Michael J. Weller
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Michael John Weller was born in south London in 1946.
Weller designed USA sleeve for David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World LP (Mercury, 1970), re-released (EMI CD, 1999). As "Captain Stelling" Weller wrote and drew The Firm (cOZmic Comics, 1972) - an early British artist's publication inspired by American underground comic book innovations. In 1973, a page by "Stelling" entitled 'Missile Crisis' was made part of Michel Choquette's comic book The Someday Funnies. He followed "Willie D" (Andrew Marr) as featured cartoonist on Chainsaw punk zine (1980–84).
Michael Weller enjoyed a parallel career in the 1980s and 1990s as political writer, cartoonist, activist of the left, and local community organiser based in Penge, south London. In 2006 he became a signatory to the Euston Manifesto.
As 'M.J.', 'Michael John', 'Mick' and 'Mike' Weller - using identity-playing forenames, nicknames and other noms-de-plume - he has produced artists books, zines and small press publications. Between 1990 and 2010 he was associated with London's poetry scene. Launch of Beat Generation Ballads was documented in video by Voiceworks (2011), becoming the title of a large-scale musical composition for piano by Michael Finnissy premiered at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2014, winning a solo British Composer Award 2015.
Beowulf Cartoon has been on reading display at Poetry Library exhibitions Visual Poetics (2013) and Poetry Comics (2015).
Michael John Weller continues to write, draw, and publish for traditional print and digital mediums, including artists film.
Bookworks
- Harriet Staunton: A Victorian Murder Ballad, (Visual Associations, 1999)
- Space Opera: The Artist's Book, (Visual Associations, 2000)
- Beowulf Cartoon, (Writers Forum & Visual Associations, 2004)
- Three-part The Secret Blue Book, (Home'Baked Books, 2005)
- Slow Fiction: twenty-three tales in a box, (Home'Baked Books, 2010)
- Beat generation Ballads, (Veer Books, 2011)
- minimus post ode poem, (zimZalla avant objects/object 021, 2014)
- Metrobolist: Five Chapters, (Home'Baked Books, 2015)
- Three Piece Bathing Suit, (Blart Books, 2016)
- Spurious Purple: 72 serial e-shots from 2016 (HomeBaked Books, 2017)
Further reading
- Word Score Utterance Choreography in verbal & visual poetry, edited by Bob Cobbing and Lawrence Upton (Writers Forum, 1998)
- a WORD in your EYE, Steve Sneyd (Hilltop Press, 2000)
- Comix, Comics & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art, Roger Sabin (Phaidon, 2001)
- Comix: The Underground Revolution, Dez Skinn (Collins & Brown, 2004)
- MJ Weller's Secret Blue Book, Stephen Mooney (Readings webjournal Issue 3, Birkbeck University of London, 2008) [1]
- Fanzines, Teal Triggs (Thames and Hudson, 2010)
- British Comics: A Cultural History, James Chapman (Reaktion Books, 2011)
- The Alchemist's Mind, 'a book of narrative prose by poets' edited by David Miller (Reality Street, 2012)
- Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot, Mark Burnthorpe, Sarah Crewe & Sophie Mayer, editors (English PEN, 2012)
- Artist's Book Yearbook 2014-2015, Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England (Impact Press, 2013)
- Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, John Harris Dunning and Paul Gravett (British Library Publishing, May 2014)
- The Other Room Anthology 7, edited by James Davies, Tom Jenks & associate editor Scott Thurston (The Other Room Press, 2015)
- Psychedelic Suburbia: David Bowie and The Beckenham Arts Lab, Mary Finnigan (Jorvik Press, 2016)