The mind-boggling collage comics of Samplerman

Towards the beginning of last year a collage comic book artist under the pseudonym of Samplerman caused a fuss on It’s Nice That with his warped illustrational samples. Since then, the illustrator has continued his practice with acute determination.

“Since I am not done with discovering new materials, thousands of pages generously scanned and shared on the web by the community of lovers of old comics, I keep practising every day, doing my scales, growing an image bank,” explains the artist whose real name is Yvan Guillo. To continue his practice Yvan vowed to create at least one strip a day. “That was my goal for 2016: to produce 366 strips. I am at 320.”

The delight of Yvan’s pieces are his care, appreciation and love of original comics, repurposed into creations of his own. “I am half the artist and half in the audience, exploring all these pages, picking the things I want to use, making a template and watching the composition being made nearly by itself. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, so it takes more time to get to a satisfying piece.”

Despite Yvan’s practice not changing stylistically over the past year, his sheer volume of work displays an illustrator with an immense talent. Looking towards the future Yvan believes he may soon return to traditional drawing. “My practice has not changed yet, but it will probably evolve towards a mix of collages and drawing in the future because I am starting to miss drawing.”

During 2016, alongside the daily collages Yvan’s work has been published by numerous collective projects including Off Life and Ink Brick, and the team behind the revival of the Doom Patrol comics commissioned the illustrator for a variant cover to be released in February. Yvan has additionally created an LP artwork for French band La Terre Tremble!!! which will in turn see his collages come to life in an animated music video. Next year, the illustrator aims to concentrate fully on print. “I’ve not been very successful in my attempts to make a book until now,” he says. The new year shall see the illustrator create a series of self-published mini comics, as well as a comic released by Le Dernier Cri alongside an exhibition in Marseille. We look forward to seeing his masterful creations continue even more.