2099AD – The Illustrated Ape

Travel with me to 2099AD, deep arse space, a place of over edited fiction, where Planet Prada, Comet CHANEL, Land of Louis Vuitton and all manner of planets preferable to earth leave a few rebels behind… X

This voyage of discovery is yours for a fiver from SOLID distributors of the creative visual word form – also included in this once in a lifetime offer: moonshine recipes, and a dystopia survival kit (a beermat soaked with poetry).

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Established in 1998, The Illustrated Ape features 100% original creative fiction, pictures, poetry, pop – and never, ever reviews! It has won popular acclaim, most notably the Creative Review ‘Best In Book’ award for design, and was one of only five British magazines selected for the Jam Anglo-Japanese exhibition. It is widely regarded as the most exciting and influential creative, illustration, graffiti, and writing magazine to come out of the British urban underground, and is a primary resource for anyone seeing insights into popular culture.

Jamie Reid – the design king of punk, Julie Verhoeven – described in Taschen’s modern design bible, Illustration Now as one of the world’s top designer/illustrators, Paul Davis – award winning illustrator, John Lennon (previously unpublished work), David Hockney (previously unpublished work), Michael English, Martin Sharp – sixties design icon, Felix Dennis – OZ and MAXIM magazine founder and poet, David Sims – fashion photographer, Ryuichi Sakamoto – composer and film-star, Junko Mizuno (HELL BABIES) – manga artist and author, Jason Atomic – illustrator, Honey Manko – alt-diva, Heather Jones – songwriter and HOLE founding member, James Berry – poet, Michael Horowitz – poet, Tim Wells – poet, Cheryl B – New York feminist poet, and hundreds more acclaimed heroes of the pen and pencil.

Your house is my acid house: flyers 💊❤️✌️

A myth about graphic designers is that they’re sticklers of aesthetics and masters of finding the ultimate font, aren’t they?

They know how to rock a retentive margin. And their pencils are always needle sharp, and in a nicely OCD-straight line. Most def a tonne more file-conscious and organised than the paint-brush wielding crazies who took the less financially instantaneous pathway at art college – under the belief they were secret Hirsts, but better. It’s an old fashioned belief that fine artists hold the higher ground of insanity. It’s a pre-pop assumption that they refuse to sell out to capitalist normality and they have ‘chosen’ to live in their mother’s shed with a Dan Flavin light, making shit video installations about mice being their best friends from the city they have been rejected from, or they’ll solve world peace by forming sculptures out of coffee grinds in the shape of Africa.

Yeah – I came to this realisation when putting together this catalogue for a show about acid house flyers. Although the curator, Ernesto Leal had done the groundwork, tracking down these heroes of rave art, a collection of the first rave wave of designs, it took ’some time’ to co-ordinate the facts of this posteriturial research (posterity/curatorial – yes, basically a timeline) – these designers were rock n roll…

*Ease on by…*

– under the echoes of the utterances of acid house, always said between gurns and rushes upon rave fields of yore – Where are you from? What are you on? (obviously my answer would always be that I was from the school bus and I was on my way home) – we EVENTUALLY agreed on the dates and places and facts of these MDMA artifacts.

One love.

[please click the blue Issuu link below if the artwork doesn’t show in your browser]

issuu.com/ourhistory/docs/poster-back-5?e=0/7567862

Creative direction for the poster was by Wilhelm Finger at Double Decker – – always a dream to work with.

ILLUSTRATED APE

The Sex Pistols’ gfx guy, Jamie Reid, fash illustrator, Julie Verhoeven,  musical visionary, Ryuichi Sakamoto – and double-bubble-popping-yay-yay-yay, KIRSTY ALLISON … all published by iconoclastic design and culture bible, The Illustrated Ape.  Niiiice.

Deeeelited to be included in the Torchsongs & Firehoses edition of the ever-inspiring, trend-jutting, The Illustrated Ape.  Est. 1998, it has come in all formats, this one is proper lo-fi comic-style by Jason Atomic & Honey Manko.

Here’s a picture at the launch (by Honey Manko).  Buy it here (or rather exceptional outlets), or read more about it here…