A stark, graphic illustration reduced to bold black outlines and flat primary colors: a grinning, gap-toothed face wearing mirrored sunglasses and a baseball cap emblazoned with the single word PAIN! in comic-book lettering, dark scribbled hair spilling out from under the brim, a drop of drool or blood hanging from the lower lip. The style here is markedly different from Bisley's usual painted, richly rendered work, closer to a punk zine illustration or a skateboard graphic than a comic cover, flat color fields, thick confident linework, a joke reduced to its simplest, boldest possible visual form. It's a good example of the range Bisley has shown across his career outside of straightforward comics and gallery painting; his aesthetic, skulls, attitude, dark humor, aggressive typography, has always overlapped comfortably with punk and metal subculture, and pieces like this feel much closer to that world than to superhero comics, the kind of image that could just as easily have ended up on a t-shirt or a sticker as on a comic-shop wall. Early in his career, in fact, Bisley did design work for band merchandise, including Kerrang! t-shirts, well before his 2000 AD and DC work made him famous, and a stripped-down, graphic piece like this one echoes that same commercial-illustration instinct: maximum impact, minimum fuss, a joke that reads instantly from across a room. The mirrored sunglasses reflecting nothing but flat color, rather than any detailed scene, reinforce the image's total commitment to being a graphic rather than a narrative, a mascot more than a character.
Pain
