''Ah Pook Is Here'' was a collaboration between author

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

and artist Malcolm Mc Neill. It began in 1970, when Burroughs was living in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and Mc Neill was in his final year of art school. It first appeared under the title ''The Unspeakable Mr. Hart'' as a

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

in the English ''

Cyclops In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; el, Κύκλωπες, ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguish ...

''. When that magazine ceased publication, Burroughs and Mc Neill decided to develop the concept as a book. After a year of research and preliminary design the text of the book had expanded from 11 pages to 50, and a complete mockup had been produced. By this point, the work had been renamed ''

Ah Puch Cizin is a Mayan god of death and earthquakes. He is the most important Maya death god in the Mayan culture. Scholars call him God A. To the Yucatán Mayas he was Hun-Came and Vucub-Came. He also has similarities to Mictlāntēcutli. Name an ...

Is Here'' in reference to the

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

n Death God.

Straight Arrow Books Straight Arrow Press (Straight Arrow Publishing Co., Inc.) was a publishing company that published the periodical ''Rolling Stone''. They operated a book publishing division in the 1970s in San Francisco, which published authors such as Oscar Z ...

in San Francisco agreed to publish the proposed work in 1971 as a "Word/Image novel" which was to comprise 120 pages, some of integrated text and image, some of text alone and some which featured only pictures. In 1973, Mc Neill moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

from London to finish the project. However, the small

advance Advance commonly refers to: *Advance, an offensive push in sports, games, thoughts, military combat, or sexual or romantic pursuits *Advance payment for goods or services *Advance against royalties, a payment to be offset against future royalty pa ...

offered by the publisher made any more than a few months of working full-time on the project impossible, and when Straight Arrow closed in 1974 the book was without a publisher. Nevertheless, Mc Neill moved to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in 1975 to rejoin Burroughs and continue the work. They were unable to find another publisher and after seven years on and off, the project was finally abandoned. It was subsequently published in 1979 (by John Calder and Viking Penguin) in text form only under the original title of ''Ah Pook Is Here.'' After 30 years the original visual works were resurrected and restored by Mc Neill for a West Coast showing at

Track 16 Gallery Track 16 is a contemporary art gallery in the fashion district neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, exhibiting the work of contemporary artists. History Track 16, founded by Tom Patchett, co-founded the gallery hub Bergamot Station in 1994. ...

in Santa Monica, CA, April 4th to May 2nd, 2009 and a December 2008 showing in New York at Saloman Arts Gallery. Burroughs reads from ''Ah Pook Is Here'' on his 1990 recording ''

Dead City Radio ''Dead City Radio'' is a musical album by Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs, which was released by Island Records in 1990. It was dedicated to Keith Haring. The CD is a collection of readings by Burroughs set to a broad range of musica ...

''; this recording, in turn, formed the soundtrack to the animated short '' Ah Pook Is Here'' directed by Philip Hunt and featured music by

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...

External links

Imagery from ''Ah Pook Is Here''Malcolm McNeill's official website
and London 1970s Art Scene, 2007
The 2009 Los Angeles show at Track 16 Gallery"Falling into Place": Essay about the Mc Neill - Burroughs collaboration
1979 graphic novels 1979 comics debuts Books by William S. Burroughs Works originally published in Cyclops (magazine) Calder Publishing books {{comic-strip-stub