{psychedelia} – Page 63 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 22

Planet of the Apes Magazine #15 (1975), art by Bob Larkin.

I never read any of Marvel Comics’ Planet of the Apes titles but the painted covers of the American editions are evidence of a distinctly lurid imagination. An excess of drugs—this was the Seventies, after all—or mere enthusiasm? You decide. Related: “The Soft Intelligence”: 5 Underrated Literary Cephalopods by China Miéville. Kudos to him for mentioning The Sea Raiders (1896) by HG Wells, a favourite story of mine when I was 12.

My ever-lovin’ octopussy (1970) by Jackie Black.

• A Journey Round My Skull chooses selections from Ang Wyman’s flickr group Eye Candy (above), psychedelic illustration for children’s books by Nicole Claveloux, Peter Max, Heinz Edelmann and others.

• Watch out, there are “fancy gentlemen” about. It’s The Homosexual Menace!

• Design in opposition: Neville Brody announces the Anti-Design Festival.

• The Almias Rural Psychogeography Walk takes place on July 25th.

• Steven Heller on The Incredible Posters of Tadanori Yokoo.

• Hipster Priest: Alan Moore interviewed at The Stool Pigeon.

• FACT mix 167, a great selection by These New Puritans.

• The Orion Galaxy is a beautiful bespoke synthesizer.

• A radio portrait of Moondog at Speechification.

• RIP: Sugar Minott. RIP Tuli Kupferberg.

• Introducing Wizard’s Tower Press.

• Octopus (1970) by Syd Barrett.

Dodgem Logic again

Look what the postman delivered. Well, not the peacock feather and candle, obviously… Dodgem Logic #4 is now in print and my cover design looks as splendid as I hoped, gold ink included. The bonus item for this delirious issue is the rather wonderful poster you see in the background, a Joe Brown & Alan Moore collaboration entitled Bohemia which features a burgeoning growth of Bohemians through the ages, from Sappho through to more contemporary cultural icons. Inside there’s Dick Foreman discussing psychedelia, comics from Steve Aylett, Barney Farmer, Lee Healey, Kevin O’Neill and Savage Pencil, Melinda Gebbie’s gorgeous paintings, Debbie Delano on how to be an openly gay school teacher, Steve Moore asking for no more war, and Mister Alan Moore giving us his personal history of science fiction. You can order it online here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Dodgem Logic #4
• Dodgem Logic

Dodgem Logic #4

The magazine isn’t out for another couple of weeks but my cover art has been posted to various websites so I can finally show this here. Alan Moore was in touch at the beginning of February asking for a wraparound cover design, the only brief being that he liked my Alice in Wonderland calendar and asked for something equally florid or—for want of a better term—psychedelic. Alan’s magazine owes something to the underground mags of the 1960s and a common feature of those, especially Oz magazine, was a degree of provocation in the choice of cover art. A picture of two boys kissing is nothing more than a show of affection yet to many people the sight still inspires enormous outrage. This was demonstrated a week or so after I’d finished the cover when the Washington Post was deluged by angry letters and emails after they showed a photo of two newly-weds outside the Washington DC Superior Court. People used to have a similar reaction to the sight of a black man kissing a white woman; the only way attitudes change is when something becomes so commonplace it’s no longer worthy of note.

Aside from the politics, this was also an excuse to run riot with more Art Nouveau motifs, especially peacocks and butterflies. The butterfly-winged boys are a nod to the paintings of Yannis Tsarouchis, and this in turn gave me an excuse to borrow from another magazine cover, Frank X Leyendecker’s 1922 painting of The Flapper for Life. Frank X was the brother of the more renowned illustrator JC Leyendecker. Joseph C was known to have been discreetly homosexual; so too was brother Frank according to this article in which case his butterfly woman has an additional resonance.

Having written a lengthy polemic about Roger Dean’s work in January I had the idea of doing the magazine title in his lettering style. I spent the best part of two days working on these as I wanted the result to be as accurate as possible. All the gold parts of the cover shown here are gradients but I made a slightly different version for print which will render those areas in gold ink. I’m looking forward to seeing this printed.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Roger Dean: artist and designer
• The art of Yannis Tsarouchis, 1910–1989
• Dodgem Logic
• Psychedelic Wonderland: the 2010 calendar
• Butterfly women

Weekend links 17

Aladdin Sane (1973). Cover photo by Brian Duffy who died this week.

• Among the obituaries this week: artist Louise Bourgeois; poet and partner of Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky; film director Joseph Strick, a man who dared to film James Joyce’s Ulysses; photographer Brian Duffy.

• The dustbin of art history: “Why is so much contemporary art awful? We’re living through the death throes of the modernist project—and this isn’t the first time that greatness has collapsed into decadence.” Admirable sentiments but galleries and dealers have far too much invested in the corrupt edifice to let it collapse any time soon.

• Edinburgh film festival to screen ‘lost and forgotten’ British movies including the director’s cut of Jerry Cornelius film The Final Programme.

Delectable Bawdville burlesque boy Chris “Go-Go” Harder. Via EVB who have more pics.

• Homobody by Rio Safari, “a scrappy diy zine about queerness”. Obliquely related: Lizzy the Lezzie, animations at the Sundance Channel.

• Richard Norris aka Time and Space Machine puts together a psychedelic mixtape for FACT. Fab stuff.

• Diamanda Galás has a message for critics: “Stick to reviewing plant life and leave the Witches alone.”

• Brion Gysin: Dream Machine will be the first US survey of Gysin’s work in NYC next month.

• Geeta Dayal’s study of Another Green World by Brian Eno reviewed at Ballardian.

• For type-heads: font anatomy wallpaper by Sigurdur Armannsson.

• If it was my home: visualising the BP oil disaster.

• Antony Gormley’s Breathing Room III.

• The Paris Review has a new blog.

• Bizarre juxtaposition of the week: John Martyn’s sublime Small Hours with, er… The Clangers.

Lynn Redgrave, 1943–2010

Lynn Redgrave did a lot more than just Georgy Girl (1966) and Smashing Time (1967), of course, but the latter especially made an indelible impression on me when it turned up on TV in the early 1970s. George Melly’s smart and funny poke at the pretensions of Swinging London has a satirical edge which meant nothing to a nine-year-old, I just loved the exaggerated modishness, the Richard Lester-style wacky direction and especially Lynn and Rita, two girls from “up north” who I’d have loved to have as older sisters. I haven’t seen Smashing Time for years, it was one of those films which was so much of its time that it seemed to vanish from TV schedules and was never available in video form. I see there was a DVD release in the US although that’s now been deleted. Happily YouTube is more reliable, so here’s Rita and the splendidly camp Murray Melvin (both of whom were in A Taste of Honey) in the ‘Too Much’ boutique, and Lynn recording I’m So Young, the song which makes her a pop star. Austin Powers is a fake, baby, this is the real thing.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Through the Wonderwall