I just found the website of an artist that I've been trying to find for a long time: Mark s. Fisher. I read his stories in Heavy Metal magazine in the early to mid '80s. His stuff was surreal and new wavish, not what you'd expect to find in there. They where the kind that I could scrutinize for a long time, some sort of parallel new wave/retro/sci-fi world. I found no trace of him outside of HM for a very long time, no interview, no work that I could see outside of comics...until the advent of blogs, where every one can post online easily. His blog, here. There's not a lot of info in there but lot's of art.
At the time, there were sexy women in HM, sure, but not the tacky big-breasts fetish that Kevin Eastman has imposed there after he bought the magazine. You could find a lot of surreal, ligne claire, Memphis style, new wave, film noir aesthetic, most of it translated from European magazines like Métal Hurlant, Charlie, Écho des Savanes, El Vibora, Frigidaire and others. There was also some american works that were very new and interesting. That's where I discovered Charles Burns, Lou Stathis, Drew Friedman, Rod Kierkegaard, Paul Kirchner and...Mark Fisher!
The was an alternative vein in there. It's true that Raw magazine was not that far away...
2 comments:
Eric, You found me! No hiding in 2084.
Happy to know the work in HM was noticed and appreciated. I went on to do a number of stories and images for various small publishers and zines. Raw # 6 has a page of mine. Did a few T shirts for Big Daddy Roth. Between 1988 - 98 I did a large monthly comic in Boston Stuff Magazine called 'Jupiter Jak Sales Czar to the Solar System', some of which are in a gallery in my blog space at http://drawger.com/fisher/?section=gallery&gallery_id=365&
Since you list me as an influence let me mention a few of mine. M.C. Escher, Virgil Finlay, Basil Wolverton, Aubrey Beardsley, Victor Moscoso. Kurt Vonnegut and Rod Serling. An incomplete to be sure but certainly the heavy hitters.
Currently I am working on a personal graphic work that will be the 'string cheese' theory for many of my unresolved stories.
Thank you very much, Éric, to remind me the work of Mister Fisher...
I remember very well having read Amino Men in an issue of Heavy Metal. Maybe, it impressed me in one way or another !
Mister Fisher is the kind of artist that deserves not to be forgotten !
Post a Comment