Fantagraphics Books has acquired William S. Burroughs’ lost graphic novel, Ah Pook Is Here, with publication set for summer 2011. Burroughs wrote the script, but British cartoonist and painter Malcolm McNeill illustrated the book.
The seed for the manuscript began when Burroughs and McNeill published The Unspeakable Mr. Hart as a monthly comic strip (pictured) for the British magazine, Cyclops. After the magazine dissolved, the two created a “Word/Image novel” that was completed in the 1970s. The duo gave up on novel after numerous rejections from publishers. Now, it will be produced as a two-volume, hinged set and include McNeill’s memoir, Observed While Falling.
The publisher gives a quick plot summary: “John Stanley Hart is the ‘Ugly American’ or ‘Instrument of Control’ — a billionaire newspaper tycoon obsessed with discovering the means for achieving immortality. Based on the formulae contained in rediscovered Mayan books he attempts to create a Media Control Machine using the images of Fear and Death. By increasing Control, however, he devalues time and invokes an implacable enemy: Ah Pook, the Mayan Death God. Young mutant heroes using the same Mayan formulae travel through time bringing biologic plagues from the remote past to destroy Hart and his Judeo/Christian temporal reality.” (Via Flavorpill)