Phil Earle interviews Neill Cameron
Published on: 03 May 2016 Author: Phil Earle
The fantastic author Phil Earle, who's work includes the Being Billy and Demolition Dad, became our thirteenth Writer in Residence back in 2016. In a three part interview, Phil Earle talks to illustrator, writer and comic book fan Neill Cameron.
In Part One, Neill talks about loving reading because of the comic books he would buy from a look newsagent.
Neil said about his love of comics:
'The weekly comic, the cliff-hanger, the exciting story being told by picture and it ends at the most exciting point and you have to wait to come back next week to find out what happens. That sort of thing can't help but hook you as you have a whole week for your imagination to be running on overdrive.'
Neil goes on to talk about writing his own comics in order to further and continue the story.
In Part Two of the interview, Phil and Neill discuss how Neill writes his graphic novels. Neil says:
'I don't have any real distinction between the words and the pictures in my head.'
In the final part of the 'trilogy' Phil and Neill discuss discovering comics and graphic novels at libraries and the future of the genre.
Phil Earle says:
'Graphic novels were a stepping stone for me. I couldn't have read The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas or The Book Thief or books on the Holocaust, when I was 15, but Maus was the stepping stone because you're still dealing with something weighty and hefty and incredibly moving but in a way I could process.'
Topics: Writer in Residence, Interview, Features
