Mark Campos, Short Run, 15 November 2014
Mark Campos was a beloved member of the local Seattle comics community. After learning that he had taken his life, I really did not know what to say. If there was a gathering, or an event, or a drawing club, he was a part of it. He was a cartoonist that drew what he loved. “Casino Son,” his last collection of stories, came out in 2017.
CASINO SON by Mark Campos
Cartoonists, just like any other creative person, spend a lot of time inside their heads. It can be a very good place to be. It saddens me to think that this particular comrade was dealing with so much turmoil. Rest in peace, Mark.
Here is a review by Paul Tumey of “Casino Son” in The Comics Journal:
“Mark Campos, another Seattle artist, is one of my favorite cartoonists. He emerged during the first wave of zine culture in the 1980s, creating clever, funny self-published comics that rank among the best offerings of this movement. Over the years, he has refined his visual storytelling into an accomplished minimalist style but has remained on the fringes by his own choice. He is also regarded as one of the best writers in the Seattle comics scene. A collection of his stories, Moxie, My Sweet is drawn by various other artists, including Eisner Award winner David Lasky.
For Casino Son, Campos set up a modest fundraising campaign, with the goal of publishing a new comic to premiere in person at the 2017 Latino Comics Expo, in Long Beach, California, November 11-12, 2017. The comic is a collection of short autobiographical vignettes which subtly reveal the conflicts of his Mexican-American upbringing with mainstream USA culture as represented by the casinos of Reno, Nevada — where he grew up. Resonating with modern-day, Build The Wall America, Casino Son is a smartly underplayed commentary. Like Charles Schulz or Ernie Bushmiller, the stories in Casino Son are so well-crafted they read fast and offer depth. Great to see a new comic from Mark Campos — I’m glad he rolled the dice on Casino Son.”
