Vispo: untitled / The artist in the art

RTomens, 2026

As I said to LJ the other day whilst sitting in the garden, what people get with my art is not just the art itself but the whole history of my creative experience and, even, my life. That sounds pretentious as I write it, but I stand by it. What do I mean?

I mean...ingrained in every mark are the molecules of my life? Is that what I mean? Perhaps.

True or not (I've never researched it), a friend once told us that Picasso said something extraordinary when asked to make some art, instantly, by a TV presenter. He made one crude squiggle. When the presenter expressed mild disappointment, saying it only took him a few seconds, Picasso replied "No, it took me twenty-five years." 

That is what I'm saying. Anything I do now is the result of, in my case, over 50 years of making art. "So what?", you may ask. So what indeed, except that it is worth remembering that art does not really spring newborn but comes from many days/years spent thinking, imagining and creating. I don't mean to sound pompous and my claim does not mean I demand to be treated as special. I'm the last person to elevate the artist. I've no romantic notion of the artist as demi-god in a society of mere uncreative mortals. 

Punk tried to destroy the gods. It failed. Its exponents became gods themselves. But...for a while...it felt as if it was destroying all the old gods. Likewise Dada in the early-20th century. It, too, came to be worshipped and preserved as something sacred in museums around the world.

If I cite Punk and Dada as key influences I refer as much to their attitude as their creations... perhaps...since in saying that I fall into the trap of attaching a general attitude to the exponents of both whilst knowing that many individuals with varying attitudes made up both movements. Yet when looking at history we tend to simplify everything with common labels and definitions...because the reality is too complex. 

The artist in the art is different from an artist supposedly pouring his/her heart and soul into their art. I've no doubt it's been done by many if, for a minute, we accept the possibility. It's a romantic notion from another age (18th/19th century?), one of the tortured, starving artist. Can there be such an artist today? There are enough tortured people, some of whom might be artists, I suppose. Jean Dubuffet famously coined the term 'art brut' for the work of patients in psychiatric hospitals. I wonder if such hospitals encourage creativity today? It might be a good idea.

You may not see 'me' in my art or, perhaps, I am there in ways less obvious than self-portraiture or expressionism. I may be there in quotes I choose. My thinking is there...my thoughts...my taste...and so on. All that aside, everything I've ever done shapes the art.

Print: Blind As A Bat

Blind As A Bat, RTomens, 2026

Print: You (for sale) / The colour black (clothes/style etc)

 

You, RTomens, 2026

You-nique print, made from an altered photo I took and an old vispo piece. Look at the black! Love the black! See how deep it is? How deep is my black? 

I don't wear black, except for that hooded Adidas coat worn only in the garden or, perhaps, to go up the garage to get some milk. Not that I'm ashamed to be seen in it, just that I don't want to look remotely like all those men (young and old) walking around town in black - no! What's wrong with them? Are they members of a cult I know nothing about? They seem to revel in black's negative connotations. "Look at me in black - grrr - don't mess with me - I'm...dangerous." Actually, you're boring. I cannot take anyone who constantly wears black seriously. They haven't read a book, for starters. I know that for sure. Maybe one book. They totally lack imagination! 

It's fairly common amongst girls too, but less so because...perhaps girls/women always think a little more about what they wear. Sometimes I look at young girls (only sometimes - ha-ha!) and what they wear (slouchy gear) and wonder what I'd think of the way they dress if I was 15 again. I don't suppose I'd mind. I mean, firstly I'd have no choice and secondly, more importantly, old Ma Nature would be driving me towards them with an unstoppable force. For the zillionth time since maturity, I thank historical chance and, um, cosmic genealogy, that I was born to be a teenager in times that were more exciting, culturally and style-wise. 

Still, you'll never catch me in either all black clothing or a t-shirt that says 'I Saw All The Best Bands'. I'd rather be caught wearing my slippers. Actually, that couldn't happen because to answer the doorbell I have to go outside, therefore change from slippers to outdoor shoes. (Isn't all this fascinating?) Only friends see me in my slippers...and I don't have any of those left! (OK, maybe one or two). Poor me. Time has taken so many friends...not death, but life, their lives and mine parting ways. 

On that cheery note, I should end. 

On an optimistic note, should you wish to purchase You, it's £75 and I ship worldwide. Should you want some black print in your life! TTFN!

Vispo: Too Bookish? / 70s Teenage Rampage! / We're all crazy now! (full mental helmet) /Madness

 

Too Bookish?, RTomens, 2026

We're all crazy now? More on that later...

Can you be too bookish? I dunno. I found the quote 'too bookish, too literary' in a book (ha-ha!) about Ezra Pound. I haven't read the book; not more than a few lines. It's one of those books...you know, so cheap you can't resist and you really think you'll get something out of it - I'm not even that interested in Ezra Pound other than his current (?) outsider status, cancellation by the Common Sense police? Well, he did propagandise for the Italian fascist party, didn't he? Yes, he did. he was also a key figure in...the...modernist movement? Was he? 

I wasn't a bookish child but I loved books. Tom Swift...Stig of the Dump...The Borrowers...I borrowed them all from the library in my village. Actually, I was given the Tom Swift book as a prize for English at school and, you know what? I don't even think I have it anymore, which I really regret because it was one of the few actual documents testifying that I could achieve something at school.

School's out! Alice Cooper playing on the 8-track cassette player in my friend's older brother's Volkswagen. He drove us around in that. One day we came across a gang from another village and drove past, close to the kerb, with the passenger side door open. I can't remember if we hit anyone. Ah the good ol' days of mindless violence! 

1972. Discos. Birds. Clothes. Music. Punch-ups (not me). What more could anyone want from their early teenage years? I wasn't very bookish then. One of my abiding memories of books at secondary school is of the Great Book Battle that took place in the annex on the fourth floor before the History teacher came in. I don't know how it started, but when it was at it's peak the fluttering pages as their covers became wings was a site to behold. Some went out of the window. There were a few casualties from heavy hits by hardbacks. What fun!

'I wanna see everybody get your boots on - everybody, everywhere!'

Slade used to be skinheads, for five minutes when their manager suggested the jump on the bandwagon in the late-60s. But even after they'd gone full Glam they were still the band for ex-skinhead yobbos like us with our hair grown out (feather cut or just touching your collar) and baggies replacing Levis. Slade and Gary Glitter made the best foot-stomping gang anthems. It was us vs the greasers at the disco and we had the best tunes. They had Silver Machine by Hawkwind and Spirit In The Sky by Norman Greenbaum (the latter I now recognise as a classic, of course, but back then it was their music).

Fast forward 54 (!!!) years and I'm referencing Slade in an email to someone about the artwork I'm creating for a forthcoming William Burroughs event later this year (I'll keep you posted). 'We're all crazy now!' I quote Noddy Holder. Thankfully he's old enough to get the joke. In reference to what? Another joke I'd made earlier about not wanting to be driven crazy by constant reworkings of the art. 

I joked but...really...are we ALL crazy now? It's tempting to think so, largely because, courtesy of the internet, we're allowed access to the inner workings of maniacs all around the world. Not just maniacs, but nut jobs, political nut jobs...and those with 'mental health' issues (shucks, who ain't?). When online make sure you're wearing your (mental) crash helmet. It's best to actively work at avoiding falling into anyone's mentally disturbed 'rabbit hole'. Namely: don't follow them! Online lunacy is hard to avoid, I know. That person you befriended on Facebook out of the kindness of your heart is now filling your head with crap! Unfriend. 

A friend admitted recently that by backing away from politics I was probably doing the right thing. He's still trying to shake off the addiction that gripped a lot of us around 2020 in the lockdown days when we had nothing better to do (it seemed) but read/listen to Politics online. Thank god I got that out of my system, eventually. Nowadays I only read the headlines. That's enough to tell me what's going on. I'm not even tempted to watch footage of recent horrors in the UK. They used to call it 'car crash TV'. Today we all have endless channels of disturbing footage at the tap of a finger. What good does it do us? I'm not saying ignorance is bliss but it can be better for your mental health.

Vispo/print (for sale): No Disagreement / Bonkers weather / Sonny Rollins an' all that Jazz / My Jazz book

 

No Disagreement, RTomens, 2026

A4 on 160gsm paper

For sale: £90
please email if interested

rtomens(at)gmail.com

Here's a print from a typed original which has been typed over again. Sorry if that sounds confusing but I'm half-awake. I typed the face then printed on a copy of that piece and typed on it again. Is that any clearer? Do I know what I'm talking about...?...ha-ha-ha! 

It's June and I have my winter jumper on because here in London the maximum temperature today is predicted to be 16c dropping to 14 this afternoon...FFS! Two weeks ago we were in the middle of a heatwave! Do such swings in the weather affect one's state of mind? What do you think? Everyone perks up when we get the first warm, sunny Spring days. Then extreme (for the UK) heat can confine you to the flat (it does me anyway...I mean...have you tried being on the 390 bus in the Summer? Of course you haven't, but suffice to say it's illegal to transport animals in those temperatures. So now we get cosy in the evening...under blankets...in June!

Sadly, Sonny Rollins passed away recently (well, we all gotta go sometime - except Marshall Allen, who's 102!). Sonny was one of the big hitters in Jazz, in case you didn't know. He played tenor saxophone. Getting into Jazz in the early 80s as I did his muscular tone would boom and bounce around my bedsit, filling the tiny space with fluid sonic contortions, the likes of which were still fairly new to me. This was one of the first albums of his that I bought. 

I probably got it from Ray's Jazz Shop on Shaftsbury Avenue. Here I am looking in the window circa '81. 

Well, you know, we thought Jazz was the coolest thing in the world...which it was...therefore full engagement with it made us the members of the Coolest Gang in the World! (heh-heh). 

Twenty years later I got around to writing a book about Jazz. Or to be more precise, my experience of Jazz. It's called Points of Departure and there's a review here. Despite learning a lot from the expert writers and even some academics I could never profess to be either so my writings had to come from a purely personal perspective, in the tradition of fanzines. Jazz is, after all, like all artforms, about our subjective interpretation...as we see and hear it. 

It's been said by others and even myself, that my visual poetry often feels like an extension of all that Jazz..it's influence and inspiration if not exactly the improvisational technique. If I had the typewriter equivalent of Sonny Rollins' chops...I'd be a master of the art!

TTFN!

Vispo: You Know Something? / My lethal weapon is my mind? Art knowledge is useless! / Jim Steranko art

 

You Know Something? RTomens, 2026

Yes, I know some things. At times I think I know less now than I did twenty years ago. Funny that, ain't it? Perhaps knowledge is overrated and ignorance really is bliss. I've met a few Clever People. They never impressed me. Knowledge can be intimidating, can't it? Anyway, like the supposedly fastest gun in the West, there's always someone who's actually faster or, in relation to knowledge, more knowledgeable. 

Men love to brandish knowledge as a weapon to 'defeat' other men. It's all we have instead of clubs. Some men still use clubs. Or their fists. We're always trying to outdo each other. Even the meekest of us take pleasure in Knowing More about something. To do this, you have to find someone who wants to discuss a subject but doesn't know much. You can then assume the role of 'teacher' and feel good about it.

There isn't much I can claim to know a lot about except, perhaps, Jazz. My position in this area though is not in the premier league...more third division. That said, knowing quite a bit about Jazz puts me in a specialist league anyway, so in relation to the average person I'm very knowledgeable. It would be more impressive to most people to demonstrate great knowledge of...biology? At least everyone can relate to the body. Most of us have one, except inhabitants of the spirit world. 

Art knowledge is useless, unless engaged in conversation with an art student, in which case I might say that having looked at and read hundreds of Art books I could teach them a thing or two. There I go, falling into a trap. They would shrug and make noises like a young person, totally dismissing my knowledge as old-fashioned nonsense because you don't need to know Art history to make art. You don't need to know Art to make art! Just make stuff! Or don't. Just think up stuff and present yourself, saying "All my Art is in my head." You'd get a top grade, I think.

Regulars will know I've been looking at a lot of comic books recently. Reading the stories isn't necessary. The great art in some of them is enough to more than satisfy...it actually thrills! It thrills me, anyway. The snobbery about comic art still prevails, I think. Not that it should be taken seriously either, necessarily. Considering the deadline pressure comic book artists were under in their heyday, what some of them drew is incredible. Here's a double page by one of the best, Jim Steranko, for Captain America (1969).

I don't know much about comics...but I know what I like!

Print: Visual Field / Seeing visual poetry up close / Buying art / Kemsley annual altered book

Visual Field, RTomens, 2026

Ah yes, the all-seeing eye...

More distressingly, I lost a great pair of sunglasses. Where? I don't know. If I knew where they were lost I might return to the spot, eh? LJ once lost hers. We had walked beside the river Medway to the cafe, where she realised they were gone. So we walked back, hoping they'd be on the path. Nope. But wait, we did sit on this bench. We even wandered into the grassy area behind...and there they were! I spotted them. So...you know...some lost things can be found. There's a moral there somewhere.

My work often looks a bit blurred to me. I used to think it was something that could be corrected in the scanning process. Then I realised it was my eyes! Now I zoom in on the computer or, the old-fashioned way, actually lean in closer - ha-ha. The great thing about on-screen viewing is the ability to widen those fingers and appreciate the detail, eh? Sometimes it pays off. Sometimes I've done it and realised...well, it doesn't bear close scrutiny. 

Nothing compares to seeing work 'in the flesh'. That even applies to visual poetry. Better still to be able to feel the paper and even the indentations made by the typewriter. Buyers who visit do that. I watch them feeling the paper. Others do it, replace the work on the table and walk on. That upsets me. Look, I've poured my heart and soul into that and you just walk away? The nerve! I jest, of course. People who actually buy are a rare breed. Well, it's a luxury purchase, isn't it? I never expect a purchase. How arrogant/naive would that be? Books sell better, for obvious reasons.

Here's a book I altered a few years ago. It's still for sale.

TTFN!

Horror Comics of the 1950's - The EC Horror Library (Nostalgia Press Inc, 1971)

 

Nostalgia Press's Horror Comics of the 1950's was, in 1971, the first high quality collection of stories from EC comics. It's 'oversized', as you can see from the photo above, although not quite as large as Taschen would go with their XXL comics line. I own their XXL History of EC Comics book. It's ridiculous. So big it hardly fits in the flat. So stunning, too, when you open a page featuring art on that scale. 

Luckily I got this this Nostalgia Press book for a reasonable price from the US (where else?). It was cheaper than usual (they don't appear often) because of it's well-worn cover. Forget the cover, the contents are stunning - what colours! These colours zing in a different way to, say, modern Marvel omnibuses. That may be due to the nice, thick paper they were printed on. I know next to nothing about the dark arts of printing but this production looks special to me and to compare I have 90s reprints and contemporary ones. Note the Are You A Red Dupe? page, written at the height of the moral panic about comics in America. Ironically, it was in America, 'the land of the free', that comics were severely censored around this time (1954). Hope you enjoy a look at the book. 

Vispo: He Left Too Much Unsaid / Electroacoustic Music History on Murmure Intemporel

He Left Too Much Unsaid, RTomens, 2026

Hey, kids, there's going to be nothing left unsaid here! Nothing! Nothing, that is, except what I don't want to say...or can't think of saying...and..OK, OK...that may not leave much. 

First a word (or two) about the piece above. You'll be THRILLED to hear that I'm back on The Beast (or Olympia typewriter, as it's commonly known). Which is different from a beast with two backs, as you know. I don't know why I thought that (yes, I do; I combined 'beast' with being 'back'). It's my back that's been the problem, caused, I think, by too much typing. So I gave it a rest and...guess what? It didn't seem to help. It may have improved things but the proof of that particular pudding will come after a few weeks spent typing again. I'll let you know...because I know you're concerned about my wellbeing.

You like music? Of course you do! But what kinds of music you like I can't second guess so I can only say I'm enjoying this series IMMENSELY. You might not even think it's 'music' but what the hell it's good to expand your horizon, sonically. The Murmure Intemporel page contains lots of great music, including a bunch of recordings by Conrad Schnitzler. Try it. Put it on whilst you're...doing the dishes? Reading?

That's all I have to say, for now. 

TTFN!

Comic Book Crazy! / Comic Strip Vispo and the Art of Comics

 

Blame Savoy Books and Lord Horror comics, blame The Cramps and their Goo Goo Muck, blame Destroy All Monsters and their B-Movie monster music...blame my misspent youth drawing comic book style because I couldn't be bothered to study anatomy (at the age of eleven? Are you kidding?) but don't blame Whizzer and Chips. Of course I read comics as a kid. Wasn't the Beano Summer annual the most thrilling publication of the year (1970)? Wasn't 2000 AD a real kick? 

I wasn't living in 50s America otherwise I might have indulged in the four colour grime and gore that caused panic amongst parents and finally created the comics code which crushed the genre. So fast forward 50 years and I'm enjoying my own personal comic craze. As you can see by the photos, I've bought a few books. I haven't mentioned Jack Kirby yet, specifically, because I might write just about him in another post. 

Who mentioned Pop Art? Oh, Lichtenstein...him. He 'did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for soup', Art Spiegelman said. Loathed or loved by comic fans? The former, probably. I don't know many comic fans, except the friend I've previously mentioned; the one doing his best to reduce my bank account to zeros with what he laughingly calls his 'advice', which I suspect is actually his vicarious thrill of reliving his own voyage of comic discovery years ago, via me. 

I didn't buy a motorbike in my 'mid-life crisis' - ha-ha! I haven't had one. Or did I? What well-off boomers spend their money on is their business. I'm not well-off. Yes, it's all relative, wealth. Can I afford to buy books? How much can I afford to spend of my pension? What is money? Is a £60 Captain American omnibus really a 'good deal'? My friend says it is compared to buying the individual issues. Well yes, obviously, but it's still £60. 

Roy Thomas' The Marvel Age of Comics - 1961-1978 is the latest arrival. That's the big (size) one. I bought the smaller version a few weeks ago and love it so much that I had to go big...the artwork included is so...gorgeous? Sexy? (ha-ha). Exciting? Phenomenal? Because Taschen use the actual original comics as their source. They don't mess around. No digital recolouring for them! That's one of the controversial issues with comic collections. I'll discuss that in another post. Suffice to say, for now, that it's having the artwork in it's original printed form that makes this book such a thrill...the paper tones, the inking...the colours! 

 

Naturally(?) my comic craze has inspired me to create some art influenced by comics. Here's two of them. I'm pleased with the results and will probably make more. I have others ideas for exploring comics as a basis for art but for now, visual poetry is the main element. In a way, great comic strips were a form of visual poetry to begin with...the idea of storytelling in pictures...where the text is almost secondary to the visual ideas. 

Thanks for visiting! TTFN

RTomens, 2026

RTomens, 2026