City of Culture Individual Artist

Joe Campbell

“Distant Fields”

The World’s largest Comic Book

Profile

Joe Campbell BA

Born in 1958, Joe Campbell is an artist living and working in Derry in Northern Ireland with a twenty-five year career under his belt. Joe is a graduate of the Open University and is currently working as a comic book artist with a number of graphic novel publications to his credit including The Amelia Earhart Story written by Felicity McCall, published by Uproar Comics. His most recent graphic novel, Missing: Have You Seen the Invisible Man? Has just been published by Accent UK and has received strong reviews in both the UK and the US. (Book available at www.accentukcomics.com

Much of Joe’s comic art not only features himself, family and friends as central characters but also uses his home town of Derry as backdrop (especially the old walled city) with many of the city’s streets and landmarks featuring in his stories. Recent examples can be found in Megabook M2, the world’s largest free comic book available for free download at:  

http://www.amazon.ca/MEGABOOK-M2-ebook/

Joe has also recently exhibited at the Browse International Cartoon and Comic Art Exhibition alongside the likes of Ralph Steadman and his current work is featuring at comic conventions such as The London Super Con; the Dundee Comics Expo; New York MOCCA and The Copenhagen Comics Con. Joe is also a guest this year at Derry’s own 2D Comic Festival.

Joe also worked as a stained glass artist for twelve years working with a number of studios most notably, Calderwoods in Belfast with stained glass designs installed in windows throughout Ireland. He has also worked as a painter specialising in Irish landscape paintings and portraiture exhibiting regularly for many years with the McGilloway Gallery. Joe’s painting has been exhibited across the world and examples can also be seen locally, in art centres, schools and public spaces across his native city. In 2010 and 2012 he also received awards from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Joe is also closely associated with the local arts scene having been the artist-in-residence with Greater Shantallow Community Arts for seven years and was appointed as Cultural Engagement Officer for the Outer North Area of Derry in 2013. His association with community arts has brought him into contact with many significant cultural organisations and arts projects. He was recently responsible for the concepts behind the Arc Centre, a proposal to establish the first major capital build, in Northern Ireland dedicated to community arts at Ballyarnett Country Park. The concepts behind that project now form the basis for the development of Studio 2, a new cultural centre situated in the Greater Shantallow Area of Derry.

In 2013 Joe was selected as a City of Culture individual artist. As part of his commission he will reframe the genre of comic books turn his graphic comic art into large-format, comic book public installations which will feature on sites across the city. This is the first time this particular concept has been used.

Distant Fields “The World’s Largest Comic Book

City of Culture Individual Artist Installation

It is fitting given Joe’s associations with the area that Joe has chosen Shantallow Library in the north of Derry for the first of his Comic book installations. “Distant Fields” is being billed as “The World’s Largest Comic Book” - a free standing, 42 foot long, comic story. The story itself is described as, an Irish ghost story and features a 12 “page” tale with a haunting and brothers lost on the Somme. Each page is 5ft 6ins high and 4 ft across. When laid end to end, the panels will form a 42 ft long short story.

Distant Fields not only backdrops the city (many of the panels feature well-known Derry landmarks) it also references the city’s history, reframing cultural identities and representing them in other ways – Old light through new windows (or new technologies)

Technique/ Digital Artform

Joe’s work mixes traditional skills such as pencil and ink drawings with new digital technology. The artist takes digital photos of people and places and turns them into drawings. The drawings are then scanned into a PC where colour, texture and tone are added. Text, special effects, panels, and page layouts are also done digitally. Finally finished pages are brought together in a digital publication and a book is produced. Joe says of his technique “Above all, the comic book genre is a digital one. New technology has empowered the artist, cutting out expensive middle men and democratising the publishing process”.

Joe uses the genre of sequential graphic art to convey ideas on his immediate world his native city and his past. His work is not the typical commercial art of the “super hero genre”. It is a form of literature owing more to the “graphic novel” than the comic.

Exhibition launch

“Distant Fields” will be launched at 12 noon, 23^rd May at Shantallow Library in Derry-Londonderry. The exhibition will run for 10 days from Thursday 23^rd May to Friday 31^st May 2013 (in partnership with Culture Company; The Earhart Festival and Libraries NI). Distant Fields will also tour the city appearing at various venues (TBA) throughout City of Culture Year.

Joecampbellcityofculture2013@blogspot.co.uk

joecampbellcomicart@blogspot.co.uk

joecampbellart@talktalk.net

Contact: 71357443 (Greater Shantallow Community Arts)