ML: Who is Marc Bell, and can I believe a word of what he tells me?

MB: Marc Bell is this person who is perhaps known most for his comics in “small press” or “a little bit bigger than small press” but he also creates stand-alone artwork that he shows in galleries. I think most of what he is saying here is true though sometimes his memory is not great.

ML: As best as you remember, what is the first art type thing you remember creating?

MB: At one point I drew this imitation of a BC comic strip with a daddy longlegs coming out of the anthill but I only know this because I saw the drawing when I was older. I am also pretty sure that I created a comic strip of what I imagined the third Star Wars movie to be before its release. I drew it in one those doodle pads. I don’t know what happened to it but it would probably be somewhat illegible to my grown up eyes. As a child it probably made complete sense to me.

ML: In the past we’ve discussed our processes, and if memory serves correct, you don’t really start a drawing or work with any grand plan. A drawing is able to develop freely, and may end up being colored or left black and white, or even collaged later on to become something else. How has your process evolved with the evolution of your work, especially as the comic storytelling influence has become less literal?

MB: I have always made standalone “art” alongside comics. But at one point (about 5 years ago) I stopped drawing comic stories. The collaborative stuff and my stand alone “art” have always been a little looser because I don’t have to plan as much but more recently I have been penciling “art” drawings much in the same way as I might pencil a page of comics and ink it. I think I just needed to break away from that comics way of working for a while, though in a general sense how I work still resembles the way in which I made comics. In all these mediums I work in there is a stacking of information/images. The “mixed media” work I do is probably the most removed from the comics but they are usually still composed with a grid in mind.

ML: What influences you on a daily basis, and what’s one thing you are desperate to do?

MB: I like to keep up with my peers and what they are doing. My fellow “Nog A Dod”-ers and people like yourself I get to wondering about. I am curious, I get a kick out of the art world and how ridiculous it usually is. There are not a lot of people here in Montreal that create the kind of work I do and so sometimes I miss Vancouver and what was going on there because it did feel like there was something going on. Many of those Vancouverites have since moved to Toronto and that place is too expensive for the likes of me so I am in a bit of a bubble for now.

Looking forward I would like to create a group of works that relate to each other a little more. I have been thinking about pulling some of the characters in the works out and elaborating on them a little more as single entities. Sometimes I wish I could make less cluttered pictures!

ML: Brick Snakes. Please extrapolate.

MB: Ray Johnson drew Brick Snakes and Jason Mclean created a collage of a Ray Johnson Brick Snake with the Canada Council logo on it (Canada’s Art Funding Dept) and so this was the “Canada Council Brick Snake”. I took that idea and applied to actual grant application acceptance/rejection letters. I remember seeing one of your works with the snake and wondering “whut the??” I am sure I asked you about this (?), but I forget the answer. Was yours a response to Johnson as well or were yours self-made snakes?

ML: I didn’t know about the Ray Johnson connection till after you or Peter told me about it. I always considered my things more worm like, and I called them “Eye Worms.” The bricks actually came later on, at first they just had meaty rings around them. But it was real strange the first time I saw your snakes, to see such a similar idea coming from so far away. You Canadians seems to have an uncanny culture of unselfish idea sharing that doesn’t seem as predominant here in the States. What effect has collaborating with and riffing on ideas of your peers, had on your own work? And have you ever had issue with your ideas being used by others?

MB: Peter Thompson and I would often redraw each other’s characters or icons when creating collaborations. Or we would come up with something that would be reused and would evolve over time and through these recreations. Peter started “re-drawing” books by Jason Mclean. So we decided at one point that it would be funny if we continued to “steal” from each other’s work and use it in our own. In fact, it was encouraged not just tolerated. I think it was a healthy version of being “competitive”. I think stealing is usually ok unless somebody is making a million dollars of another’s creation and then it becomes problematic I suppose. And I suppose, other than that, if people respect each others work it usually seems ok to me. People have shown me things that have reminded them strongly of my work here and there and it doesn’t bother me. It might it if it was part of some huge ad campaign and was terrible. Anyway, I have certainly had my influences!

ML: You are no stranger to print, having self published and pro published dozens of books and comics. How does the release of Hot Potatoe compare?

MB: Well, it is probably the most exhaustive thing I have put together. It was a real privilege to create it, it seemed like something that would be made about an older artist and so I did try to make fun of this fact a bit by making fun of the form. A sort of half-serious monograph/satire.

ML: What’s next for Marc Bell?

MB: Well, Marc is having a show at the Owens Art Gallery in Sackville in early 2010. The town where he went to art school. His Shrimpy and Paul book is being translated into French by Cornelius (I believe I mentioned this about four times in another interview by accident). More stuff. A little rest.

Buy the book right here!

Eric Chase Anderson is the brother of writer/director Wes Anderson. Wes has featured his brother’s art in a mural in Richie’s bedroom in the Royal Tenenbaums as well as all of his Criterion Collection DVD packaging. It was the DVD’s that originally got me interested in Eric Anderson, particularly a beautiful watercolor for the Life Aquatic cover (which also features a conversation between the Brothers Anderson concerning the illustrations). This “novel with maps” reads similarly to his brother’s films and shares a nautical theme. Its a quick, fun read and the dozens and dozens of intricate drawings and diagrams really help to pull you into the story. So while you are anxiously awaiting the next Wes Anderson masterpiece, check out this book by his equally talented sibling.

I’d like to thank Julia for asking me to do this. It was a lot of fun and hopefully someone reading this will enjoy the books I’ve selected. Julia should be busy a lot more often.

Thanks Matt for sharing such interesting stuff. It’s so apparent from your wonderful work why you would like these artists. And I definitely want to be busy more often so we can have plenty of guest bloggers.

I went to London a few years ago and checked out the Tate in sole hopes of seeing a Peter Blake in person. I thought for sure they’d have at least one on display since they own a majority of his work, but nope, everything was in storage. I was super bummed but the gift shop did it’s part to brighten my mood. This slim volume is the definitive book published on Blake so far. Sir Peter is best known for designing the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper record but he’s also the originator of Pop Art, and the guy who Warhol lifted a lot of his ideas from(Blake was doing take offs on package designs years earlier than Andy). This book features a selection of his wrestlers paintings and amazing pictures of the artist’s collections. Even though there is still a lot of his work that has yet to be published, it was very refreshing to finally find this book after years of looking through the “B’s” for Blake and only finding William. Oh, and if you find yourself in Liverpool this summer, be sure to check out this . Hopefully they’ll have blown all the dust off by then.

I don’t think I could give a book any higher of a recommendation. This is a catalog from a show at The Drawing Center from 1996 and I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and tell myself to go see this show instead of whatever lame garbage I was doing back then. There’s a lot of people doing faux naive drawing now, but these beautiful hundred year old pencil and crayon drawings are impossible to top. There’s over 150 plates, most in full color, and you really shouldn’t even be reading the rest of this. Find this book and buy it.

Another person I had never heard of until I stumbled upon this book, Leonora Carrington’s paintings are friggin’ incredible. She may be best known as Max Ernst’s muse and mistress which is unfortunate, since I think her work is both more visionary and definitely better crafted than Ernst’s. I’m amazed that not more is written about Carrington. I can’t remember blindly coming across someone who’s work I appreciate more but unfortunately it seems the company she has kept (Chagall, Duchamp, Breton, Rivera, Kahlo) has overshadowed her. It’s possible her lack of national identity has kept her from the respect she deserves. Born in England, she spent the majority of her career in Mexico. Carrington, now 90, continues working in various media. You can pick up a copy of this book here.

I really don’t know much about this book because I don’t read French or Cyrillic but this is a book of Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin published in 1975, that i picked up used a few years ago. Apparently he was exiled from the USSR and these drawings could very well be political in nature, but I’ll only be focusing on the quirkiness of it all, since I never bothered to google Comrade Chemiakin until just now. So, we have 80 pages of what I think are ink drawings (but might be etchings) that bring to mind James Ensor if he were a current Canadian doodler. Most of the plates are black and white but some have areas of color, including some that are printed on a blue/grey paper. Almost every drawing has a penis, however, this book is pretty interesting for someone I don’t think many people are aware of. You can read a brief bio here.