Cut-up Penguins

There's an attention grabbing post title ! I’m currently reading Cut-Ups, Cut-Ins, Cut-Outs: The Art of William S. Burroughs, a wonderful collection of Burroughs’ cut-up art collages, and poring over the pictures put in mind Julian House’s terrific designs for the Penguin Modern Classics’ editions of Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and Nova Express, improving significantly on previous editions, in particular the Flamingo, Harper Collins, and Fourth Estate editions which I never cared for having on my shelf. I’m quite sure Burroughs himself would have been very pleased. I’ve long been a fan of Julian House’s work, and the chances are you have something in your collection which features one of his designs – perhaps something on the Ghost Box label (which he co-founded), a Stereolab or Broadcast album, or one of Peter Strickland’s films... A fine overview of his work can be found on this flicker page