If you spend any time with webcomics, chances are you’re going to run into something written or created by T Campbell. Mr. Campbell’s flagship work is the high school drama Penny & Aggie (reviewed here), which he co-created with artist Gisèle Lagacé. Yet, this comic writer has done much more: Rip & Teri, Search Engine Funnies, Cool Cat Studio, and the long-running Fans! Along with artist Amy Mebberson, he created Pop Star for the “Rising Stars of Manga” contest at TOKYOPOP, which would later become the comic known as Divalicious! T also co-created the webcomic transcription tool Oh No Robot with Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics.
I contacted T by e-mail, and he was very gracious about answering several questions I had, including a few about a project that he nowadays regrets: his book, A History of Webcomics.
T Campbell (left) in a tense hostage situation.
The Webcomic Overlook: You wrote A History of Webcomics, which was published in 2006. Now, I haven’t read it, though I have followed its progenitor, the History of Online Comics essays at Comixtalk. What in the world compelled you to take on that project?
T Campbell: Idiocy? Hubris? Maybe I was just tired of being moderately respected by my peers.
Just as well that you’ve read those essays instead of the book, because they were much better-received, and, to my mind, much better. The book took the idea too far, and I wound up alienating a lot of people I respected, all for a project that I can’t even look at today. I still sort of like my old fiction, where the amateurishness gives it a goofy charm, but if I could burn every copy of that book I’d be happier and live longer.
WCO: I keep trying to imagine how you managed to compile the information for your History of Online Comics series, and I get a headache… especially when I think about the material from the earliest chapters. How in the world did you manage to gather that information?
TC: Though I looked at books and magazines, most of my research came from the Internet itself, and from interviews. (The Internet Archive is great for recovering lost information, up to a point.) If you do get a copy of the book, you’ll see it has a thick endnotes section. That’s one of the few things I still like about the book: at least I cited my sources and made it easier for someone else to do a good book when the time is right. They should have been footnotes, not endnotes, but oh well.
One of the criticisms of the book that I have come to agree with is that I didn’t rely enough on interviews. If I absolutely had to do it all over again, I would have socialized more and exercised more patience. And published around 2020.
WCO: Even though it’s only been 2 years or so since the book was published, things have changed a lot in the world of webcomics. Are you considering publishing an updated edition?
TC: Good God, no.
I was thinking about it when the book went to press, which is why it’s labeled “v1.0,” but that was when I was still deluding myself that the problems were minor.
I did a couple of webcomics-coverage projects in the years after History: the “Blowing Bubbles” podcast interviews, and an earlier version of webcomics.com. They were not earth-shattering, but they were a big improvement. But by that point, not many people cared.
These days, I’m happy to focus on scriptwriting, and readers seem happy for me to do so, too.
