C.B. Murphy  .:. Art

The year was 1979. The place, Chicago. The environment, well, let’s say it was highly influenced by Laurie Anderson, the fall of the Shah, Three Mile Island, Jimmy Carter attacked by a swamp rabbit, the Unabomber, the dominance of disco music, the Soviets invade Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis, and the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” coming in at number five song for the year. Go figure (it all out).C. B. Murphy at the time was in his “industrial metal salesman by day, mad cartoonist at night” phase. He started his cartoon series in the Chicago Reader, beginning with the breakthrough “Zombie Toll Booth Collector” and the prophetic “The Difference Between a Punk and a Dork.”

Where were we? Ah, yes. Artist’s books (aka artists’ books, artists books, and artist books) is a sub-genre of the art world, related to but significantly different from graphic novels (ie. expensive comic books, no offense intended). Artist’s books were viewed by some (including C.B.) as an interesting way to get “the work” (aka The Work if you’re in the Black Mountain lineage) “out there.” Out There was as vague concept as concept then as now, though at base it still means out of one’s studio, atelier, and/or basement (excluding xmas gifts). Obviously the whole online “see me in my studio” YouTube thing complicates matters further, but I digress.

Mr. C.B. Murphy started his Zoographico Press in 1979 with the first volume, the prophetic “January is Alien Registration Month.” I say prophetic because in 1979 very few people were wondering whether we should build a fence across Texas. It just wasn’t that big a deal, hence it was funnier. Zoographico Press put out three titles. After “January” we put out “Nuclear Pup” followed by the prophetic “The Second Mongolian Invasion.” Nuclear Pup (remember this was pre-Adult Swim cartoons on Cartoon Network!) was a irradiated harlequin great dane, anthropomorphized, though presented in “one panel” images as opposed to a straight narrative more common in graphic novels. “January” was selected for inclusion in Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s permanent artist’s books collection.

The target audience was a bit vague, one who saw it as children was frightened by its apocalyptic nature, others merely used it as a coloring book. And you know who you are, Kelly!The third book in the trilogy, “The Second Mongolian Invasion” was a kind of meditation on the intersection of science fiction, chakra metaphysics, tattoos, not to forget Wormo-vision, and communicating with the spirit world via ectoplasmic emission. For more information on the cultural milieu see Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Fast forward. My nephews (whose identities I will protect, but you know who you are!) informed me that two of the three titles were available as used books on Amazon. I modestly assumed they’d be in the incomprehensible $.01 category (I assume they make money on the shipping allowance) but I was pleased to see that there was one copy of January for sale at the collector price of $150.

I’m in the process of getting the third book, Mongolian, listed. Soon to be available to serious collectors!