Some time around the middle of 2021, I had a zoom call with iconic DC Comics, 2000 AD, Verotik, and Heavy Metal artist Simon Bisley. What was meant to be an hour of an interview turned into a charming and utterly bizarre combination of informal interview calls and a delightfully exhausting mutual ability to never stop talking once we’d been set in the direction of something interesting. It’s still, to this day, the most fun I’ve ever had in my career.

Of course, this is something that could only be made even more fun when said legend manages to show up at the last minute to table in the Artist Alley of New York Comic Con 2022.

The following is what transpires when you spend a few days chit-chatting and laughing with Simon Bisley before closing yourselves off in a 8×8 booth both to wax lyrical about pretentiousness and the soul of art among some storage boxes.

How’s it been?

It’s been good! It’s been good. 

You said it was shit yesterday when we talked.

It is, but I don’t want to keep saying it [laughs]

What’s traction like at a booth for you these days?

A lot of people didn’t know I was going to be here. So it’s been a little weird. They didn’t advertise ‘til quite late. Oh wait, we’re doing the interview now, are we?

[laughs] Yes. 

Fucking hell! 

Oh, we’re just shooting the shit. We’re not getting fancy with this, you know. 

Okay. Good. Brilliant. Anyway, traction these days…I think my prices are more than they used to be. So you just tend to get the guys who specialize.

 Collector types?

The collectors and the guys who want to make a few bucks, whereas my traction used to be where I was doing free sketches or something for a couple of beers, whereas these days they’re taking it more professionally. I used to drink quite a lot and make it more of a party scene.

Well, look at you buttoning up and everything.

60 years old, me. It’s about time, don’t you think? I’ll be about 80 and on my deathbed and still going, ‘It’s about time I grew up now.’

I can imagine that if you still offered it people would absolutely still pay you in beer. They’d probably pay you in as much as the equivalent of your pricing if you requested it [laughs]

[laughs] They used to!

When was that?

Oh all of the years. All of them. It’s always a bit like that. They used to bring beers and just put it on the table, and have a drink while I was drawing or painting. It was a great time. Always a good crowd and always a good time.

That didn’t affect how you drew at all?

No, it did, clearly! [laughs] You can’t draw very good drawings when you’re shit-faced.

You can certainly try, though. And I’m sure you did. 

I did try. Have you seen them online? Fucking hell. And people loved them.

So how did shows like this change? I mean, you had to have been doing these for decades now. How does this feel compared to doing them back in the day?

Well, what I’ve noticed is there’s a lot more new faces. Things have moved forward. So you get a lot of young faces now. I’ve become like the old guard. I’m one of the old guys, do you know what I mean?

What’s that like for you, becoming one of the old heads?

It’s irresponsible.

[laughs] Irresponsible?

Yeah, yeah. There’s a responsibility to a degree. I think it’s nice when people come up to talk to me and ask for advice. It’s kind of nice, isn’t it? But what it’s like being the old guard now..hm..

I mean there’s no doubt of your influence on people. You’re Simon Bisley. You’re kind of the King Shit of Fuck Mountain. Is it weird to realize you’re one of the ones who set the path for so many other artists?

King Shit! [laughs] No, it’s not necessarily weird. It’s not weird. Just sort of realizing that you’re a few more steps nearer the grave. Your life’s got to a point, to a degree.

I mean fair enough but still. Grim. 

Nah, nah. But it makes me realize how much I threw away from my miserable life. I could’ve made more of an effort in a lot of ways. There’s just a lot of ways I could’ve done better. Way better. Take a different approach, I think.

I mean, what would you have done differently?

I dunno. My life was a whole damn party for like 35 years. Do you know what I mean?

Sure. You’re notorious for it. We even talked about that a bit when we talked Lobo last time. 

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing is, it’s an escape. I mean, artists spend so much time alone, on our own. When we get to actually go out, we go fucking ape shit. 

Speaking of laughs, I was talking to one of the folks from DC [Comics], and we were talking about Harley’s Little Black Book the other morning. I mentioned in passing that I was excited to come talk to you, and they said, “Oh Bisley. We had him do some art work for Harley’s Little Black Book, and every scene with the dog, he drew the dog’s balls. He drew balls on the dog.”

Yeah, that’s right! Yeah! Because dogs have balls!

I guess they censored them all out? 

They put flags on the balls, but Jesus, dogs have balls. I mean, come on! Listen, doesn’t it seem absurd to you that you would hide the balls? Dogs have balls in real life! We do the same thing– we hide nipples! We hide nipples in comics under the T-shirt of a woman – or even a man! It seems odd.

This is your censorship hill that you’re going to die on? Free the nipples and also dog balls?

Yeah! I mean, why put flags on it? That’s just drawing even more attention to it! Just have the fucking balls. The balls are funny! And they put the little [flag] on the dog’s asshole as well I think. 

It just seemed on brand during the conversation. I was like, ‘Oh, have you ever heard of Shit The Dog?’

Oh god. That was a real low point for my career, I think. [laughs]

They’re hysterical! Like, they’re fucking disgusting but they’re still just hysterical. You can tell that you, John [Wagner], and Alan [Grant] were having a great time. 

We were! It was dumb fun. And why not, eh? Still. Yeah that was definitely a low for me [laughs]

On the other end of the spectrum for you… I found an interview from around – oh jeez – probably from ’93 or ’94 in Tripwire Magazine that was between you and Grant [Morrison], talking about art – specifically fine art. And one of the first things that you say in this interview is that art is pretentious.

Yeah.

Do you still think art’s pretentious? Like as a whole?

Oh yeah.

Yeah?

That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. Every single piece of art that anyone’s ever conscious of doing exists pretentiously, because you’re doing something to show people… I mean, how do you want to define pretentious?

I’m the one doing the interview, Simon! How do you define pretentious?

[laughs] Well, I mean, pretentiousness is a consciousness of art as it’s being presented and regarded. Talking with Grant, we were talking about the purest form of art – so to do art and to do real art is to do something that would be so utterly unconscious, unpretentious and unconscious. Why paint anything at all? Why even bother? If you’re doing fine art and you want to paint something for yourself, why bother at all? Because when you paint you’re considering a lot of things. How are people going to react to it? Am I going to be a great artist or am I going to be a bad artist? Shall I do this or not do it? If somebody has doubts about it, you’re being pretentious because you’re not really actually doing what you really want to do.

That makes sense. It’s about going in uninhibited then.

Yeah. But also…like, I think for example, you have blank canvases with nothing on them, and they do exhibitions of it. But people queue up and fucking look at it and then write critique page after page of how “it’s not art” –  which is ridiculous, because you just proved it is.

Just by talking about it it becomes art?

Because you’ve written about it. Because it’s getting a reaction one way or another. If you hate it and you’re reacting negative about it, that’s still a reaction. It’s not about liking something or admiring the ability behind it or anything else. I use pretentious in this context because it’s active consciousness. Non-pretentious art is natural. Nature creates the art. If you take something out of nature and put it in an environment for it to be observed and considered, then that’s pretentious, isn’t it?

I can see that, sure. Its beauty is being made a focus instead of simply being beautiful. I get that. 

And not only that, but what is so cool about taking that lovely piece of rock or whatever, that natural sculpture, out of the wilderness? Because it’s interesting; it’s something about real life that is beautiful. I mean, like a cigarette on the ground with something next to it in New York City streets here… if someone takes that piece of paper with a cigarette on it and takes it away it’s not art. You’re not considering it until you look at it. So people should look at everything around them, in a way, as art. In a sense. 

That feels…surprisingly sentimental for you? Maybe not though. It makes sense given what you’ve told me about your creative process before – being able to look at anything and try to find the artistic value in it.

Well the thing is – look at the way this is laid out. [He gestures to a pile of packing envelopes and empty tape rolls that have fallen over on top of some boxes] You could put that in an exhibition. Look at the way the angles come round here and this falls and comes round… this angle juxtaposes against that…and that circle, that has to go somewhere. That’s where you get inspiration, isn’t it? But people don’t look at things like they should. That’s why they should look at abstract art.

If you’re going to teach people how to look at it – for example, if you get an abstract piece of art which… not Picasso because that’s more specific – that’s more bent towards an idea of something…actually in fact, it’s just like African art, and in fact he stole it I think and made it his own, and then made a fucking living out of it, doing this fucking simplistic drawings.

Anyway…I think the perfect art is where you could never, ever make any sense of it. You’re always looking forever, but you can’t see a cloud or a dog’s face or a person. You could paint anywhere, it’s always going to be a mystery. It’s just color or a lack of color put in places. You have to take it for what it is and immerse yourself into it. You look at art like you’ve become… you always can see the atmosphere and the depth.

Music has depth. If you look at music on a plane, you have a line, and things come up above and below it. But art isn’t flat, if you’re talking about pure painting; there’s never an even space from when you start. So I’m saying, the whole point of me going off like this actually was, there’s lots of different points. There’s lots of points of view. If you’re overly conscious of what you’re doing in the abstract, then you fall into the trap of being conscious, and therefore pretentious. And that’s a good word for it because it means that you’ve become overly aware.

So in that case, what’s your opinion on critics? Like people for whom being critical and having to nitpick and be overly aware is their whole deal? And I mean general art or music or comics – 

The thing is you put your work out there, and if you’re pretentious you’ll be upset by it – by a bad criticism. But the way I see it, what I like about my own work is that I’m not going to explain it. If you have to explain your art, there’s something wrong. It’s not for you to do that, because you don’t own it no more. It’s for people, it’s for all of those people. That’s the thing – you’ll then become critical of their critique, and then the unpretentiousness of your creation doesn’t exist anymore. It’s more about you then their critique. They’re just doing their jobs but it’s not your job as an artist to care. 

That seems fair enough. 

You have to take the rough with the smooth, like painting. Some people do something controversial on purpose, just try and get people’s backs up, but the thing is, the work I’m talking about, I’ll probably show it to you one day when we talk next, it’s anything goes. And anything can be said. If someone’s talking about your work, it’s a good thing.

Like that adage that any press is good press.

Yeah, yeah, basically. Someone can happily come along to say ‘Bisley’s work is blatantly shit, this is the worst pretentious work I’ve ever seen from Bisley ever blah blah blah’, I go, “Alright” and keep painting. 

I mean there’s rows and rows and rows of people making art here at this show – pretentiously or not. What do you think the distinction is for people who say there’s a divide between what’s considered fine art and what’s considered fine comics art?

I think they’re combined! I mean look at Bill Sienkiewicz – or even some of my stuff. You can see the use of abstract in it. Comic book artists, a lot of them, are real and true artists. The people who draw that line with fine art – they’re the ones that are pretentious. They’re defining themselves and defining me and people like me, and defining themselves against me and separate from me and us and them. You can’t get more pretentious than that. It’s a class system that’s entirely wrong because, again, look at Sienkiewicz’s stuff – you can take his frames and blow them up and it’s a whole other process, I think, because you’re not doing it solely to tell a story for a corporate company.

I was about to say, IP probably makes that really difficult. Like working with pre-established characters and histories and all that pressure must add a layer of conscious expectation. 

Exactly. And with the fine art aspect of someone like Bill, and I took some of the aspects that he did, is you find your own little places where you can just be yourself and express yourself. So you can still be you and make it a part of yourself even when there’s a box around you. 

I think so many comics artists are geniuses because they think so rapidly and so quickly. They can do anything. They can run circles around these supposed “fine artists”. I’d love to challenge some of these fine artists to do a comic book. But then again they would do it, and they’d probably do the most abstract, the weirdest, craziest way. It’d be a nice challenge. 

Is there any distinction for you when it comes to labeling something as fine art in comics in terms of digital versus traditional mediums?

Well..it’s all art. Clearly it’s another form of art; it’s another tool. You’ve got to live with the fact that this is the way it’s going, and it’s the way things have progressed. I don’t regard digital as fine art as much as I would physical art with a traditional medium. I like digital, but when it comes to an original piece – the first of something – then I say, “Well, why am I staring at a print?” Sorry, mate. I’m not interested in print as the original. I want to see what else happened in it first. 

I’ve always been a fan of more traditional mediums, too. But as you said it’s definitely something shifting. It’s nice that so many people have the access to create in a new way, even if it’s not how you or I prefer it. 

Yeah. It’s a good process. Magnificent. But when it comes down to the real deal it can be such a shame.

Hm..wait, I’ll tell you what I think. I think the shame is that artists who are already good artists in traditional art are going digital. Bill does digital a lot now and I think, why? I love your work, man. You see his art in real life, it’s astonishing. But then you see the stuff on the screen and it’s just…I don’t know. And then there’s this new thing, isn’t there? I-something?

AI art?

Yes! Apparently someone can program in my stuff and it’ll come out looking like that. The thing is, what am I going to do? There’s nothing to do. If they want to put my signature on it… well…now this relates to what you’re talking about. Painted art against digital art. Well this is digital art. It’s another form of digital. So if it’s happening, it’s happening. As long as people can separate the two, and they don’t put my name to it…

Technically your name gets put to it because your name gets put in in order to create it though surely?

Well that’s okay, isn’t it?

I mean, is it? That’s more up to you to decide, isn’t it, because it’s ultimately yours. It’s something birthed from you.

Well, I don’t know. It depends where the land lies legally. I mean, if they can make a living out of it, that’s kind of wrong. They’ve taken 35 years of my hard work to come up with something and they just press a button and just create these images. I think there’s something illegal there, without a doubt, because they’re using my process in a roundabout way. Even without me. 

That’s kind of the argument that a lot of people are making right now, is that they’re taking all of these wonderful iconic artists, and just plug in all of that information, saying what they want to a computer, and it comes out in that style, or it’ll come out as a somewhat distorted version of your work.

I think the people who created this AI are going to be in a great deal of trouble eventually, because I think what will happen, someone’s going to sue their fucking asses.

Almost certainly [laughs]

I dunno. Seems like they’re in the shit already, even before they begin.

There’s one of the artists, Kim Jung Gi, that’s supposed to be here who passed away just a few days ago –

Yeah, yeah

Somebody took his artwork and turned it into a whole AI generated thing to sell “as a tribute” when he’s not even buried in the ground yet. It’s just astonishing. The lack of respect alone!

Well yeah. So if someone wants to do an album cover like I used to do saying, “Oh let’s get a Bisley,” I become a property. And that’s a problem, because if you go into that saying “I want a Bisley-style painting, let’s do something on a rock with some crazy horses for wings, Bisley-style” something can happen there but it’s Bisley-style and not a Bisley piece no matter how you look at it. I think what you may find is there’s going to be some lawyer or something that is going to get people collectively together and work on their behalf.

Let’s hope so.

They’ll  have to. Someone came up to me a few days ago and she says, “Simon?” I said, “What?” She said, “Have you got a lawyer?” I said, “Why?” She explained to me what’s going on with all of this. And I think we’ll all be affected by it at some point, because once they use my name, they’ll want to use people like… Again, Bill [Sienkiewicz]. I cite Bill a lot, I know, because Bill represents to me that kind of fine art, unpretentious style.

Anyway, I don’t know how it’s going to end up. I mean, the thing is, if someone says, “I want this, and I want it Bisley style,” it’s like, oh use his style, someone has literally stolen my life, stolen my ability. My livelihood, in a sense. But then they go, fuck it, tough shit because it’s what I want right now. Just the way it goes. This is just the way things move. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

It’s just like taking your soul though. At least a little bit.

Especially when you take into account, again, even from the last time we talked, just how much of yourself you’re trying to put into your work. And when it becomes an unconscious stream of creation –

I think if someone’s making money out of it, I’ve got a big problem with that. But I think if they are making… press a button, you can make something look like mine or similar to that style, people do that physically anyway, paint it… so they’re kind of doing it. This is just the shit version. 

There’s a lot of people who have taken a lot of time to learn how to paint like you, it’s true. 

Yeah. That’s quite an honor isn’t it?

I imagine it is!

With AI…I mean it’s just funny isn’t it? It’s amazing, sort of. Just a program on a computer. And after I’ve created something it’s no longer mine really anyway. But in the end my style came from Frank Frazetta, Bill Sienkiewicz, Richard Corben, Michelangelo, all these people.

When you put it like that, that’s an entirely different ball game isn’t it? When so much of how artists create is influenced by other people, what happens when there is a program that emulates all of those together? Like it sucks but also that’s…a really wild thing to think about. 

Yeah! Yeah. I mean what have I been doing already if not that without the computer? What does any artist do with their influences? Well that’s interesting to think about now. So you encapsulate all these different influences. It’s just done in new ways. Huh. I dunno. It does make it interesting though, eh?

I think we just had our minds blown off a little together over this. [laughs]

Yeah, imagine we were drinking and talking about this stuff [laughs] Isn’t it great? There’s so much to talk about, isn’t there? There’s nothing more worth talking about than yourself, but when you talk about art in itself and everything it means when it shifts then I guess we’re still talking about ourselves in a way, aren’t we?