Falling into Place (Part I)

All images © Malcolm Mc Neill unless otherwise indicated (Lost Art of Ah Pook Is Here, 166)

Adrian Hill on Malcolm Mc Neill and William S. Burroughs’s Ah Pook Is Here

The following is a three part exploration of Malcolm Mc Neill and William S. Burroughs’ word-image collaboration during the 1970s. This is the first part, check back next Tuesday for part two.

Ah Pook Is Still Here

On December 22, 2012, I typed an online comment on The Comics Journal website, underneath Rudy Rucker’s review of Malcolm Mc Neill’s The Lost Art of Ah Pook and Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and Me. The two books detail a word-image collaboration that was never completed between Mc Neill, a painter and illustrator, and William S. Burroughs—on a project called Ah Pook is Here. Observed While Falling is a written memoir and The Lost Art of Ah Pook is a visual record of their unfinished project’s progression.

This was my comment:

I just finished reading “Observed While Falling”, and am happy to report that I can’t remember the last time a book fucked me up so much – in the best sense of the expression. I bought a copy after reading this review. Without knowing any more about it, I ended up reading the bulk of the book on Dec. 21…read it and you’ll understand.

I’m imagining someone out there scanning the complete text of Ah Pook is Here and Other Texts as I write this post, in the interests of disseminating a copy freely and widely. Copyright and the Burroughs Estate be damned.

I think Bill would approve.

Burroughs’ writing is at times almost impossible to comprehend without a guide, despite the fact the text of Ah Pook is Here is actually one of Burroughs’ more linear works of fictional prose. By contrast, Mc Neill’s account of his time with Burroughs is also challenging, but, at the same time, succinct, and digestible.

Burroughs’ aesthetic philosophy extends beyond comics, to the relationship between words and pictures in the text, and generally—their contribution to how we perceive the world, and how equally we are limited by those perceptions. What is most remarkable about Burroughs’ insights, and Mc Neill’s ability to describe and render them explicit through his art and descriptions, is that these explorations were conducted over thirty years ago.

I started reading Observed While Falling again. I took notes, transcribing whole passages from the book in an attempt to unearth some deeper understanding of Burroughs’ cosmology, but also to figure out why Mc Neill’s books resonated so strongly with me.

One day,...