I was a day late on Maroto and then turned around and did the same to Bisley. This post should catch me up for awhile.

Left: Biz in his ‘90s prime. Right: playing bass in Doomtrodon at some point in the last decade.

Simon 'Biz' Bisley turned sixty yesterday. That would mark roughly forty-five years in the art business. Simon sold his first piece of art to the UK's premier heavy metal mag, Kerrang!, when he was fifteen. He would go on to do several covers for various British metal bands--which I detailed here--before being snagged by Pat Mills at Fleetway Comics to revive the 'ABC Warriors' comics series.

Despite having almost no experience doing sequential art, Biz debuted to wide acclaim. He soon was also doing art on Judge Dredd before embarking on his first truly landmark work, Fleetway's Slaine: The Horned God.

This is where I came in. I had accompanied my good friend, Jimmy of Wizard's Asylum Comics, to the 1990 Capitol City Distributors' Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. This was the first such conference for both of us. Jimmy was just six months into opening his comics/gaming store and I was giving him all the help I could. I would end up being his first employee.

Other than meeting Tim Truman and Beau Smith for the first time, the coolest thing about the conference was discovering the art of Simon Bisley. Mind blown. Fleetway was promoting Biz's new Slaine comic and DC was doing the same for the first Lobo mini-series. I told Jimmy, "Buy as many issues of Lobo #1 as you can. You'll sell all of 'em within six months, probably at a mark-up." My forecast proved true.

I received this as a free poster at the Madison conference. I still consider it my favorite image of Slaine.

Don't get me wrong: I preferred Slaine then and I do so now. However, I saw in Bisley's Lobo the DC answer to Wolverine. I knew it was gonna sell. And it did.

Simon would go on to do loads of comics for damn near everybody, though DC really seemed to be his American home. Lots and lots of Lobo and Batman comics. That didn't stop Biz from doing work for Verotik--he illustrated the Death Dealer comic with the blessing of Frazetta himself--as well as album covers and video game art. It's not that out of bounds to call Bisley the 'Frazetta of the 1990s'. Like Frazetta, his style dominated that decade. He even had several imitators. It's a pity that SFF paperback art directors had turned their backs on that style of art a decade earlier.

Speaking of "style"... What always struck me about Bisley's art was its visceral ferocity. That, and the dynamic over-the-top-ness of it all. Oh, and the blazing colors...and the sheer technical prowess. Simon took some of the best elements of Frank Frazetta and Richard Corben and forged his own bad-ass style.

Bisley's work has slowly tapered off in the past two decades. Perhaps he's decided to retire...but I doubt it. We'll see what the future holds.

Happy birthday, Biz. Ya bastich.

Check out the career-spanning gallery below.