'Dryland' (2015).
Con Chrisoulis is a Greek-Australian comic artist and musician, who has lived and worked in Australia, Greece and the UK. Active since the mid-1990s, he self-published comic book series like 'Clans' (1996), 'Tales of Unsurpassed Vanity' (2001-2004) and 'Giant-Size Fascists' (2007-2009). As founding member of the SubArt Comics collective and supporter of self-published comic creators, Chrisoulis became a prominent player in the Athens indie comics scene. He found more mainstream success with his historical graphic novel ''Dryland' (2016) and his comic biographies 'Rebel Rebel' about David Bowie, 'Tales of the Smiths' about the Smiths and 'King' about Jack Kirby. He is also a lecturer in comics and graphic novels at Teesside University.
Early life
Con Chrisoulis (Κων Χρυσούλης) was born in the Australian state Victoria into a family of Greek descent. He got interested in comics by reading Marvel comic books and watching 1980s cartoons like 'He-Man & The Masters of the Universe', and movies like 'Star Wars'. After reading Frank Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns' he began creating his own comic stories. Musically, Chrisoulis was a big fan of the rock band KISS, before turning to metal, grunge, dark wave, glam rock and indie music as a teenager. Around this time, he was also into alternative comics, most notably the creators Adrian Tomine, Julie Doucet, Joe Sacco, Daniel Clowes, Paul Pope, Jim Mahfood and Evan Dorkin. Initially, in the creation of comics, he was self-taught, mostly through John Buscema's 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way' guidebook.
Louvre De Buff strip from 'Tales of Unsurpassed Vanity' #5 (December 2001).
Indie comics
His artistic career took off in the Melbourne indie comics scene, creating three issues of the black-and-white mutant superhero comic book series 'Clans' (1996) under his own MoJo Comics imprint. In 1997, he collaborated with writer Nick Bugeja on the first issue of another superhero comic book series, 'Bloodsport', released by Impulse Comics.
In the late 1990s, Chrisoulis moved to Athens, Greece, where he continued self-publishing comics. His anthology series 'Tales of Unsurpassed Vanity' ('Ιστορίες Ατελείωτης Ματαιοδοξίας', 2001-2004) became one of Greece's longest-running self-published independent comic series, lasting ten issues. Besides short comedy stories with characters like the weed-smoking stray dog Louvre De Buff and Punky Smurf, the volumes also had continuing stories like 'Jazz & Maria' - about vampire club kids - and 'Three Kings', in which Elvis, Bruce Lee and Jim Morrison team up to fight evil.
Together with a couple of other artists, he formed the SubArt collective that a 2002-2004 anthology series of the same name. In 2005, Chrisoulis and three other former SubArt members initiated the first 24-hour comic event in Greece. During the 2000s, Chrisoulis also supported other creators in self-publishing and distributing their comics, while participating in several indie comic books and zines himself, including 'Sapilla' #1-3 (2004-2005), 'Red.Dot Comix' #10 (2004) and #12 (2005) and Giannis Milonogiannis' 'Roppongi' #2 (2006).
'Vacant Testament' (2003).
Greek mainstream comics
His indie work got Chrisoulis noticed by the mainstream press, leading to freelance work for 9 (Ennea), a free comic magazine distributed on Wednesdays within the Eleftherotypia newspaper. Between 2002 and 2006, 9 magazine serialized his sci-fi series 'Vacant Testament' ('Κενή Διαθήκη') and several short stories. In 2007, Chrisoulis released the first volume of his acclaimed political satire comic book series, 'Giant-Size Fascists', starring a group of far-right Greek superheroes who retired to New York after the 1974 fall of the military junta. Subsequent episodes were serialized in 2007-2008 in Galera magazine (Γαλέρα), before appearing in print in the second volume released by Jemma Press (2009). Also rooted in his Greek heritage was Chrisoulis's graphic novel 'Dryland' (2011-2015), that narrated the violent deaths of his ancestors in Interwar Greece. After online serialization, the story was released in book format by Markosia in 2016. By then, Con Chrisoulis was however already living in the UK.
'Giant-Size Fascists' (2007).
Further education
After a fruitful career in Greek's indie comics scene, Con Chrisoulis decided to pursue a formal education in order to improve his theoretical and technical art skills. Between 2008 and 2010, he pursued film studies in Athens, earning an ISCED Level 4 degree in Film Editing. In 2011, he moved to the UK, where he studied for a BA in Graphic Design at the University of Brighton (2011-2014). In 2015, he was also awarded a Master of Research in Arts and Cultural Research for his experimentation with digital comics.
Artwork for Chrisoulis's musical project 'Autodivine'.
Music
Over the years, Con Chrisoulis has been dividing his time between his two passions, comics and music. In Athens, he was the composer, lyricist and visual artist of the concept art/post-punk band Autodivine, that released the concept albums 'IntroSpective Fusion and the Syndicate Revolution' (2007) and 'Urban Anthems' (2009). In the UK, he continued his musical career in another band, Ghosts of Future Past, while music also got a prominent role in his new comic output.
'Rebel Rebel' (2018).
Comic biographies
Between 2012 and 2014, Chrisoulis wrote and drew the daily online comic strip 'Tales of The Smiths', detailing the early unknown days of Morrissey and the seminal indie band The Smiths. Omnibus Press released the full story in a 450-page collected edition in 2018. After The Smiths, he embarked upon a weekly online graphic biography about David Bowie on the Patreon platform, called 'Rebel Rebel' (2016- ), that has run for over 300 weekly episodes since. By 2017, he was simultaneously researching and serializing 'King', a graphic biography about the Ashkenazi Jewish origins of the legendary Marvel Comics artist Jack Kirby. Chrisoulis also released print editions for the Patreon supporters of his projects.
Other activities
In addition to his creative work, Con Chrisoulis has also been active in the academic field. Since October 2016, he is the creator and art director of Museums News, a website focusing on museum and exhibition culture. In February 2018, he also began a career as a lecturer in Commercial Art and Illustration at Teesside University in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire. Subsequently, Chrisoulis underwent a PhD by Completed work at Teesside University, focusing on his graphic biographies.
'Tales from the Smiths' (2016).