SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #512: MICHAEL M
2 hours ago
Friday, 10 September 2010
William S. Burroughs’ Lost Graphic Novel Ah Pook Is Here Gets Exhumed
Naked Lunch author and sci-fi visionary William S. Burroughs only wrote one graphic novel, but it quickly disappeared after bouncing around in the early ’70s. Now the long-lost book, Ah Pook Is Here, has been reborn with the help of indie comics standout Fantagraphics.
Fantagraphics will publish the resuscitated Ah Pook as a two-volume package next summer, no doubt to the delight of Beat-nuts and alt-lit loyalists worldwide.
Burroughs‘ collaboration with artist Malcolm McNeill on Ah Pook was ahead of its time in the late ’60s and early ’70s, back when the phrase “graphic novel” was merely a figment of some marketer’s imagination. Yet the story — about a filthy-rich newspaper tycoon who creates a Media Control Machine fueled by ancient Mayan images to achieve immortality in the midst of a plague-riddled apocalypse — reads like a monstrous offspring of Fox News.
William S. Burroughs mutated psy-fi and sci-fi in novels like Naked Lunch and Nova Express. But did he create, with artist Malcolm McNeill, one of the first graphic novels in Ah Pook Is Here?
Image courtesy Christiaan Tonnis/Wikipedia
Image courtesy Christiaan Tonnis/Wikipedia
Fantagraphics describes the tale like this:
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.
The story originated in the ’70s as a monthly comic strip called The Unspeakable Mr. Hart in English magazine Cyclops. When the mag went belly up, Burroughs and McNeil attempted to develop Ah Pook into a unique book. It was originally designed to be a single painting featuring recombined images and text, packed in 120 serial pages that would unfurl as the narrative took shape. That arty ambition doomed it to a later millennium, where an evolved comics industry could handle the work’s innovation and experimentation.
Ah Pook Is Here was another distillation of the cut-up technique, popularized by Burroughs and Brion Gysin, that anticipated later massive media developments like sampling and mashups. Burroughs died in 1997.
Fantagraphics’ release includes accompanying book Observed While Falling, McNeill’s memoir about his seven-year collaboration with Burroughs, one of America’s most influential authors. Acquired by publisher and editor Gary Groth, Ah Pook Is Here is a feather in Fantagraphics’ already feather-stufffed comics-lit cap.
“Fantagraphics is honored to bring this major work into print and to publish what is quite possibly the last great work from one of America’s most original prose stylists,” Groth said in a press release Thursday. “Burroughs once said that, ‘The purpose of writing is to make it happen.’ We are proud to make Ah Pook Is Here finally happen.”
William S. Burroughs and Malcolm McNeill's graphic novel Ah Pook Is Here arrives summer 2011.
Images courtesy Fantagraphics
Scott Thill @'Underwire'
More Artwork
(PDF)
Images courtesy Fantagraphics
Scott Thill @'Underwire'
(PDF)
Traditional owners focus anger at Woodside
Kimberley traditional owners have come out swinging at Woodside, accusing the company of orchestrating the compulsory acquisition process triggered by Premier Colin Barnett.
Traditional Owner Negotiating Committee co-chair Frank Parriman, who had previously supported the bid to build a gas precinct at James Price Point, 60km north of Broome, said he was now reassessing his position.
"I believe a lot of this stuff was orchestrated by Woodside - my anger is at Woodside more than the Premier," he said. "They want this project and they're prepared to do anything to get it.
"But (Mr Barnett) should have had enough courage to stand up to Woodside and say you do the right thing by Aboriginal people and we'll be right.
"Instead, he's happy to knock down Aboriginal people - and he knows he's going to get public support, because it's easy to knock the old blackfella down.
"He's prepared to take land from us - he's not prepared to stand up to the company."
Woodside has said it is prepared to honour the terms of a $1.5bn benefits package it signed with the State Government and Kimberley Land Council in April last year.
But Mr Parriman said traditional owners, who met in Broome today, were "confused and very angry" about recent developments and it was "not about the money".
"It's about the social impacts, environmental impacts, impact on heritage and culture," he said. "They see this as the State stealing their country and that's what it actually amounts to.
"When we entered these negotiations, we did it on the basis of the benefits for the region and to create opportunity for Aboriginal people throughout the Kimberley.
"This situation threatens that … we don't want to leave anybody behind, we don't want to leave anybody worse off.
"The Jabirr Jabirr people are in a position now where if we walk away from it, nothing is going to change for Aboriginal people - if we stay with it, we don't get what we want."
Kimberley Land Council chief executive Wayne Bergmann called on the Premier to suspend the compulsory acquisition process and return to the negotiating table, warning history had shown when the Kimberley Aboriginal people banded together in a fight, they could "shake the ground".
He said the meeting was to ensure that traditional owners clearly understood their rights and the risks and consequences of proceeding.
"We're giving people advice about what are their rights in terms of objections, so they can make an informed decision about whether they continue to work with the State and Woodside or whether they sit back and oppose the project," he said.
"What fundamentally concerns us about compulsory acquisition is that it places traditional owners under enormous pressure. Ten days of negotiations between now and March would be bad faith on a project that's going to have 50 to 100 years impact on this region. It surely had to be an error … it is just so outrageous.
"This compulsory acquisition could well be the game changer, where Aboriginal people will not participate any further. If traditional owners instruct us to take a position for or against … that's what the KLC would mobilise its resources to do."
Mr Barnett said the decision to commence the compulsory acquisition process was necessary as the Kimberley Land Council and native title claimants had been unable to finalise an Indigenous Land Use Agreement despite three time extensions and $15.6 million in funding.
"The State Government would prefer to sign an ILUA based on consent, and I continue to encourage claimants to resolve the issues within their groups," he said.
A Woodside spokesman said the company accepted the State's rationale for instigating the process.
"Although the compulsory acquisition process has been started, there is still an opportunity for the parties to reach a negotiated outcome without compulsory acquisition running its full course," he said.
He said the support of traditional owners was "very important to Woodside".
"We want to work closely with traditional owners to maintain that support and ensure that the Browse project brings real and lasting benefits to Kimberley Aboriginal people," he said.
Flip Prior @'The West Australian'
Thursday, 9 September 2010
I agree!
iankatz1000 MP Tom Watson says Rupert Murdoch should be called before MP's inquiry into phone-hacking by News of the World News Corp. Is Freaking Out
Burial/Kode9 Mix for final Mary Anne Hobbs show on Radio 1
Burial and Hyperdub mastermind Kode9 collaborated on this mix for Mary Anne Hobbs‘ amazing send off show on BBC Radio 1, which aired earlier this evening. No tracklist yet, but the whole mix emitted a ghostly, warped vibe that felt like listening to a distant pirate radio broadcast. Brilliant and haunting as usual from these two:
Tracklist:
01. Speedy J – Tesla
02. Zomby – Natalia’s Song
03. Brandy – Never Say Never (El-B version 1)
04. Brandy – Never Say Never (El-B version 2)
05. Brandy – Angel (X-Men vocal mix)
06. Laurie Spiegel – Voices Within – A Requiem
07. Alena – Turn It Around (Hard House Bantons Mandy Mix)
08. Cooly G – Him Da Biz
09. Theo Parrish – Soul Control feat. Alena Waters
10. KMFH aka Kyle Hall – Girl U So Strong (Wild Oats)
11. Terror Danjah – S.O.S.
12. Darkstar – 2 Chords
13. Prince – Condition of the Heart
14. Erykah Badu – Telephone
15. Foul Play – Being With U Rmx
16. A Guy called Gerald – Silent Cry
@'Gorilla VS Bear'
01. Speedy J – Tesla
02. Zomby – Natalia’s Song
03. Brandy – Never Say Never (El-B version 1)
04. Brandy – Never Say Never (El-B version 2)
05. Brandy – Angel (X-Men vocal mix)
06. Laurie Spiegel – Voices Within – A Requiem
07. Alena – Turn It Around (Hard House Bantons Mandy Mix)
08. Cooly G – Him Da Biz
09. Theo Parrish – Soul Control feat. Alena Waters
10. KMFH aka Kyle Hall – Girl U So Strong (Wild Oats)
11. Terror Danjah – S.O.S.
12. Darkstar – 2 Chords
13. Prince – Condition of the Heart
14. Erykah Badu – Telephone
15. Foul Play – Being With U Rmx
16. A Guy called Gerald – Silent Cry
@'Gorilla VS Bear'
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