Back to top
7.
Amazing Rayday Secret Comic #1-4 (Brighton, Sussex: Future City Press, c. 1964-June 1966).
Offset lithographed broadsheets printed in black. Each 45.8x35.5cm. First issue SIGNED by the artist; first two issues with original colour applied manually, and publisher’s address stamps; second issue with printed Future City Press subscription slip stapled to lower left corner; all issues with price stamp.
A multidisciplinary artist who resisted categorisation, Keen collaborated with Jeff Nuttall, Bob Cobbing, Annea Lockwood and others at Better Books, participated in ‘Bomb Culture’ events and ‘happenings’ in the shop’s basement, and, following a series of film screenings shown at the bookshop, co-founded the London Film-Makers Co-op in 1966.
In the third issue (September 1965), subtitled “Words & Action”, shorthand for the publication’s profusion of typewritten texts and pop culture imagery, Keen references both William Burroughs and Alfred Jarry, two writers given prominence at Better Books by manager Barry Miles. In the first he creates his own cut-up mini-manifesto: “anyone can do it cut up anything says mr wm burroughs & remember old dadamen cut up world HAVE YOU GOT THE NERVE cut up melt down respray old art & life factors”; while his inclusion of a photograph of Jarry may have coincided with Methuen’s publication of the author’s “Selected Works”, an event that Better Books celebrated with a reading and an elaborate window display.
The title “Amazing Rayday” first appeared in a 1962 collage (its dominant image of a female sci-fi superhero reappears in the first issue), preceded by “Atomic Rayday” from the same year. Keen printed a fifth issue of Amazing Rayday in 1966, though it seems few, if any, were actually distributed.
Five old, faint horizontal creases to first two issues, and two to the third issue; old vertical and horizontal mailing creases to fourth issue, with related staple holes to lower left margin; slightly edgeworn, and with faint tape marks from previously affixed address label to verso, along with Future City Press stamp, ‘Printed Matter’ written out in black biro, and a franked postage stamp dated ‘Brighton & Hove, 12 July 1966’. Overall, a Very Good run of four issues, rarely found together.
Provenance: Nathaniel Tarn.