[Art_beyond_sight_educators] Andre Campbell legally blind comic book illustrator

[Lisa Yayla]

excerpt , links from 2 articles about Andre Campbell a visually impaired 
illustrator and slide show about Andre Campbell talking about his work, 
video showing him work

slide show
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/12/12/GA2008121202243.html?sid=ST2008121102868
video showing Campbell at work

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/12/11/VI2008121100951.html?sid=ST2008121102868

characters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/magazine/2008/comic/gallery.html?sid=ST2008121102868

Comic Book Hero

Andre Campbell's vision is severely limited, but that hasn't stopped him 
from pursuing his dream of making it as a comic book artist. Will he 
ever see success?

  

Andre Campbell, who has been legally blind since birth, let his cane 
glide in front of him, as Tyran Eades stepped diligently by his side 
with the patience of an attentive brother. They were headed toward their 
designated table at the 15th annual Pittsburgh Comicon. All around them 
at the convention were eye-popping banners and saturated displays of 
superheroes both ubiquitous and obscure, all designed to celebrate the 
unbridled joy of comic books and to encourage generous spending during 
the next three days by the 7,000 or so attendees. Campbell -- who says 
you can approximate his vision by closing one eye and squinting through 
the other -- could make out very little. But he had a grand vision for 
himself, an inner faith that his own characters would some day take 
their place alongside Spider-Man, Batman and Wolverine at conventions 
like this one.

Having toiled for nearly 20 years, Campbell, 44, had produced -- with 
Eades's assistance -- one comic book and one graphic novel, both 
self-published, starring Campbell's Alpha Agents ("Earth's Mightiest 
Heroes"). Unlike the professional comic book artists, who had been 
invited to attend and who had made their names by working on some of the 
most beloved superhero titles of our time, Eades, 33, and Campbell had 
paid $150 out of their scarce resources to rent a table. But now they 
were focused on the significance of this day. For the first time, they 
had traveled to an out-of-state convention to promote their company, 
Heritage Comics HSQ (Heart, Soul, Quality). When they found their way to 
the corner of the convention center set up for small-press artists such 
as themselves, they settled in for eight hours of talking up characters 
that no one had yet heard of.

Campbell and Eades had published their first Alpha Agents comic in 2007, 
after Campbell had written and labored over it on and off for 10 years. 
The new graphic novel included the first Alpha Agents story, plus two 
new installments. They'd had 50 copies printed for $250, and were hoping 
to sell them for $10 each. They'd decided to forgo having their bios 
listed in the convention's extensive program, which would have cost 
another $150. They were too low on funds for that, Campbell said. The 
hotel room they were sharing would set them back $300, and then there 
was gas money for the trip from Baltimore.

Campbell estimates that, over the years, he has put $7,000 of his own 
money into Heritage. Eades has spent about $4,000. In all that time, 
their gross sales have amounted to about $500. But the goal for the 
convention, Campbell and Eades agreed, was to introduce their characters 
to a new public. "We don't expect to break even," Campbell said. "What 
we do expect is that people will remember us."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/05/AR2008120501808_pf.html

Whatever Happened To .... Andre Campbell?
article excerpt

In a scene in the story, Campbell gets to try out a closed-circuit 
television system that magnifies and projects printed material onto a 
monitor. Campbell, who had mostly stopped reading more than 25 years 
ago, was mesmerized, but the CCTV was out of his price range. After 
reading the story, a couple from Virginia offered to buy him the system, 
which cost about $2,500. They delivered it the day after Christmas.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/02/AR2009100204248.html