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Heroes Convention
featuring the new
Indie Island
The show was a ton of fun. Thanks to everyone who stoped by. I got to hang with old friends Brad Mcginty, Duane Ballenger, the Common Bond gang, Josh Latta, Chris Pitzer, Andy Runton, Rob Ullman, Rob Venditti, Jennifer Young and new friends Ben Towle, Dash Shaw and Jim Mafood.
Check out pictures here.
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MoCCA Art Festival
J Chris Campbell and Rob Ullman took a nice little road trip up to the big apple for a one of a kind Comic Festival.
Click for pics and more info
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CHARLOTTE COMICON
Fans came out and attacked the massive amount of comics and guests at the 2005 Charlotte ComicCon on May 1st. Duane and Chris were joined by Rob Ullman in a day of comicy fun.
Click for information.
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GREENVILLE COMIC SHOW!
Thousands of Comic Books and much, much more were enjoyed by well over a hundred people! With J Chris Campbell, Duane Ballenger, and The Gammon Boys of Wide Awake Press. Thanks for coming out and we look forward to seeing you at the next one.
Click for information.
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Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo
April 16
Columbus OH
Mr. Campbell had a grand old time at SPACE with his buddies Rob V and Andy from Top Shelf Productions. He got a gander at a nice preview of Rob Venditti's new killer series The Surrogates, which you can read about here.
He was happy to also have Mr. Rob Ullman and Mr. Jay Geldhof as next door table buddies.
A grand time was had by all and a mini-comic jam was started late in the day that involved all the above and Mr. Jim Rugg.
Mr. Campbell decided not to take his camara because it would be to much trouble and he wouldn't take any pictures. But he says now he wished he had. |
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WAP made the long haul up north for the best Small Press Expo ever. This year's show was great! J Chris Campbell was featured in this years SPX Anthology. Click here to buy it right from us. Comicreaders.com has an interview with him and other contributors.
October 1st - 3rd
Bethesda, Maryland
Duane, Justin and Chris packed the stuff and headed off on a 6 day road trip. Stopping at the Natural Bridge in Virginia. Pictures of the event will be posted sometime in the near future.
Pictures Coming Soon. |
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JULY 24 10am - 4pm
Comic Show
With Guest J CHRIS CAMPBELL
& Special Appearance By DUANE BALLENGER.
It was a blast! Thanks to everyone for coming out.
Read and see all about it here.
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WAP at Heroes Con In Good Ole Charlotte NC!
All Alone In The Crowd
June 11-13
Heroes Convention
Charolette North Carolina
Amazing time with our friends from Top Shelf, Adhouse Books and Alternative Comics. Meet a ton of realy cool people and found the missing floor to the infamous Westin Hotel. Pictures and more details on the way.
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J Chris Campbell
One More Hornswoggle
April 24, 2004
Westend Festival
www.westendfestival.org
North Main Street
Greenville SC
This was the 3rd year for me at this street festival. Meet a lot of really cool artists and super nice people and I won best drawing and painting!.
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Comic Convention Con Job
April 17 & 18 in Atlanta!
We had a great time with our good friend
Rob from Top Shelf and Owly Artist Andy Runton.
Click Here To See Photos
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The Widdershins
Friday April 9th, 2004
Elf Power w/ The Widdershins
The Handlebar
Greenville, SC
www.handlebar-online.net
The Widdershins rocked
and turned it out for the crowd.
Pictures and stuff will be available real soon.
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Le Chevre
Sat, Feb 21
live music and dj sets
michael barksdale
& featuring the last east coast preformance of mike gowan
BLUE Z CAFE
2 W STONE AV
Greenville SC
864- 421-0111
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WIDE AWAKE PRESS
FLUKE TOUR
January 31 2003
Fluke Mini-Comics Festival
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It was pure rock and we took photos.
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Wide Awake 5 Release Party
December 19 2003
Stockings were filled with musical goodness as 2 local bands seized the stage in the best floorshow of any Wide Awake event. There were laughs provided by a comedian and local artisans were on hand peddling all sorts of wonderful wares. T-shirts, buttons, zines, mini-comics, door prizes, magnets, art and so much more everyone left with arms and minds full of unparalleled wonderment. We also raised money for the Pendelton Place Childrens Shelter.
No, what really happened?
Click here and I'll break it down for yah.
Widdershins Photos and play transcript
Upstate Savings Bank
Roy Blandman's Christmas Message To You
Photobooth
Non booth photography
J Chris Campbell teamed with the might of Taylor Vandiver and hornswaggled their way into the studio of Mr. Rick Standridge. Highwire was happy to host the party until Mike Harrison saw what was really going on. Then they were overjoyed.
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Westend Friends & Artists
May 3 2003
Voted Most Innovative Artist
For 2nd Year
Had a wonderful time and meet lots of really nice local people. Thanks to everyone who came out.
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Wide Awake 4 Publication
Rock & Art Show
March 21 2003
A show for the all new Wide Awake with real art, live music and performance art. You could also sit in a really big shoe.
Check out some pictures from Wide Awake Publication Release Party
Wide Awake is Greenville's only Comiczine Anthology
Number 4 is Just 5 bucks!
Send money to:
J Chris Campbell
P.O. Box 14234
Greenville, SC 29610
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THE JIG IS UP
August 8 2002
Proxima Centauri is the nearest known stellar neighbor to our sun. It's about 4.3 light years away from us. That doesn't really say much about J Chris Campbell, other than pointing out his insignificance. Come to think of it, Interplanetary Space (which is basically the endless nothing that the galaxies travel through) is probably more riveting than he is, if you're a scientist. Lucky for him most of us aren't. Regardless of all these facts, Chris makes "art."
It's hard to say why we do things. Okay, money really isn't a hard word to say. Other than that, most of the time we just do things. Pen goes on the paper and starts swirling around until it gets somewhere. It makes something.
Mouse rolls, finger clicks.
Brush sweeps, paint flows.
Axe falls, wood splits.
Happens everyday all over the world, nothing really special about it. It just does.
For a while now Chris has been growing robots at home. Everyday he gets up and pours some oil in a bucket of old rusty sewing machine and television parts. Then he throws a live extension cord in and waits to see what spurts up from the mess. Sparks fly, oil bubbles. The kicker: all this takes place within 3 minutes. Happens everyday. Something truly special about it, he makes robots.
Chris lives on a small blue planet with his lovely wife Holli and their k-9 companion Annie. Currently that planet is 4.6 billion years older than he is and sometimes Annie barks at things. |
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TOON IN
July 5 2002
Cartoon. A word derived from the Italian, cartone. Michaelangelo's rough sketches for the Cistine Chapel's ceiling were known as cartoons. These were drawn on a large sheet of cardboard-like material and dotted with holes, a giant connect the dots. These cartoons were then attached to the ceiling and paint was daubed into each hole to transfer the sketch to the ceiling. Even Leonardo "confides" in Vasari's Lives of the Artists that he must make many cartoon sketches so that his final paintings appear so effortless.
William Hoggarth added speech balloons in the 1700's to his cartoons. Yet, it was not until the 1840's that Rudolph Topffer, while working in France, printed what resembles something close to the present day bound book of cartoon strips, or comic books. Comics and cartoons are a mode of expression that artists working in America have championed into an aesthetic all their own. In the early 1900s it was found that Sunday color strips boosted paper sales. At that time characters and artists such as Outcault (Yellow Kid) and Zenas Windsor McCay (Little Nemo) were fought over by heavy weight newspapers, much in the same way that athletes like Shaq and Jordan are fought over today.
The American comic book and cartoon strip, long thought to be of low cultural standing has waged a long fight since 1900 to gain respect in higher art circles. In the fifties Lawrence Alloway suggested a new way to consider such "low brow" art and popular culture. He called for a wider scope of vision which he named the Long Front of Culture. His idea was that culture should not be broken up into highs and lows but should all be seen as a larger group, all with equal merit. The Pop artists followed up this type of British thinking in America. Pop art borrowed from comics and mass media sources for its images. It quickly overcame abstract expressionism as the dominant art form in the sixties. Pop art was also embraced by a large following of Americans because it was not an art of elitism. This popular art mixture of comics, culture and eye-candy percolate in the back of our minds today; while comic artists such as Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware continually renovate and expand our notions of what a comic is. Cartoons have become an ever-thriving, sophisticated, form of expression.
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Mini LAMBASTE
March 19 2002
The power of visual images
An image has power. Kandinsky in the early 20th century thought his images would evoke in viewers a religious fervor and change the world. Mondrian believed his d Stijl movement would create an orderly world free of the need for future artisans. Since then, this artistic hopefulness has been loss. A flood of information from mainstream media and marketing has blunted out senses. We are assaulted with images. They’ve been reduced to something not to be dwelt on but easily discarded like a used Pez or a Kleenex box. Graphic design has been subjugated from the fine arts for this purpose. It is a tool that should be used in aiding society but instead sells it cosmetics.
With the assistance of technology, marketers assault our brains with over a 1,000 blasts of information a day. This bombardment has rendered the general public apathetic and incapable of interpreting more complex art or imagery.
The Lambaster understands these things and uses similar techniques to expose a deaf society to problems and discontents unheard in traditional media. Mindful of a century's popular culture, they strive, like those before them, to change things but they do it with expertise in marketing and media relations at their disposal.
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SQUEEGEED
January 11 2002
As computer technology changes the way art is created, it can still be combined with older mediums of expression. Images in this show have been manipulated using the computer and painstakingly designed to be printed through silk screen processes rather than a digital printer. This combines a love of working with ink and materials while utilizing the technological edge offered by the computer.
This fusion offers both stylistic opportunities and obstacles. Determining how best to render the images to take full use of the silk screen process, takes vision and innovation. Images have undergone digital manipulations in an array of graphic design programs with emphasis on composition and halftone patterns.
The printing process requires physical labor, with each print being hand pulled, therefor works are limited. This is in contrast to a normal digital print, which can be reproduced into infinity without any sweat or tears. Most prints in the Squeegeed Show are limited to under 10 prints, ensuring that the purchaser owns something quite unique.
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LAMBASTE
October 5th 2001
Gallery 291's unique show and sale of postmodern artwork. Lambaste saught to enlighten viewers with contemporary art that provides a social function. It showcased young local illustration, graphic design and visual media professionals who are influenced by the information age and popular culture.
See what is lurking in the minds of an upcoming generation of artists.
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