Con Chrisoulis Preview
Back in the early life of my YouTube channel, I had the chance to speak with Con Chrisoulis, the artist and researcher behind Rebel Rebel, a graphic biography series chronicling the life of David Bowie. Though the original interview focused on Rebel Rebel, I was struck by the enormous amount of research that was involved in developing the text and story for the work. As I continue to subscribe to Rebel Rebel and have kept in touch with Con, I have come to believe he is one of the most knowledgeable people there is about Bowie’s early life. I invited Con to come back to talk about Bowie’s early life, which is the subject of tomorrow’s interview. I’ll note that the conversation went longer than I intended and we didn’t get nearly as far into Bowie’s life as I was targeting, so I’m hoping Con will come back at a later date.
This post links to a version of our original interview that I re-edited last year, featuring the most compelling 30 minutes of our initial conversation—focused on Con’s process, his sources, and his approach to capturing Bowie in both word and image. This serves as a good lead-up to tomorrow’s interview.
Rebel Rebel is an ambitious and ongoing project that tells the story of Bowie’s life chronologically, focusing in particular on his formative years. What sets Con’s work apart is the level of primary research he brings to the project. Rather than relying on secondary biographies, he combs through old interviews, obscure music magazines, and recordings to find Bowie’s own words—or those of close collaborators—and reconstructs a more grounded and nuanced account. In the interview, he talks about the way he builds timelines out of conflicting accounts, evaluates credibility, and maps each moment into a coherent visual narrative.
He also shares his artistic process, from penciling and inking by hand on A5 paper to digitally scanning and coloring the final product. His background in design and illustration informs everything from the emotional use of color to how he directs the reader’s eye across the page. We even dive into how he handles scenes for which no visual documentation exists, using what he calls a “method drawing” approach, akin to Stanislavski’s method acting, to inhabit Bowie’s emotional world and imagine it visually with care and honesty.
The interview includes discussion of specific pages from the series—including the infamous George Underwood fight that left Bowie with his permanently dilated pupil—as well as the broader evolution of Bowie’s look and persona. It’s a fascinating glimpse into how biography can come to life through a medium that is part journalism, part history, and part art.
For more from Con, visit his website HERE.
