BACCHUS by Eddie Campbell (Eddie Campbell Comics)


Most likely to have recieved much wider recognition for his more recent, scratchy-ink illuminations for Alan Moore's grisly sixteen part from Hell serialisation, Ozzie Eddie Campbell had previously set himself the near-Herculean task of recounting the lesser known tales of BACCHUS, Greek god of wine and revelry as he wanders the earth today, 4000 years down the line, gnarled, deadfaced (increasingly "...a bit like a disgruntled old U-Boat commander") and seemingly, with a spot of "unfinished business" to do.

Campbell has been dutifully crawling from pub to pub and honouring the delapidated Dyonisis in graphic form for nigh on ten years now. "Immortality isn't forever", his original introductory fable, first made an appearance in the now impossible to obtain HARRIER comics. Since then, DARK HORSE had took to printing several hundred pages of BACCHUS's errant exploits in the modern world, complete with his cautionary Homeric flashbacks and more. Now, with the timely soliciting of his own imprint, the world has a second chance to catch up with the inimitable likes of the polyopic god-assasain The Eyeball Kid, ("...ten sets of eyes, one he lost in a fight and another of them's glass. Which one? The one with the kindly look"), BACCHUS's dreaded arch-nemeses Delirium Tremens & The Screaming Abdabs and those fiendishly irrepressible "Gods Of Business", the fantastically malign Telchines.

BACCHUS you might say, has it all: mythic might and booze-addled bravado, near forgotten super-powers settling age-old debts amidst dockside bar-room brawls and oh yes, the tale of the pub that seceded from England. Running alongside the current reprinting of early Deadface is this the latest role of BACCHUS as king of the poll-tax evading Castle And Frog.

Campbell's atmospheric art, encyclopedic knowledge of the Ancient Greek mythos and obvious personal affinity with the crochety old god of the vine, produces a comic book much unlike any other, save for it's obvious mythical similarities with THE SANDMAN. Neil Gaiman himself penned an introduction to the first published appearance of Immortality Isn't Forever (reprinted along with the actual work itself in BACCHUS #1) and also makes a couple of surreal personal appearances in The Castle And Frog temporarily, as the begrudging "Royal Mythographer" (pretty much employed as unwilling P.R. man to the indifferent god, tasked with "updating" old BACCHUS for the increasingly commercial rigours of our modern day).

Y'know I could just see John Constantine too, arm in arm with the old goat, swigging malts and propping up the bar...

So for modern-day Maenads, soused Satyrs and skinheaded hit-men of the gods, dip into Eddie Campbell's BACCHUS. It's Mature stuff. Make mine a La Montrachet.

Collections to date are (in order):

IMMORTALITY ISN'T FOREVER
THE GODS OF BUSINESS
DOING THE ISLANDS WITH BACCHUS
THE EYEBALL KID: ONE MAN SHOW

KING BACCHUS (Due soon)

THE GHOST IN THE GLASS (or BACCHUS COLOR SPECIAL, painted by Teddy Kristiansen, introducing many characters for the first time and begining BACCHUS's reign as king of The Castle And Frog)

Eddie Campbell Comics, PO Box 230, Paddington Q 4064, Australia


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