Comics are a chemical process: Simon Russell

Simon Russell is a man of many hats in the British comics scene — (un)comics creator, editor, graphic designer, and more. He talks to host Allan Haverholm about miscolouring Garfield, setting comics on a chemical formula, and putting a highly collectible comic book into a concrete slab.

Simon Russell is a featured artist in the Uncomics anthology, out now!

The galleries below only cover the works discussed in this artist talk. You are strongly encouraged to visit Simon’s website, where you can find links to buy his books as well as blog posts diving into his projects.

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Credits

The Uncomics podcast is edited and produced by Allan Haverholm. Music by Allan Grønvall Pedersen. All content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license.

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Works discussed

ROY (2013)

Reappropriating Roy Lichtenstein into comics form

Nearlymades (2015)

“a sideways squint at beauty and detritus”

Slabbed (2019)

A comic in a slab of plastic in a slab of concrete in a slab of plastic

Further reading

• Pareidolia
• TS Eliot’s personal references in The waste land
• Image duplicator, Roy Lichtenstein’s “swipe file”, maintained by the Roy Lichtenstein foundation
• Allan Haverholm, When the last story is told: Read a review or purchase
• Laurie Anderson, Chalkroom
• Christian Marclay, The clock
• Chistian Marclay and Cornelia Parker on appropriation: The “readymade” and destruction in art (Soundcloud link)
• Alpha, Simon Russel’s redacted version of an Alpha Flight comic book issue [downloadable PDF]