More Psychedelic posters from the web

1971 Images for Learning (Science Research Associates Inc.)
More images saved from various trawls around the web, above: Images for Learning (Science Research Associates Inc.) 1971, found on eBay.

Zen Benefit poster 1967-topaz-text-shapes-4x
From Andrew Sclanders’ Beat Books list: A large postcard with designs by Gompers Saijo publicising the benefit held for the Zen Mountain Center at the Fillmore, San Francisco, March 15, 1967. 
22.5×14.7cm.

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Apple Boutique ‘Upon Our Way’ poster by The Fool, 39.5cm x 57cm, 1967/68.

Pink Floyd 1967 repro
Upscaled repro Pink Floyd poster, 1967.

Hoppy IT graphic
International Times graphic, 1968. Thanks to Neil Rice for pointing this out. From Hoppyx.com

RIP Mark Pawson

Mark Pawson Groovy Record Fayre 2021
Very sad to hear of the passing of Mark Pawson today. A unique figure on the counter cultural art and publishing scene who I would regularly see at zine fairs and the like. His was always the most interesting stall with the most bizarre underground books and comics from all over the world. I’d end up buying some beautifully screen printed French comics from him, the likes of which you’d never see anywhere else and would never see again if you didn’t buy them there and then.

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I first got to know Mark in the early 90s when he was around on the scene when I worked at Ambient Soho, he was the badge man who would make all sorts of badges for the shop, and our Telepathic Fish parties. I still have a load of badges he made using my Openmind logo and was going to get him to make more this summer for the release of a record. He’d sell artbooks and badges he made of his own work using photocopiers and also made badges featuring Negativland and Bob Dobbs.

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His classic ‘Mark’s Little Book of Kinder Eggs’ and book of plug wirings were always in print and I think the ‘Assume This Phone Is Tapped’ sticker was also one of his. There are phrases I’ll always associate with his work like ‘Aggressive School of Cultural Workers’, ‘Demolish Serious Culture’, ‘Book Shops Not Bombs’ and ‘N©’. He belonged to the anti-establishment DIY scene who used whatever they could to make art, was involved in The Exploding Cinema early on as well as the international mail art scene. It’s shocking to know he’s gone, a truly one of a kind figure. I’m sad I won’t bump into him at the fairs any more. RIP Mark

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Posted in Art, Books, Design, Oddities. | 6 Comments | Tags:

Mick Jones’ Rock’n’Roll Public Library

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I visited Mick JonesRRPL exhibition at the Farsight Gallery on Friday courtesy of Stephen Coates (seen above at the magazine kiosk inside the venue). For anyone who doesn’t know, Mick is a collector, an understatement when you realise that the amount of ephemera, memorabilia and esoteria on display is possibly only 5% of his archive. Although I can’t claim to be a huge Clash or B.A.D. fan there’s no denying that the collection on display is impressive and wide-ranging. From toys, games, comics, magazines, records, tapes, clothes to art, posters, projection equipment, videos, music gear and pop culture artifacts, it seems there is very little that Mick doesn’t collect.

Ft2 cover
Ft2 label
Primarily of interest to me were his pieces of hip hop ephemera including several by Futura from the early 80s when he and Mick wrote ‘The Escapes of Futura 2000’ with The Clash as backing band. Inside one of the glass cabinets I noticed Futura’s handwritten lyrics to the song, beautifully enscribed in his recognisable style. In another was a customised boombox with drawings by Dondi and Zephyr, a Rammellzee flyer and Beastie Boys tour pass – what a time to be in New York!

Futura lyrics
Futura boombox
Dondi
zephyr
Clash canvas
Of course there is loads of Clash-related memorabilia too, from equipment to tapes, toys to merchandise, press coverage to what appears to be a Futura-sprayed canvas.

T shirt 2
T shirt 1
mickey model
Clash toys
Clash case
Punk fanzine
Fanzines were a huge part of the punk movement and there are plenty here although most have been photocopied and pasted up as wallpaper at various points to aid ease of display.

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Ted vs Punks
flintstones
Forbidden planet
There are also a number of huge colour-themed collages of all manner of ephemera, an ingenious way to display many of the items that were found without an obvious home.

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And it goes on and on… there’s even the first in a projected series of magazines devoted to highlights from the collection on sale inside. I highly recommend you try and visit if you’re in the centre of London with an hour or two to spare. It’s free, open daily from midday – 7pm and the gallery is at the end of Denmark St. tucked round the corner by St. Giles church, nearest tube, Tottenham Court Road. Be quick though as it’s only on until March 16th – more info here www.rocknrollpl.com and on Instagram @rocknrollpl

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projectors
electric guitar
dread
Ampro
badges

Big Numbers #3 original art

Columbia, Al -BigNumbers print

This post was started back in 2022, during lockdown when we had more time on our hands, and it sat unfinished for various reasons until now.

I’ve become a bit obsessed by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz‘s unfinished Big Numbers of late – the projected twelve issue comic stalled at issue 2 when Sienkiewicz left the project due to the workload he’d imposed on himself. Young understudy Al Columbia was asked to continue for issue 4 and, depending on which version of events you believe, he either didn’t finish it, had a nervous breakdown or destroyed the work he did do. One of the only things to officially emerge was the print above, published by Mad Love/Tundra before his scheduled debut on the book.

BN3 pg3 painted
Issue 3 did actually get finished and surfaced some years back in the form of a photocopy of the lettered pages that was found on eBay and then uploaded to the web. The line work is devoid of most of the texture you’d associate with Sienkiewicz’s work but ten unlettered pages were also printed in a fanzine, presumably taken from the original art. Over the years original pages have surfaced on places like Comic Art Fans where you can see the painterly tones he was going for far better – see above and below.

BN 3 pg14
As with so many things on the web, a lot of the images are low quality and small in size but now we can rectify this. I’ve recently been playing with Topaz’s Gigapixel AI app which gives incredible results when upscaling digital images. Using this on low res scans gives the work a whole new clarity and fuzzy details come into focus like never before. I’ve managed to put together a readable cbz edition of issue 3, including the 40 pg photocopy version, 17 painted or toned pages, only minus the back cover and end papers. Back cover artwork exists for issues 4 and 6 and the cover for issue 6 was sold at Heritage Auctions some years back. I doubt we’ll ever see the finished book sadly as Moore isn’t interested.

Big Numbers website image
The nearest we may come is in the form of a website by James Harvey. This appeared in June 2020, outlining each of the 12 issues, each character and what happened to them in each issue, based on original plot notes and interview transcriptions with Alan Moore. A projected TV series that never happened also fills in some of the gaps as an extract of a 280 page interview transcript that the producers had with Moore is published in the side bar. It’s a mind-boggling collection and gives a glimpse at what could have been, put aside an afternoon to go through it. Also check out James’ own comic work as he’s an excellent artist, recently completing Pete Townsend‘s legendary Lifehouse project in comic form with David Hine.

Big Number website

Psychedelic Crunchie Bomb poster offer, 1969

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A rare set of four “Crunchie Bomb” posters commissioned in 1969 by Frys Chocolate, measuring 20×15 inches. Two designed by graphic artist and Professor of Illustration at the RCA, Dan Fern, two by renowned designer Chris McEwan. They were available in exchange for 3 Crunchie wrappers – see the last photo of the original advert.

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Crunchie 5
Crunchie 6
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Seems like Crunchie were really trying to tap into the youth market in the late sixties, check out this reworking of the Beach Boys‘ ‘Good Vibrations’ TV ad, complete with zany visual effects.

Steve Harradine posters and original art

Damo Suzuki Steve Harradine
The other day I ran across an eBay seller offering a whole load of Steve Harradine posters and originals. The name was new to me but this UK ex-pat now living in America has shades of Martin Sharp‘s poster genius in some of his work and appears to only have a sparse website. His subject matter seems to mainly be rock music from the 60s through to the 80s but with some contemporary bands too, drawn in pencil or biro and very much in the maximalist psychedelic style of old. All images here are cleaned up from the ebay account linked above.
Below: The original for a Dylan poster from 2001 and an unfinished version from 2002

Dylan original 2001 Steve Harradine 2002
Bob Dylan unfinished 2002
PF Steve Harradine 2005
Above: A reimaging of a 60s Pink Floyd poster from 2005 and
Below: a Paul McCartney print from 2015, Harradine has done the other three Beatles too.

PMC Steve Harradine 2015
Below: A Sky Saxon poster from 2005 with art resued from a withdrawn Widespread Panic poster design from 2002 by Harradine.
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Widespread Panic Steve Harradine
This fabulous Bowie poster is upscaled from the only tiny image on the web I can find.

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More King Gizzard posters by Jason Galea

KG Inglewood
More killer examples of Jason Galea‘s poster work for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard who seem to eternally be on tour this year. Through the magic of apps like Procreate we can see one minute timelapses of how these posters were created, films of which Jason posted on his Instagram the day after I started on this entry.

KG Inglewood 3
KG Inglewood 2


KG San Diego 2
KG San Diego

His poster art book just arrived too – ten years of flyer and poster work!

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posters 4
posters 3
posters 2
posters 1

Freak in, Freak Out, Freak Off in the LA Free Press

1966-07-08 LA Free Press v3n27i103 01
Newly discovered ads featuring Zappa and The Mothers of Invention from the LA Free Press. Some, if not all of these, were designed by Zappa in his spindly lettered, collage style. I’ve featured some of these before but they are generally better quality and some crazy person has gone through all the magazines at the link above, scanning the Zappa/Mothers appearances.

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1966-10-21 LA Free Press v3n42i118 08
1966-10-14 LA Free Press v3n41i117 14
1966-10-07 LA Free Press v3n40i116 11

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1966-09-23 Los Angeles Free Press v3n38 03-topaz-text-shapes-2x-faceai v1

Fanzine covers

Blast 4 SavX
I’ve just finished Matthew Worley‘s excellent Zerox Machine book about UK fanzines from punk into the late 80’s. It’s opened up a hidden world and had me going down several rabbit holes online.

Above – Irish fanzine Blast #4 with a Savage Pencil cover, below the three covers of Juniper Beri Beri, a Scottish fanzine by Annabel, Peter McArthur, Jill Bryson and Stephen from The Pastels.

Juniper Beri Beri 1
Juniper Beri Beri 2
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Hand-painted cover of Jungleland #9 – produced by Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Jungleland #9
A collage page from Adventures In Reality – issue G by Alan Rider

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An Ian Wright illustration for 80s magazine The Catalogue

The Catalogue Ian Swift

Posted in Art, Design, Magazines, Music. | No Comments | Tags:

Poster finds from the web

1968 poster for the Robert Markham AKA Kingsley Amis novel 'Colonel Sun'.
1968 poster for the Robert Markham aka Kingsley Amis’ novel ‘Colonel Sun’

1969. Art by Kim Whitesides.
Worlds Fair for Youth poster, 1969, art by Kim Whitesides

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Poster for Raymond Bertrand‘s Studio 69 book – image also used on the cover of Suck magazine issue #1.

LSD poster
LSD poster, 1969, artist unknown – originally from Acid covers

Nam June Paik poster
Nam June Paik exhibition poster, 1965

Martin Sharp - Art For Mart's Sake invite 1966
Martin Sharp – Art For Mart’s Sake gallery show invite, 1966 (upscaled)

Retinal Circus 1968
The Velvet Underground at the Retinal Circus poster, 1968.

Posted in Art, Design, Poster / flyer. | No Comments | Tags:

Jason Galea appreciation post

KG Lungs
Gotta give it up for Jason Galea – just churning out work for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard constantly. Record sleeves, videos, merch and posters like these, almost for every gig they do. Results vary of course but here’s the pick of the bunch from about the last year.

KG New York 1
KG New York 2
KG Toys
KG Wizard
KG Butterflies
KG Boston
KG Chicago
KG Cleveland
KG Detroit
KG Newport
KG Toronto
He’s also put together a book of all his work, due out this Winter with over a decade’s worth of designs and other material. You can order it here.

Jason G Book
Jason G book spreads
Jason G book cover

More illustrated book and magazine covers found on the web

1968 Original “Buck Danny” Pop-Art_Psychedelic Poster From “Spirou” Magazine
Beautiful poster by Victor Hubinon from Spirou magazine in 1968

Bryan Talbot
A Bryan Talbot cover for Zig Zag in 1976

Ian Wright cover_
Ian Wright does the Damned for Zig Zag in 1981

ZigZag Stones
Unknown artist for another Zig Zag cover of the Stones from 1977

Andy Dog Record Mirror-topaz-low resolution-2x
One of Andy DOG Johnson’s first commissions – think I’ve shown this before but this is possibly better quality – Kraftwerk for Record Mirror in 1978

Sun Dial poster
Savage Pencil covering Sun Dial, this poster was from 1995 I believe

Whole Earth Supplement
Robert Crumb illustrates the Whole Earth Catalog’s Last Supplement – see what he did there?

Posted in Art, Books, Comics, Magazines. | 2 Comments |

Peter Max book covers, puzzles and more

Peter Max Mary Quant
It’s fair to say that Peter Max put his mark all over popular commerce and culture in the 70s. One of the few commercial artists to fully embrace merchandising and recognise that he had a valueable brand, he was arguably better at it than Warhol and had ranges of stationary, puzzles, book, posters and clothing for sale all with his name emblazoned on them at one point. Here’s a selection of stuff I dug up on the web including magazine covers, cookery books, puzzles and a poster for Mary Quant.

Peter Max NYTimes

PM NYCTimes 3

PM NYTimes 2

PM 21st century

PM Dallas voice

PM everygreen

PM puzzle 2

PM puzzle 3

PM puzzle

PM Teen Cuisine

PM Voice

UNKLE + Futura 2000 at the ICA, 2003

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Photos I recently rediscovered on an old disc from the UNKLE/Futura 2000 exhibition at the ICA in London, 2003. This was the artwork that became sleeve material for the Never, Never, Land album and surrounding singles, painted in panels and exhibited alongside various toys and ephemera for a limited time. A unique Futura Bearbrick figure was also produced for the show as well which I still have although I’ve bought and sold numerous FT2 toys over the years including the clear multi figure set and the Pointman action figure seen here.

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More psychedelic poster miscellanea

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(above) Acid Mothers Temple poster for their Holy Black Mountains Detour tour (below) A tribute to Skip Spence poster by Fez Moreno both courtesy of Neil Rice.

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Mike McInnerney prelim poster for the Hoppy documentary screening at the Tabernacle recently (colour to be added)

Hoppy poster B+W
Holy Man Jam Seven Day Venue original handbill by The Family Dog, 1969 – unsure the artist here.

Holy Man Jam
February – March, 1967 at Filmmakers’ Cinematheque, New York – restored from a faded image found on the web, possibly from the Sterling Morrison collection (see Velvet Underground mentioned at the bottom)

February 18, 1967 at Filmmakers' Cinematheque, New York.
Two Exorcism of the Pentagon Anti-Vietnam posters, 1967 – pink mandala designed by Peter Legeria, black and white by Martin Carey – more information on the event here

Excorcise the Pentagon

Ritual Exorsim of the Pentagon poster

David Schiller and Jim Michaelson posters

Dave Schiller Jefferson Airplane 2
There’s not too much info out there about David Schiller, he was American and produced these posters in the late 60s for Sparta Graphics. The company was born from the successful dance concert series that Dave promoted in San Jose in 1966. Fellow student Jim Michaelson submitted the winning poster in Dave’s poster competition and, in the years that followed from 1966-1968, they published 16 posters. Working with San Francisco promoters Bill Graham and Sid Bernstein they created concert posters for The Byrds, The Bee Gees, Buffalo Springfield and Jefferson Airplane among others. Some were printed with metallic inks and some with vivid fluorescent day-glo inks.

Michaelson obviously had a thing for crazy flying contraptions and the poster above was actually painted on wood and photographed with real flowers, it was one of Bill Graham’s favourite posters. It’s not clear whether this influenced Ron Cobb‘s illustration for the cover of the Jefferson Airplane’s ‘After Bathing At Baxter’s’ LP which was released late 1967 but Michaelson’s first gig poster for the band was made in 1966 (see below).
Michaelson passed away in 2019 but his son, Rob, maintains a website in his memory with many other great examples of his work, including posters for Disney https://jameslmichaelson.wixsite.com/artwork/the-60s

Dave Schiller Bee Gees
Dave Schiller Buffalo Springfield
Dave Schiller Monkees
Dave Schiller The Monkees
Dave Schiller the Rascals
Dave Schiller The Young Rascals
Dave Schiller Sunday Afternoon
The posters below are from some of the gigs David put on and, I presume, by the same graphic team.

Dave Schiller Eric Burdon
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Dave Schiller The Byrds
Dave Schiller Jefferson Airplane
Dave Schiller Syndicate of Sound
He also had a fine line in posters for cities and states – there are at least two variants of the New York poster in different colourways and with different mastheads. I’ve also seen these posters printed on linen.

Dave Schiller - California
Dave Schiller New York
Dave Schiller London
Dave Schiller San Francisco
Michaelson also did at least two calendars, variants of the same images for 1968 and 1969.

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Sparta logo

More Moscoso Miscellania

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Victor Moscoso has been posting pictures of his original art on social media recently – seen here alongside other oddities culled from Heritage Auctions‘ site.

Mickey c 1970
(above) Character from the cover of Rip Off Review of Western Culture #2
Psychedelic Mickey 1968
Dance Pinnacle Concert collab with Rick Griffin
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Soldier
An alternate (rough?) Zap Comix no.10 front and back cover – pre-colouring!
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Zap 10 front and back cover

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