{"id":1711,"date":"2009-03-12T14:45:35","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T21:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2009\/03\/taking_a_cue_from_hart_and_poo\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T23:14:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T03:14:42","slug":"taking_a_cue_from_hart_and_poo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2009\/03\/taking_a_cue_from_hart_and_poo.html","title":{"rendered":"Cue ‘Ah POOK,’ ‘THE UNSPEAKABLE MR HART’"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/span>“Watchmen,”<\/a> the movie, caused a stir at the box office when its opening weekend nabbed $55 million, the highest opening gross of the year and third-highest March opening ever<\/a>.
\nIt’s a shame that none of the money will trickle down to the artist Malcolm Mc Neill, whose image<\/a> of the Mayan Death God (right) in an unheralded collaboration with William S. Burroughs served as a pictorial template<\/a> for the “Watchman”‘s godlike character Dr. Manhattan (below).
\nAlan Moore<\/a>, who wrote the screenplay, has acknowledged that Burroughs’ work with Mc Neill was “one of his main influences during the conception” of his Watchmen superhero comic book series<\/a>, the basis for the movie.
\n<\/a><\/span>Moore has said he admired the use of “repeated symbols that would become laden with meaning” in “THE UNSPEAKABLE MR HART,”<\/a> a comic strip that Mc Neill drew and Burroughs wrote before they undertook Ah POOK IS HERE<\/a>.
\nMeanwhile, the Italians are interested<\/a> in Mc Neill’s work with Burroughs, especially the MR HART series. Have a look at another HART strip<\/a>, and another<\/a>. The strips were published in the British underground comics magazine Cyclops, in 1970.
\nPerhaps that will generate interest in Mc Neill’s memoir about Burroughs and their relationship, Observed While Falling<\/a>, which remains unpublished.
\nIn any case, his recent show in New York<\/a>, featuring his artwork for “Ah POOK IS HERE,”<\/a> has moved on to California, where it opens in Santa Monica at Track 16<\/a> on April 4. See the invitation<\/a> and read the details.<\/a>
\nPostscript:<\/strong> March 16 — Just to follow up, ticket sales for “Watchmen” this past weekend dropped off a cliff. The gross came to an estimated $18 million<\/a>, down 67 percent from the opening. Since the flick cost $150 million, there’s a good chance<\/a> it will end up in the red. But talking Hollywood numbers like these, whether profits or losses, can’t help distorting one’s grasp of reality. So I’ll stop now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Watchmen,” the movie, caused a stir at the box office when its opening weekend nabbed $55 million, the highest opening gross of the year and third-highest March opening ever. It’s a shame that none of the money will trickle down to the artist Malcolm Mc Neill, whose image of the Mayan Death God (right) in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,26,18,4,20,21,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-art","7":"category-books","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-media","11":"category-movies","12":"category-news","13":"category-political-culture","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-rB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66930,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1711\/revisions\/66930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}