Leon Sadler is a comic master. He is an experimental chap with a rare vision for the strange and beautiful. Alongside his own work as an artist he runs independent publishing house Famicon Express releasing underground comix that you should own. Recent ventures include collaborations with the incredible Picture Box inc. and the beautiful Mould Map released in partnership with the publisher Landfill Editions.

www.lmsn.eu

• For the people who don't know your work - how would you describe it ?


• Traditional cartooning, Experimental comics, Stupid collaborative works, making strong figurative images. I make new books all the time, and keep a number of blogs. I use a lot of generic cartoon elements, sometimes scruffy lines or sometimes a careful or clear style. I'm often putting out a lot of imagery that includes castle-age objects and designs, or often cosmic signs and unknown technology. When you see clumsy symbolism, badly paced jokes, reflections on the happiness and pain of life on earth, you know that's by me.

• What are the key themes running through your practice?


• Embrace stupid humour and affection for ugliness. Clumsy physical actions, mischievious urges. I'm interested in making work about different kinds of positive and negative, physical or spiritual violence. There is also a specific logic running too, of destruction, laziness and endurance.

• Your favorite place on earth?


• Dunno, outdoors somewhere. Charnwood, Catthorpe, in a stream.

• What influences your work?


• When you see someone making a strange effort at a small creative endevour, solving their problems in a weird way. When I first was finding out about 'Outsider Art', something strong has stayed with me ever since. I often get a good buzz looking through old books and looking at decent painters and illustrators. Teenager feelings; being unafraid to follow an embarressing path or digging up burried urges and interests, getting stroppy or silly or whatever.
  
  A big thing is just trying to be ready to catch hold of the ideas as they come. I've been collecting a lot more stupid stories and pictures from the newspaper lately, but I'm not sure how this translates to the work. Yeah I would say a lot of my friends are artists too, so I get a lot of influence from just messing around with them, competeing with them, and sharing funny things with each other. I get influence when I see some really annoying or awful attempts at art, and if I want to join in or distance myself from it.

• What music are you into right now?


• Sun City Girls, Pavement, Death, Deftones, Current 93 Sometimes something heavy and horrible, sometimes the opposite!!

• Describe your thought & design process...


• These questions are vague! Try to be ready to embrace and expand moment of inspiration. Erm, I try to give myself a surprise and avoid repeating old completed works. I try to write down a lot of ideas and drawings and stack them up in filing trays. Then when i feel like I have a new project to work on I tend to go back and filter through those things.
  
  I often think 'this is too nice' or 'i'm just doing this because it's trendy' and then i just have a good time ruining that stuff. I always look at things I've already made, try to think about what I'm best at or what to avoid, but then forget it and just follow any given moment of inspiration. I think my best stuff is usually just something fast and stupid, but don't think that means I don't see value in working on big stuff, slowly and considered.

• Which emerging artists are you looking forward to seeing more of?


• I always just want to see more of what my friends and family are doing!!! Every time they make a new experiment, that's the best inspiration for me.


• -Jonathan Chandler
• -Stefan Sadler
• -Ghxyk2/Ghxxxyk2
• -Kitty Clark
• -Y. Val Gesto
• -C.F.
• -David Steans
• -Hardeep Pandhal
• -Joseph Royce Lewis
• -Andy Healy
• -Massimiliano Bomba
• -Matt Lock
• -Anthony Fineran
• -Panayiotis Terzis
• -Brenna Murphy
• -Theo Reeves-Evison
• -Lando
• -Stathis Tsemberlidis
• -Paul Smith
• -Noel Freibert
• -Will Simpson
• -Travess Smalley
• -Hugh Frost
• -Amalia Ullman


• and I'm really eager to see the new Yuichi Yokoyama books that are from Picturebox.

• Favorite place on the internet?


• www.vore.net
• maps.google.com

• Do you have any upcoming projects/exhibitions we should know about?


• I'm just finishing my contribution to the next Kramers Ergot. I've got this ongoing project with Y.Val Gesto, and we'll be releasing a whole LOAD of new books for that very soon. Most important next is this big Famicon Comic book that Picturebox is publishing. I'd like to concentrate on some Boys Empire works that were pushed to a side. And some large size painting I'd like to make for a show in Leeds in January 2012, and then some clay releifs for a show with Panayiotis Terzis next year in USA. A lot of my future ambitions have come too soon so now I have to come up with some new ones!!!! Oh shit, and a Famicon Solo exhibition in London next year too.

• Tell us something we don't know - but should...


• Sometimes it's OK to be lazy, but most of the time it's just fucking embarrassing so get off your arse!!!!