Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the acquisition of the only graphic novel written by — and possibly the last unseen work of his to be published — the innovative Beat writer and Naked Lunch author, William S. Burroughs. This lost masterpiece, Ah Pook Is Here, created in collaboration with artist Malcolm McNeill in the 1970s, will be published in the summer of 2011 as a spectacularly packaged two-volume, hinged set, along with Observed While Falling, McNeill’s memoir documenting his collaboration with one of America’s most iconic authors.
Ah Pook Is Here first appeared in 1970 under the title The Unspeakable Mr. Hart as a monthly comic strip written by Burroughs and drawn by the British cartoonist and painter Malcolm McNeil in the English magazine Cyclops. When the publication folded, Burroughs and McNeill decided to develop the project into a full-length, Word/Image novel (the term “graphic novel” had not yet been coined). Burroughs was 56 at the time, McNeill 23. [...]
John Stanley Hart is the “Ugly American” or “Instrument of Control” – a billionaire newspaper tycoon obsessed with discovering the means for achieving immortality. Based on the formulae contained in rediscovered Mayan books he attempts to create a Media Control Machine using the images of Fear and Death. By increasing Control, however, he devalues time and invokes an implacable enemy: Ah Pook, the Mayan Death God. Young mutant heroes using the same Mayan formulae travel through time bringing biologic plagues from the remote past to destroy Hart and his Judeo/Christian temporal reality.
Of particular note is this post featuring a clip from the Daily Mail in 1904 about a showing of Spare’s work when he was a teenager at a public library in Southwark.
Spare’s work will be returning to Southwark next month with temporary exhibit at the Cuming Museum from Monday 13 September 2010 to Sunday 14 November 2010. More details here.
“Forget Me Not” was inspired by Kim Noce's childhood imaginary friends and by long conversations with her greataunt about her past. The film aim to represent the journey of rediscovery of one’s own beliefs through memories and what was thought to be lost might indeed is always inside you.
In this machinery of nature
We are each our own
Broken universe
Scaled down and held within
Constantly bled out through our splitting skin
Are we all connected
Are we but fiction
What lies beyond the beauty
Of our vibrant, staring eyes
Do we truly exist, or
Are we just walking dreams
Are we all simply exaggerations of
Theoretical things
In our machine of twisting constructs
We choke ourselves on our own vines
Asphyxiating answers
Questions lost after a time
Questions lost to bound and gagged minds... .. .
I haven't been able to find a Goddess statue that I really like, so I decided to make one myself. I based her off some stone age Goddess statues I've seen.
It's my first attempt at sculpture, but I'm happy with it. It makes me giggle a little bit. Give her an offering and she'll bring you good luck!
Gothicane was first coined by visiting Wisconsin Wicca practitioner, Mary Finch in 1945. It was described as the term used for mental patients that settled underground in Chicago workshops/subway constructions that were later abandoned. Much later on, (during the 1980’s/early 90’s) the term was re-popularized by local “Darks” to include and describe the areas where children of the old settlers/squatters lived and visited, especially the street artists. These places included, Lower Wacker Drive, China-Town’s “Hall of Fame” and the Southside “Walls of Sin,” as well as other places that once carried the dreaded title of “Skid-row.”
I am yours;
The utensil is a knife,
So carve a picture upon my flesh,
& color it blood red.
My tears will be the title,
my moans are your inspiration,
& my scars are your delicate signature.
My body is your Masterpiece.
--
Your whispers break free of the lips but goes unaware,
It remains silence in the world but puts the mind into despair.
Those wounds you have are the biggest catastrophe;
You seek the promising seal that you believe is in me.
My hands are sore from trying to release the deepest of your roots,
Though now I'm trying to figure out which one is the dispute.
A battle of the unknown is the fear you have in your heart,
I think it's more difficult for you wanting to have a fresh start.
Rusted chains that binds you in confusion & misery,
The release must come from your own delivery.
Believe in the good & move forward with hope,
It's worth the risk if you have something to devote.
OOK is making a Magazine called "Voices in the Void," and here is a (small) taste of some of the Kishite art we will be including in our first issue. The first image is all me, I will name the other contributors if they want me to. Enjoy!
MTV: Where do things stand with “The Pekar Project” now? How far ahead did Harvey work on the scripts?
NEWELT: There are still a bunch of comics yet to come out on “The Pekar Project” that we have in the can and done. [...]
MTV: I know Harvey had been working on a few other books, too. Were you involved with any of those? Do you know what their status is?
NEWELT: The first branch-off of “The Pekar Project” is coming out this year. He was working on a graphic novel called “Cleveland,” which comes out during the summer of 2011 from this company called Zip Comics. The script was ready for that. It’s one-third history of Cleveland, one-third Harvey’s experiences there, and one-third biographical sketches of Cleveland characters. It’s drawn by Joseph Remnant, one of the definitive Pekar artists.
Metaverse One (creator of that awesome AR anatomy education app) gives us a preview of an upcoming issue of Retinex by 3Satva featuring an augmented reality reality app created by SpiralConcepts. Metaverse notes that there have been comic that have used AR before, this is the first use he’s seen that actually integrates AR into the story.
A new collection Brion Gysin’s work is appearing in the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City.
But Laura Hoptman, the museum’s senior curator and the organizer of the show, said the departure in Gysin’s case made perfect sense because his work remains largely unknown to the American public and his influence — the kind that eluded him during his lifetime — now seems to be everywhere in the contemporary art world.
“I knew about him, and then six or seven years ago it felt like I started hearing his name from everyone,” Ms. Hoptman said. “I kept trying to figure out all the ways they had arrived at Gysin.”
You've seen life through distorted eyes
You know you had to learn
The execution of your mind
You really had to turn
The race is run the book is read
The end begins to show
The truth is out, the lies are old
But you don't want to know
Nobody will ever let you know
When you ask the reasons why
They just tell you that you're on your own
Fill your head all full of lies
The people who have crippled you
You want to see them burn
The gates of life have closed on you
And there's just no return
You're wishing that the hands of doom
Could take your mind away
And you don't care if you don't see again
The light of day
Nobody will ever let you know
When you ask the reasons why
They just tell you that you're on your own
Fill your head all full of lies
Where can you run to
What more can you do
No more tomorrow
Life is killing you
Dreams turn to nightmares
Heaven turns to hell
Burned out confusion
Nothing more to tell
Everything around you
What's it coming to
God knows as your dog knows
Bog blast all of you
Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath
Nothing more to do
Living just for dying
Dying just for you
Hakim Bey has of late been involved in a number of time-based art installation events in New York State. One such event is covered on the band the Loss of Eden’s blog.
The artwork happened simply. There was little ceremony, perhaps to the confusion of some in attendance who had hoped for a chant or a reading. Peter presented items, one by one, and placed them into a hole in the ground that would be filled with cement. Among these were crystals, a fancy bat skeleton from Carolina Biological, the remains of the incense itself…it made me wonder: must things be buried that they may return? Do we re-enchant our environment when we return to the point zero?
For the 18 Days version, we took the Mahabharata’s descriptions of vimanas and astras very literally as accounts of ancient advanced technology and created a vision of the battle at Kurukshetra which combines traditional images of the Mahabharata with a kind of Vedic sci-fi approach which adds a new freshness and modernity to the story. This version is less about trying to create a historically-accurate representation of conflict in ancient India and more about emphasising a timeless, universal and mythic vision that has as much to say about the world we live in today as it does about the past. The transmission of the Bhagavad Gita at the heart of the story opens the way for a metaphorical spiritual understanding of the conflict as the war between desire and duty, the material and the spiritual, that is fought every day by every human being.
The Gita, with its direct, no-nonsense guide to living in the odd universe we all share, is at the very heart of the story, in the sense that everything else revolves around that moment when Krishna lays it on the line for Arjuna.
I like this painting by Kathy Park as it presents soulmates as two distinct entities, who by either design, luck, or providence ended up growing harmoniously together, with the spaces between being as important as where their roots and branches intertwine.
Here is a favorite artist of mine. She expresses sensuality, female beauty, and eroticism through Expressionism combined with Conceptual art. Born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa, she now lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
She also has a cool show called “Measuring Your Own Grave,” which you can see here:
