Samplerman

Due to time constraints, this work is only a draft. I may develop this idea further later, or perhaps the future will develop it for me. I imagine how the entertainment industry could be radically transformed through the adoption of current technologies and those about to emerge in everyday life, and how, initially, this could impact the collective imagination and alter lifestyles through a work of art, a film, that would consume all available means to be born, grow, and spread across networks and into people's minds. This is a brief summary of the transformation process that could occur, the outline of a speculative novel, or perhaps just its first chapter. For now, I am setting aside the aspects of resistance that would inevitably arise. I am not elaborating on the question of power and money that will necessarily result from this hypothesis. I don't know if this possibility of a revolution in access to culture and its production is a source of hope or concern in the uncertain context of human societies subjected to more powerful forces, themselves transformed by these same technologies. The illustrations are created using my usual collage technique, based on images taken from old comic strip magazines. It's a way of telling stories of the future from the perspective of the past, as if the cartoonists of the past had, in their time, provided the elements to decipher the harbingers of the changes that are approaching. Enjoy!

About the Artist

Yvan Guillo, aka Yvang, is a French cartoonist born in 1971. He started publishing comics in numerous fanzines in the early nineties and thus far accepts invitations to take part in micro published collective projects. His fanzine “Crachoir” (1992-2010), featuring his own comics plus works from his friends was his main space of expression . Around 2009, he started a shared Tumblr blog (with his friend french cartoonist Léo Quievreux), “zdnd”, la zone de non-droit (the no-go zone) in order to post experiments, side projects and often unfinished works. The digital collages of golden age american comics labelled “Samplerman” started there, and the strong feedback from many followers, and continous commissions for illustrations, Sleeves for LP Record etc. from many countries gave it a boost to further the exploration of collage comics. Samplerman was awarded the Prix de l’EESI in january 2019 during the Angoulême festival. He’s currently working on several forthcoming projects, mostly books. He lives and works in Brittany, France.