Blake's red leather jacket

Blake Southgate's red leather jacket is borrowed from Simon Bisley...

In 1988, Simon Bisley immediately became one of the most talked-about comic artists when his incredibly detailed and stylized artwork for ABC Warriors was published in 2000AD. Planning to attend the UK Comic Art Convention '89 in London, I contacted a newly launched graphic novel / comic review magazine called ARK and convinced the editor I could get an interview with Bisley. The editor offered to pay a couple of hundred pounds to publish it. I then managed to get Simon to contact me by asking a heavy metal magazine, which he had created artwork for, to pass on my details as an interviewer from ARK. During a chat with Simon via telephone, we arranged to meet at a bar after UKCAC89.

Simon had a constant crowd of excited people around his table at the convention...

When I met Bisley later in the bar, he was wearing a red leather biker jacket (very similar in style to the one ABC Warrior Joe Pineapples is wearing in the artwork above). After introducing myself, I couldn't help but laugh and say: "You're wearing Joe's jacket!" Simon laughed too, but quickly corrected me: "No, Joe's wearing my jacket..." Simon was surprised I was "only a teenager", but happy to talk. We sat at a table in the centre of the bar and were constantly interrupted by people who recognised "The Biz", wanting to ask him questions and get him to sign his work. Which was excellent, as it took all the pressure out of the interview and I still learnt a lot about the various techniques Simon uses producing his art...

Brendan McCarthy also interrupted us: telling Simon he had been hired to do storyboards for the sequel to the movie Highlander, and asked if Simon wanted to design some weapons. A fan of the first Highlander film (1986), Simon was thrilled and the rest of the "interview" was spent discussing how cool Highlander was.

The interview with Bisley was due to appear in the third issue of ARK, which was never published as the magazine ran into financial problems and then ceased publication. I honestly didn't mind I didn't get paid for the interview, as it was quite an experience meeting one of my artist "heroes", and he also penned an excellent picture of Joe Pineapples for me while we were chatting... Anyway, Blake got Bisley's red leather jacket, and another character got Pineapples' first name...