Painting Metal -- Simon Bisley
Today, amidst my usual Panopticon Feed, I saw that it was the birthday of artist extraodinaire, Simon ‘Biz’ Bisley. It having been over a year since my last ‘Painting Metal’ blog entry, the time seemed ripe to post another. Bisley has been creating covers for metal albums for nearly thirty-five years, on top of playing in various metal bands himself. The man is one of us, sword-brothers.
Simon was still in art school when a friend of his passed along an illo to Pat Mills at Fleetway Comics in the UK. The standard blurb goes something like this:
“While still an art student, Bisley did a painting of a robot holding a baby in 1986 that a friend passed to Pat Mills, and inspired him to relaunch the ABC Warriors strip, with Bisley as artist, in 1987.”
Meanwhile, metal bands wanted in on the Biz action. Simon’s first metal album cover in 1987 for Mortal Sin is pretty forgettable. The same year, the compilation LP, Metal Warriör, came out with a cover featuring the illo that lit up Pat Mills at Fleetway. Here it is:
To me, that looks more like an ‘Alien cyborg’ than just a straight ‘robot’, but the Bisley power, menace and mayhem that would be the standard from then ‘til now is there.
Bisley did art for bands like Annhilated and Anthrax during the next half-decade, but his cover for Danzig’s 1993 LP, Thrall-Demonsweatlive, was his first true metal classic.
Whether Simon’s kick-ass artwork had anything to do with that album being Danzig’s big breakthrough, I leave to others to decide.
The early/mid ‘90s saw a lot of 1970s retro-stuff going on, musically. Bisley’s ‘Frazetta crossed with Corben and a touch of Giger…on steroids’ style was a perfect fit for the times. Biz would do more covers for Danzig, as well as the Heavy Metal 2000 soundtrack—with the immortal Julie Strain as rendered by Biz on the cover—and a good one from Slamfist, which sported badass art from Slaine: The Horned God. Bisley has done art for other metal bands in the twenty-first century, but not much.
Biz and RJD? Maybe.
Of course, Biz didn’t just bring a comic art sensibility to metal. He also brought metal into comics. He took a fairly lame DC character—Lobo—and made him a 1990s comics superstar. John Byrne did much the same thing with Wolverine. While I can’t find any corroboration from Bisley regarding it, the persistent rumor is that the Biz version of Lobo is basically Lemmy Kilmister with super-strength—and a negative tan—dialed up to eleven.
Also, I found the photo to the right online. It may be Biz with Ronnie James Dio…or it might not. Cool if it is.
If Bisley based Lobo on Lemmy and is a Motorhead fan, it is one of history’s bitter ironies that Biz didn’t take over cover duties after Joe Petagno parted ways with the band. Just imagine the bad-ass covers Bisley could’ve done for Lemmy and the boys.
I mentioned earlier that Simon also played in metal bands. Kaotika was a short-lived project—with Biz on bass—around 2005. He’s been blowing out eardrums in Doomtrodon since 2017.
Left: Biz in his ‘90s prime. Right: playing bass in Doomtrodon.
Check out the Bisley covers below and don’t stop until you hit the DMR bonus material, ya bastiches.
Inner illo for the Metal Warriör compilation, 1987.
At the DMR Blog—and at DMR Books—we believe in giving you extra value. Here is a rare painting of Slayer that Biz did for a rock mag in 1991. PRIME Bisley.
2010’s Danzig: Hidden Lyrics of the Left Hand. Cover and interior illustrations by Bisley.
Previous installments in the Painting Metal Series:
Painting Metal – The Art of Derek Riggs
Painting Metal -- Michael Wm. Kaluta
Painting Metal – Jim Fitzpatrick