Creativity Quote by Eddie Campbell

Comics romanticize the lone genius, but Eddie Campbell is pointing at the cash register. "It's business" lands like a cold splash: a reminder that even the most personal-looking panels are manufactured inside a market that rewards familiarity and punishes risk. The phrase "work out what sells" frames creativity as a kind of field research. You test, you observe, you iterate. Not because art is hollow, but because rent is real and publishers have short memories.

The slyest bite is in the casualness of "muck about". Campbell makes market conservatism sound like common sense, the way any shopkeeper avoids rearranging the shelves that finally started moving product. That down-to-earth diction is the point: it strips away the prestige language that often protects cultural industries from being described honestly. Comics, he implies, aren’t exempt from the logic of any other commodity. You can draw dreams, but you still have to ship units.

Context matters. Campbell came up through British small press and later built a reputation in more literary, adult comics (including work tied to Alan Moore). He knows both the art-house myth and the mainstream reality: superhero publishers chasing proven formulas, retailers ordering to minimize risk, and readers trained by decades of genre habit. Underneath the pragmatism is a warning: once you learn what sells, the industry nudges you to keep repeating it, not because it’s better, but because it’s safer. The quote isn’t anti-art; it’s anti-self-deception.