My Year in Comics: Alex de Campi, Writer of the Year

I've been digging around and finding much gold and some fool's gold. Not confining myself to mainstream books or small presses, I find good art wherever I find it, and am thankful and enriched for it. Whether I find a great little story in the big houses or a beautiful and dark wonder at a smaller oane, there's a bumper crop of great creations out there. Admittedly,  I have a predilection for writers who also draw their works, and for artist/writer teams who act as a symphony and counterpoint to one another, creating something greater than the sum of its parts. Consider what Alan Moore and artist Jacen Burrows did in the 12-issue series Providence or what E. K. Weaver, artist/writer did in the stunning The Less than Epic Adventures of T.J. and Amal. Or you might consider writer Marjorie Liu's and artist Sana Takeda's breathtaking Monstress. 

To start my Year in Comics off, however, I want to bring scribe Alex de Campi to your attention. She's important.

Writer of the Year: Alex de Campi

Dark Horse Presents # 4, featuring
the debut of  Alex de Campi's
and Jerry Ordway's Semiautomagic.
Original cover artwork
from kickstarter.com.

Alex de Campi has proven she has the chops for retro-grindhouse exploitation and horror including the shameless Grindhouse series and Archie vs. Predator. In both books, she channels 1970’s and 1980’s B-and-C-movie drive-in fare. As well, de Campi likes her protagonists strong and female. Alice Creed, heroine the unsettling and immersing Semiautomagic series, is a wayward John-Constantinesque mage fighting the forces of darkness at terrible and inevitable costs. Semiautomagic was borne of the third incarnation of the monthly variety comic book, Dark Horse Presents, and collected into trade paperback via a Kickstarter fundraiser. With the mind-bending, phantasmagoric artwork of the brilliant Jerry Ordway (Yes, that Jerry Ordway of Superman and Shazam! fame) and Semiautomagic is a winner, and sometimes hard to find.

Also of note—de Campi treats her fans well. She sent me a last spare copy of the Semiautomagic slipcase edition along with some freebies, copies of the monthlies Astonisher and Mayday. Mayday is a cold-war spy thriller in the vein of Atomic Blonde. It’s a bastard child Tarantino would approve of, replete with music, cover spy assassinations and hallucinogens. There’s a 1970’s soundtrack on Spotify for Mayday and de Campi has several other story arcs planned. I don't use the word "cool" very often, but here I might make an exception in describing both the music and concepts for Mayday described in the column at the back of the book. They're like liner notes from vinyl records. So, yes. Cool. But if de Campi can’t alchemize her ideas into other comic series, she says she’ll make these stories into novels. After all, she wrote her first novel in 2017, a milestone achievement.

Cover of Mayday issue # 1
by Tony Parker.  From the
Image Comics website.

And guess who will read her books, from her debut novel to any stories not appearing in the fine comic-book medium, to her comics, fair reader? Me—that’s who.

Also, de Campi blogs a superb strip, Hell’s Kitchen Movie Club, featuring Frank Castle (aka the Punisher) and James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (aka the Winter Soldier) drinking beer and watching movies together. What she started as a lark has become intelligent commentary on hero fatigue, PTSD, and trying to connect to your best friend. It's touching and moving at times. At others, it's just two friends shooting the breeze.

If that isn’t enough, de Campi fights the good fight, from the sexism in the industry to calling a spade a spade in the big houses to speaking out against detractors of great comic books to encouraging artists over 30 not to ditch their dreams.

In short, Alex de Campi’s work is a testament to strong women doing strong stuff in the graphic novel/comic book business. There’s more to the business than guys in tights, and de Campi delights and immerses readers by blowing the lid off conventions and by bringing exuberance and mercilessly entertaining storytelling to any book she does.