The Lost Art of Ah Pook Is Here: Images from the Graphic Novel

Malcolm McNeill created nearly a hundred paintings, illustrations, and sketches for Beat writer William S. Burroughs proto-graphic novel, a book-length meditation on time, power, control, and corruption that evoked the Mayan codices and specifically, the Mayan god of death, Ah Pook. These, finally, are seeing the light of day in The Lost Art of Ah Pook. (Burroughs’ text will not be included). McNeill is an exemplary craftsman and visionary painter whose images have languished for over 30 years, unseen. Even in a context divorced from the words, they represent a stunning precursor to the graphic novel form to come. Sara J. Van Ness contributes an historical essay chronicling the long history of Burroughs’ and McNeill’s work together, including its incomplete publishing history with Rolling Stone’s Straight Arrow Press, the excerpt that ran in Rush magazine, and the text that was published without pictures.