Con Chrisoulis

With over 30 years of professional practice and experience spanning across illustration, graphic design, animation, film, history, and graphic novels, Con Chrisoulis has developed an interdisciplinary approach that combines creative production with research-led methodologies. Drawing on tools from historical, ethnographical, and sociological research, his work explores how graphic biography can function as a site for knowledge production, translating complex research material into visual, sequential narratives.

Working across publishing, digital media, and commissioned design, his practice is rooted in visual storytelling and communication, with a sustained focus on how narrative, image-making, and cultural memory intersect. His ongoing research investigates the potential of graphic biographies to reconstruct histories, document lived experience, and articulate authorial voice through drawing, positioning the artist as both creator and researcher.

Central to this body of work is Rebel Rebel: The graphic biography of David Bowie—an ongoing practice-based research project that began in 2016 and which interrogates identity, performance, and cultural transformation through a hybrid of archival research and visual interpretation. Currently serialised as a webcomic and self-published and distributed to a large audience, the project represents a major contribution to his practice-led research, exploring how biography can be reimagined through embodied drawing processes and experimental narrative structures.

Alongside this, King, the graphic biography of Jack Kirby, examines authorship, labour, and creativity within the comics industry, focusing on Kirby’s role as a foundational yet often contested figure in visual culture. Both projects form part of a wider investigation into graphic biography as a critical and research-driven form.

Previous works include Tales of the Smiths, a graphic novel biography of Morrissey and The Smiths (serialised online 2011–2014; published by Omnibus Press, 2018), which explores music, identity, and fandom, and Dryland (published by Markosia Enterprises, 2016), a graphic retelling of family histories in interwar Greece that combines personal narrative with historical reconstruction.

Across all projects, his work foregrounds the role of practice-led research, visual authorship, and narrative experimentation, contributing to the evolving field of graphic storytelling as both a creative and scholarly discipline.