Jack Teagle Great art inspired by the not-so-great

Less sophisticated can actually be better, words that a Geordie lass would echo enthusiastically, if only she could pronounce "sophisticated". Or even "better". Happily embracing art's less hoity-toity side: Jack Teagle.

Built from simple lines and bright solid colours, Teagle's illustrations are inspired by the huge collection of kitsch (old Lucha wrestling posters, action figures, and "badly written" Silver-Age comics) housed in his Cornwall studio: an upside-down abandoned shipping container, making him one artist whose work might be the product of piracy. Everything's printed in vibrant digital dry ink on ultra-smooth "cotton rag" paper, with more direct-riff works including Nightmare Batman, whose scowling mouth is full of fangs (also the case with Teagle's far happier Chewbacca), and Good Vs. Evil, depicting He-Man and Skeletor battling over who has the power, and who has to clean up the Battle Cat poop. More original creations have a wizard "speaking" a ghostly visage at a flame-engulfed man, a scene of floating heads, daggers dripping blood, etc., based on a recurrent night terror from his early childhood, and, taken from his own comic, Jesus wrestling Lucifer -- no matter how many miraculous bash-opponent-into-turnbuckle-then-hurl-him-into-apostles-before-dropping-Easter-boulder-on-him moves He makes, doubters will say it's all fake.

A different frame from the same comic is also available as an actual acrylic painting, along with a couple of other extremely limited-edition (1 of 1) canvases, like Yes Batman (mid-fight, but instead of "wham" it says "yes"), and a portrait of Robocop -- maybe not as sophisticated as ED-209, but like a Geordie girl at a bar, infinitely more compelling when he says "Dead or alive, you're coming with me".