A Disease of Language
by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
160 pages paperback with flaps, £11.99 from Knockabout - BUY HERE
A Disease of Language is a compendium of Eddie Campbell’s illustrated adaptations of Alan Moore’s spoken word pieces: Snakes & Ladders and The Birth Caul. It also contains the epic Moore interview from Campbell’s Egomania magazine, as well as pages of preliminary sketches of the dancing girl from Snakes & Ladders which Campbell sketched from life by candlelight.
The magical creation theory story of love, death and resurrection Snakes and Ladders was also a performance, entwining the disinterment of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Siddell (to retrieve Rossetti’s poems), the visionary nature of Arthur Machen’s experiences after the death of his wife and Alan Moore’s magical traveller John Constantine.
There’s a new review over on The Comics Journal that talks about the comic as well as the spoken word performance, and if you want to hear Campbell blathering about it you can take your pick from these videos at Top Shelf. Highly recommended.
