For the past two decades, Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio have collaborated—from opposite sites of the Atlantic—on comics, television shows, printed installations, videos, billboards, and web-based projects that fuse mass and museum cultures. They have deftly employed the comic-book form to communicate with broad audiences in their signature blend of visual energy, critical wit, and accessibility. In many of their projects, Grennan and Sperandio invite the participation of communities and individuals from various backgrounds, recording their stories and translating them into graphic narratives—exploring the model of the artist as socially engaged facilitator. In the mid-1990s, the duo formed the media company/collective identity Kartoon Kings, “dedicated to the production and creation of works of art and to the extension of art across audiences and media boundaries.” They have exhibited and lectured about their work internationally and have received reviews in The New York Times, Art in America, Artforum, Flash Art, Sculpture Magazine, The New Yorker, ArtReview, Art Papers, Soap Opera Weekly, among other publications. Grennan is based in Manchester, England and Sperandio lives and works in New York City.

What initially drew you to the language of comics? How would you characterize your particular approach to the form?

SG: The comics are received as a collaborative medium, like film and recorded music. Everyone gets that a comic is made by a few different people. We also like books as a form—they fit the hand and they get passed round, sometimes forever.

CS: We have a few styles of drawing that we sort of shuffle back and forth through. Depending on the need of the project. I'm partial to the look of our animated works, and although it's a little awkward for print (and web), I prefer it. Simon favors our “dark style”—lots of black in the drawing.

Your creative process is remarkably open—you involve various publics, many of whom may not experience art on a regular basis. You have been called “social transcribers,” and have collaborated with many different communities—from workers in a Nestle chocolate plant (We Got It) to the staff and patrons of MoMA and P.S.1 (Modern Masters)—to recount their stories. How did this practice evolve?

CS: Our practice pre-dates the Internet. Our ideas about shared authorship came at a time when popular culture was a one-way medium. The media companies decided what it was that they would produce and distribute, and it was either consume or shut-up. There was no choice. Now, with the internet, things like collaboration, shared authorship and the elevation of discrete voices happens a million times a minute. In 1993, however, it seemed that the need to involve others in a collaborative arts practice was both radical and necessary.

What interests you about public collaborations? When you’ve selected a group to work with, how do you gain their trust in order to bring them into the fold as collaborators?

SG: When we began, relational work had a lot shorter history. The term “relational,” as coined by Nicolas Bourriaud, didn’t even exist. Back in the day, it was “interventionism,” or something. We’ve always been interested in public collaborations as a way to keep tumbling the ivory tower on every project. For us, the trust and choice issues are always about ongoing compromise. It’s not usually us in the power roles in our collaborative relationships.

There’s no mystery to our process. We tell everyone what we're doing, and leave it up to the individual to decide if they want to get involved, whether our collaborators are dentists, retirees, or artists. Take our TV series, ARTSTAR. Artists who were appalled at the idea of a reality-based show about art stayed away from participating. Others were immediately on board. There's no arm-twisting involved in our work.

On the subject of collaboration, how do you work together and project a unified graphic style despite being separated by a very large ocean?

CS: We share a sense of purpose. How the drawings look is secondary. So, it's fairly easy.

SG: It’s old-fashioned teamwork. As Jack Kirby said about his relationship with Joe Simon: “We both do everything.”

Your work is socially engaged and intellectually challenging—and yet it always contains at least a hint of humor and entertainment. How do you strike this balance?

CS: You think our work is entertaining?!

SG: It’s the Aristotle and laughter question!

Your piece in this series, Enter the OVERnote, takes a jab at corporate culture by presenting a DIY organizational tool. Is this a remedy for our over-scheduled, over-consuming modern existence?

SG: It’s folk work, really. Everyone hybridizes, debases, and makes real the stuff they have to aid contemporary living—a wire coat hanger becomes a television aerial or a fridge becomes a notice board. It’s that kind of action.

CS: There’s nothing ironic to the OVERnote. Folk work is right. There’s no irony in folk art. When I see the customization of mass-produced goods, it makes me smile. It’s a crack in the edifice with a flower growing out of it.

You’ve operated at the juncture of popular culture and fine art for many years—to what extent do you see yourselves as transgressive figures, and what have you learned by crisscrossing this divide?

SG: Working beyond the market is a definition of transgressive, these days. Of course, it’s the wrong one. The world’s a big place to work, with loads of folks to meet and listen to. Rather than being lovdup, this is a condition of wonder, humor, anger, reverie.

CS: I’ve stopped looking at the gap between mass and museums cultures. The divide is never going to go away. It’s the VIP room, the exclusive after-party. Social climbing and inventing or exacerbating social difference for personal gain is endemic, so screw it.

What are the issues facing us today that you’re most interested in, concerned about, or motivated by as artists? What should we be paying attention to?

SG: It’s always the same issues to negotiate—the power of image and money, the overlooked deep effects of local social lives, strategies, and action.

CS: There are larger meanings in the world, and things—commodities, luxury consumer goods—are not going to lead the way to them. I saw an amazing sunset yesterday. So maybe people should look to the sky.