-rock/id484862579?mt=8

Eddie Campbell Interview Fragments

A previously unpublished colour panel from the Dapper John iPad app

The Dapper John iPad app contains over 150 pages of Eddie Campbell including a new interview with the man himself. Below are some fragments…

On creating a graphic novel when graphic novels didn’t exist

“I was working in an idiom that didn’t exist yet. I’d create a comic as a book, and when that was finished I’d think about what my next book would be about. Doing a comic, never mind a whole big self-contained one, where you didn’t go to a big company and draw one of their characters, was inconceivable.”

On his involment in the rock ‘n’ roll scene

“I was a lost person. The rock ’n’ roll thing was a subculture that attracted lost people and social misfits and sensitive people playing at being desperados, because the 70s was such a bland place.”

“Punk came along and was a nihilistic destructive ‘fuck you’ thing. Both the rock ’n’ roll scene and punk were a reaction to the mental blandness whose outward signs were taken to be flared trousers and fluffy hair. In such critical moments you tend to get two camps, one that sweeps the board clean and another that goes back to the beginning and attempts to perpetuate the first moment of inspiration. In jazz music in the late 1940s it was the moderns against the ‘mouldy figs’. Now it was Johnny Rotten proclaiming that ‘Elvis’ fat belly cast a shadow over rock ’n’ roll!’”

On how the characters saw themselves…

“Yeah, these characters that I’m drawing would walk as though they were walking in their own myth. They were already mythologising their walk down the street before they’d come to the end of it.”

Special Sale on Dapper John to Celebrate Angouleme Nomination

As you may have heard, Eddie Campbell has been nominated to receive Angouleme’s Essential Prize at this year’s festival for his “Alec” work.  To celebrate, Panel Nine is selling Eddie Campbell’s Dapper John graphic novel for the iPad for 50% off through the end of January — to coincide with the festival. The app is normally £6.99 but is now  £2.99. ($9.99 down to $4.99)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/dapper-john-in-days-ace-rock/id484862579?mt=8

Angouleme, “Festival International de la Bande Dessinee”, of course, Europe’s largest and most prestigious comics festival and Angouleme’s Essential Prize is given to artists for works that are considered, well essential. Other English language authors nominated for prizes at Angouleme include Dan Clowes, Craig Thompson and Joe Sacco.

http://bdangouleme.com/english/

It would be great if you could give this a mention.

Dapper John has received excellent reviews:

“All in all, this is an excellent app with great content - certainly one of he best presentations of comics on the iPad I’ve seen.” — John Freeman

“A really enjoyable collection and I highly recommend it.” — David Hine

“More than just another comic strip.The definitive version of Eddie Campbell’s early work.” — Dave Hornsby

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General Information
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Panel Nine, the new digital comics publisher, has released “Dapper John” by Eddie Campbell for the iPad. It’s a fabulous package collecting all of the “Ace Club” stories in one place and adding a whole bunch of extras. Eddie created new artwork and wrote a special introduction and a whole raft of notes and captions covering the era in which Dapper John strode the small press stage.

“All in all, this is an excellent app with great content - certainly one of he best presentations of comics on the iPad I’ve seen.”

John Freeman writes:

The app itself is excellent, offering different ways of reading the strip - a version aping its original layout and a slick ‘panel by panel’ version with a very well thought out scrolling action involving movement from frame at some points and at other times, a simole cross fade which make for an enjoyable reading experience.

The strips themselves are raw Eddie Campbell at his finest - vignettes of life among the ‘Teddy Boys’ of Brighton, the stories themselves given entertaining context thanks to accompanying notes, offering a fascinating insight into the heady days of Fast Fiction, early photocopied comics sold at Westminter comic marts and more.

All in all, this is an excellent app with great content - certainly one of he best presentations of comics on the iPad I’ve seen.

“A really enjoyable collection and I highly recommend it.”

David Hine writes:

Russell Willis was involved with alternative comics in the early 80’s, when he published, among other things, some of my own earliest work in The Alternative Headmaster’s Bulletin and No Frills Funnies. More significantly he also published strips by Eddie Campbell, and now he’s doing it again. Earlier this month Russell very kindly sent me a free download of his itunes app for a collection of Eddie’s “In the Days of the Ace Rock ‘N’ Roll Club”. Published through Russell’s Panel Nine digital imprint, this collects every “Ace Club” strip along with a whimsical introduction by Eddie himself, and masses of extras, including a review by Alan Moore from 1983, an interview with Eddie, photos of Eddie and friends from the period and all the introductions from past collections.

This is a really enjoyable collection and I highly recommend it. Check out the itunes preview for “Dapper John: In the Days of the Ace Rock ‘n’ Roll Club” by Eddie Campbell.