Bunny Bissoux is an artist, illustrator and self described obsessive fanatic.
Creator of the now defunct Conquistador fanzine she continues to produce
zines, comics and a variety of other self manufactured items centred
around her life, art and interests. She also designed the posters, flyers, website and logos for Birmingham Zine Festival this year!
When did you start making zines and selling vintage goodies?
I was always drawing as a child and I remember making lots of little books and booklets, and when I was about 10 I had my first photocopier experience, me and a family friend made what I suppose was my first zine, it entitled “Save The Whales” and made 5 copies on her dad’s photocopier, it was very exciting. I started Conquistador fanzine in 2003, it was something I had always wanted to do. As for vintage goods, I’ve been collecting stock since I was about 15 originally with hopes of opening a shop one day, but over time I have cut down, I don’t deal in vintage clothes anymore and my non handmade stock is mostly all centered around vintage trading cards, the Trading cards are much easier to store! Although I still can’t resist buying things bulk when I find an amazing supply somewhere.
Do you draw everyday? What is your favourite thing to draw and why?
Pretty much everyday, I keep a diary so I draw in there but usually I’ll have drawing “work” to do anyway, either commissions or self initiated things. Hmmm, I really like drawing faces and people that I make up in my head, If i’m drawing from a particular image than I always enjoy drawing the hair the most.
You brought out a fanzine called “Bunny’s Japan Journal” about your travels in Japan- what is it that you like about Japanese culture and do you plan any more Japan themed zines?
This is hard to answer because I basically love so much of Japanese culture. I think probably fashion and popular culture, films and art were the things that first attracted me a long time ago, but as I learned more about it I become increasingly interested in other parts of the culture like j-pop and manga, also just from seeing photographs and films it all looked fascinating and beautiful to me, I was desperate to go! After my trip and having all my thoughts confirmed I fell even more in love with the country, the architecture, the people, all of it! and my interests soon become obsessions. Generally speaking I see it as a very happy place, people are very content and everyone is respectful, I feel a lot more comfortable with society there. Some of my Japanese interests have made my way into other zines i’ve made (probably most noticeably my appreciation of Japanese boybands). I was really desperate to go back to Japan, I miss it every day, and I went on another trip this year so I’ll be debuting “Bunny’s Japan Journal – vol.2” at the zine fair this year. I’m sure there will be even more future Japan themed zines to come, and my appreciation of South Korea has been growing too so i’m sure that will factor in somewhere.
In your online shop you sell deadstock trading card packs – do you collect them yourself? If so, which is the best trading card you have ever collected? What else do you collect?
I sure do! That’s how I started selling them, I started buying full boxes just to find the cards I needed and selling the rest. Although I soon switched to just wanted to collect sealed packs of all the strangest trading cards concepts I could find (Rad Dudes! Terrorist Attacks! Troll Dolls! Etc), but some days I do find it hard to resist temptation on not go into a frenzy ripping open packs for that special card. The kind of cards I deal with aren’t really valuable or rare at all so the best card I got is probably Motley Crue logo hologram card from a pack of “Mega Metal” cards, but my favourite series is probably “Comic Book Creators” which gives you facts and bios of all your favourite comic book artists with these amazing almost superhero-esque portraits on the front. I really do collect a lot of different things, deer figurines, wrestling memorabilia, Pee Wee Herman merchandise, 80s metal on vinyl, E.T Merchandise, Polaroid cameras, vintage magazines, 80s pornography on VHS… just to name a few!
Your biog mentions that you used to work in a sweet shop- if you were a sweet which one would you be and why?
Oooh, my answer to this probably changes just as often as my favourite sweet does, but lately i’ll say i’m definitely a packet of Lovehearts, if you read my blog and are aware of my shameless crushing on celebrities you’ll know why, I’m a hopeless romantic and spent most of my time in pastel soft focus sugary sweet daydreams, although I’m still coming to terms with the fact they include “email me” in the packs these days, I like “fax me” though, seems nostalgic.
You post a lot of photos of delicious food on your blog – what is your favourite food out of all the foods? It can be a full meal if you want!
I tend to like eating the same meals at the same restaurants over and over again, like the veggie burgers at JB’s diner on the seafront in Brighton, although i’ll confess that the best milkshakes are still at Ed’s Diner in London, I recommend getting the Atomic Fries as an accompaniment. Since moving back to Birmingham I’m yet to find a new favourite local meal to repeat eat, although I suppose that would be my mom’s cooking. My favourite full meal is definitely roast dinner (without the meat, so just a load of vegetables, roast potatoes, parsnip… yumm..) with yorkshire puddings and no weird meat alternative (like boring nut roast!), just the vegetables and yorkshire puddings (that’s the good stuff!) and i’m happy!
Check out more of Bunny’s work on her website http://www.bunnybissouxart.com/
