After the Snooter is one of the great graphic novels by Eddie Campbell, and right now it is available from Top Shelf Productions for three bucks during their massive three dollar sale.

Eddie Campbell uses the word "wistful," in some context in this After the Snooter, a collection of his autobiographical "Alec" stories that sees him give up the illusion that Alec McGarry is anybody but good old Eddie himself. And wistful perfectly describes the book, and the unique, incandescent idiom Campbell uses to tell stories about his life and his world. Wistful, yes, it is that.

The Alec graphic novels represent some of the most thoughtful, affecting autobiographical work ever created in comics, a frank overview of Campbell's life and career, tinged with a bit of sadness and inspiring awe and wonder at the depth and bluntness of the reports Campbell brings back when he reconnoiters his own existence.

It's work sometimes quiet and pensive, sometimes loud and filled with hilarity. A document of an extraordinary life in which Campbell mostly seems to play the observer; and he's been as lucky as he is gifted, as we see when he discusses the windfall that finally came in the form of From Hell's motion picture adaptation. As he ponders the purchase of a home and leaving behind the life of the renter, I was amused to see we not only share a philosophy about renting, but tend to give very similar examples of why having a landlord is ultimately superior to being the master of your own domain. But I digress.

Campbell's story is parsed out in very human moments, such as when he catches his kids surfing the web and landing on vagina.com, or in the way he accepts his friend Alan Moore's mid-life decision to become a magician. When Moore tells Campbell "All gods are fiction; it's just that I happen to think fictions are real," Campbell confirms both Moore's worldview and my suspicions about the magical work that Moore has been performing on his audience for years now. As such, After the Snooter serves to educate as much as it does illuminate. We learn as much about the world around Campbell as about Campbell himself. More, probably. I'm not sure if it's cultural or just Campbell's unique personality, but the distance at which he seems to look at the world (again, wistfully) serves as a powerful storytelling tool. His narratives are as convincing as they are entrancing. As an observer of humanity in its absurd and sublime diversity, there has been no finer journalist to paint pictures like this in a medium usually left to depict power and revenge fantasies for those totally incapable of ever enjoying either.

After the Snooter is a work of passion and truth from an everyday, ordinary man who has sacrificed a good part of his life to bring you joy and wisdom through the sharing of stories. To ignore what he has to say is to insult both of you.