Scott Campbell is a rad cartoonist and painter PLUS he works for Doublefine who make rad videogames. As a cartoonist he’s part of the humor comic anthology, Hickee and does a regular strip for Double Fine’s site called Double Fine Action Comics. Scott C’s comics and drawings are often cute but in a way that isn’t false or cloying, He draws massive battle scenes, and comics about the funny ways that people speak and interact. He was the lead visual designer on a videogame that I adored, Psychonauts and did something similar on the recently released Brutal Legend. I conducted this interview a year or two ago but it never saw the light of day so here it is now on account of the release of that videogame I mentioned. Brutal Legend.

Why’d you make the move from San Fran to New York? What are the differences you’ve noticed?

I’ve been planning to move to new York for many years actually and things finally fell into place to make it possible for me to move here and still work for Double Fine. We’ve got a second amazing art director named Lee Petty who is helping with Double Fine’s new game “Brutal Legend”, at the helm of the production crew. He is great. The team is great. And it is turning out amazing. But new York! I love it so much. It is a new environment for me, which I love. I love the energy and the epicness of the place. So much more history out here. A vice president is buried near my house.. I think he’s from the early 1800s. dope. I am enjoying the consistent and gradually changing weather quite a lot. A change of environment is good to mix things up for my creative energies…

What are you working on now?

Just finishing up Brutal Legend and making paintings for shows and books. And meeting interesting new people in the New York scene. The most recent thing would be the new MC Frontalot album cover. It is called final boss and it is splendid. I did the cover for it. MC Frontalot slaying a dude. It will be out in November.

What is Brutal Legend for those who don’t know? How is production going?

It is a new game starring Jack Black as a roadie traveling to the time of metal. There are hot rods and demons and powerful guitars in this game. It is very epic. It is coming together quite nicely. We are all very proud of it.

What are the oddest encounters you’ve had with strangers?

There’s a dude in my neighborhood who likes to pretend he is blind. He runs into you a bunch and then turns normal and laughs like his joke is amazing. Then he asks for some money. He did this to me once and I have seen him do his show for others. People aren’t super into his show, but he sure is into it.

How did you start making comics?

I started making comics when I was little. But I never finished them. I made a GI-Joe comic and some goofball ones. There was one about a fortuneteller that got beat up a lot. I remember I used to make comics to illustrate the stupid adventures my brother and I would play. I guess I wanted to experience these stories. Maybe that’s why I drew them. And then later on when I went to comic conventions and met the comic artists I idolized, I really, really wanted to work in comics. But it wasn’t until I started drawing with my friends at Hickee that I discovered the joy of making others laugh a lot.

How’d Hickee come about?

After school I worked on Star Wars video games at LucasArts and met Graham (Annable), Joe (White), and Raz (Mavlian) there. Nathan (Stapley) I already met at the Academy, but he was at Lucas too. I thought they were funny guys and we all very much enjoyed drawing comics to make each other laugh. Or just making each other laugh hanging out. Graham had his own mini-comics he was doing and once his book Grickle got published, we started getting Hickee published. Graham was kind of the motivator there. He’s the best.

How did you get the job at Lucasarts? Did you ever see George Lucas?

A friend of mine from art school started working there as an animator and said that Lucas Learning was starting up and needed artists. So I went there to be a background painter on kid’s Star Wars games. I wasn’t technically at Lucas Arts. We just cross-pollinated a lot. As it is said, I guess. Maybe it’s not said like that. I saw George Lucas a number of times at parties. one time at a BBQ. I got some chicken next to him and was going to say something about the chicken or something clever, but couldn’t think of anything to say. he was wearing his flannel. he wore his flannel every time i saw him. Even at the dress up parties. I think success made him psyched and comfortable. I just saw THX 1138 recently for the first time and loved the crap out of it. Who knows what’s up with him. He’s probably just having a grand time, mostly.

Who’s the most famous person you ever met?

Jack Black I suppose is the most famous. I haven’t met any presidents or anything.

What were the circumstances that you met Jack Black under?

He came to one of my art shows in LA at Secret Headquarters. It was called “Cute Hunter”. The show. We shook hands and had a pleasant discussion. Mostly we got excited about Brutal Legend.

Your comics seem to pay special attention to language and the manner in which people speak. Can you tell me about the origins of this style of humor? I was a little surprised to find that you didn’t speak like your characters.

I do sometimes. Speak like my characters. Actually i do a lot. Maybe i was trying to sound cohesive when speaking with you. I say ‘dude’ a lot. But iIve always been into the way people talk to each other. I like to eaves drop on conversations between people I have never met. I used to bring a mini-disc recorder around with me on the bus so that I could record conversations and make comics about them later. I think conversation is so funny sometimes. What is considered worthwhile conversation and what is considered small talk. It varies between people. I remember one time i overheard two tough looking thugs in the back of the bus discussing how delicious cat fish was and how high society it was to eat it. And one dude said how much he would love to eat some catfish with a six-pack of strawberry soda, but the other dude didn’t hear him right and they took a spell to figure each other out. Man. I like imperfections in conversations. Realistic flow and overlapping and interrupting. i like it when dialog in books and movies have that natural flow. Especially the layering in movies that it is difficult to get in comics.

Tell me about what Scott was like a child.

I grew up in suburban San Jose. My favorite games to play with my brother and my neighbor were guns, GI Joe, adventure people, swimming, badminton, drawing contest, and collecting comic books. I liked X-Men a lot. At the school library I spent a lot of time in the tree house reading dinosaur books and troll cross section books of underground civilizations. Later on, I made a lot of little movies with my friends and played music. We had a band called “the Nomads?” in high school. We had to put a question mark at the end because there was already a band called “the Nomads”. We played with punk bands a lot, even though we weren’t really punk. I don’t know what we were really. We wanted to be like the “Stone Roses” and “Happy Mondays” I guess.

How many people does it take to produce a game like Psychonauts? How much control did you have over the look of the game?

It takes many people. At Double Fine we had about six programmers, five model builders, five animator and three texture guys at an average time. And many others helping out along the way. We outsourced the voice, sound and music. As art director I had a good amount of control. Tim and I worked together to define the visual style and I made sure that stayed consistent throughout production with massive stockpiles of reference and inspirational art. Peter Chan helped us define the background style in the beginning and filled it out as we went a long.

Are there any secret in-jokes in that game? Are any of the characters based on real people?

Man. I think i forgot to put secret jokes in. Definitely real people inspired some of them. Kyle Mclaughlin inspired Sasha Nein. Steve Buscemi inspired Cryspin the Orderly. That red headed bully from A Christmas Story inspired Bobby Zilch. Some of the camp kids were inspired by people we knew. Tim says he based Quentin on me. The way I talked. He called it “Soft Hip Hop”.

Why didn’t Psychonauts sell well?

Actually, it sold pretty well. I’m not sure where that rumor arose from, but it didn’t do poorly. And while it would have been awesome to be a smash hit success and get major rich, I’m more excited about the acclaim it got. AND that it came out at all. We had some rough moments.

Do people ever confuse you with J. Scott Campbell, the artist from Gen 13?

Yes. pretty much at least one time at a convention someone would come over and hope I was J. Scott Campbell. They get bummed out. one time after finding out who I really was, a dude said, “Hey, you win some you lose some”. I was all, “Man, sorry you lost one just then.” But then he came by later and bought some prints, so I don’t know exactly what his deal was.

- Toilet Cobra