In Anticipation of the Forthcoming Book 'Punk & the Animal' (Intellect Books, 2026)

(Intellect Books, 2026)
 

 

I. 

 

One of the forthcoming books I'm looking forward to this autumn is Punk & the Animal: Ethos, Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. Laura D. Gelfand and Angela Bartram [1]. 

 

And the reason I'm curious is because apart from the fact that Sid Vicious was named after Rotten's aggressive pet hamster, I can't really think of any alignment or intersections between a subcultural movement that originated in the 1970s and multicellular organisms belonging to the biological kingdom Animalia [2]. 

 

In fact, one of the things that lyricist and lead singer with the Sex Pistols, Johnny Rotten, insisted upon was that he was not an animal [3] and the punk movement as I remember it was an urban experience (The Clash) with a deliberate sense of its own artificiality (X-Ray Spex) [4].  

 

And so, it will be amusing to see how, for example, Kieran Cashell approaches the idea of punk as enactive animality (i.e., a form of nonhuman behaviour). And it will be fun to discover what rodent-loving Russ Bestley has to tell us about the rat in punk lore [5].

 

 

II.

 

If I'd been asked to contribute to the above volume - which I wasn't - I suppose I may have discussed the division of animals into three main categories made by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus [6]:

 

(i) Oedipal animals - particularly pampered pets with which people form sentimental attachments. It's popularly believed that dog owners come to resemble their mutts, but, unfortunately, it's more often the case that domesticated creatures reflect the all-too-human neuroses and petty personal histories of their owners.  

 

(ii) State animals - i.e., archetypal (sometimes mythological) creatures affiliated with fixed territories and molar classifications; noble beasts that symbolise the power and history of a nation, such as the lion and the unicorn as seen on the UK's Royal Coat of Arms.  

 

(iii) Pack animals - i.e., demonic creatures that must be conceived collectively, such as wolves, bats, and rats. Deleuze and Guattari are also fond of animals that typically swarm - particularly insects - as they conveniently illustrate the idea of a multiplicity (a large, self-organising body or assemblage). 

 

No prizes for guessing which category they were most excited by. 

 

And no prizes either for what my argument would have been; namely, that we might also describe these pack animals as punk animals and examine how forming a molecular alliance with these creatures may enable a becoming-animal of the human being [7].  

 

 

 

 Stuffed punk rat made by mbcreature

etsy.com 

 

Notes

 

[1] For more details of this text due to be published in October - including a list of contents - please visit the Intellect website: click here.  

 

[2] Cynics might suggest that this volume is primarily an example of academic trend-merging; a hybrid book born of two increasingly exhausted sub-genres - Punk Studies and Animal Studies - as publishers, editors, and authors all desperately seek novel areas of research.

 

[3] I'm referencing the track 'Bodies', which can be found on the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1977): click here. 

 

[4] I'm aware that the second wave of punk in the early 1980s became concerned with animal rights, anti-vivisection, and vegetarianism. But this anarcho-hippie variant (typified by bands like Crass) wasn't something I was involved in or cared about.

 

[5] Dr Kieran Cashell is a lecturer and researcher at the Limerick School of Art and Design, within the Technological University of the Shannon, Ireland. His chapter is titled 'Nonhuman Behaviour: Punk as Enactive Animality' and opens Punk & the Animal (2026). 

      Dr Russ Bestley is Reader in Graphic Design & Subcultures at London College of Communication (University of the Arts London). His chapter immediately follows and is titled 'Rattus rattus: The Rat in Punk Lore'.

 

[6] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (The Athlone Press, 1988). See the section '1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible ...' (pp. 232-309). 

      Note that Deleuze and Guattari also allow for exceptional animals that can't always be categorised; animals such as Moby Dick, for example, or the Cheshire Cat. Russ might like to be reminded also that they make frequent reference to rats - including the large and highly intelligent rat named Ben, star of the 1971 American horror movie Willard (dir. Daniel Mann).

 

[7] I really don't wish to go over the concept of becoming-animal again at any length, as I have discussed and referenced this idea in several earlier posts on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

      Let it suffice to say that it describes a dynamic and experimental process whereby a subject detaches from fixed, normative identities and enters a continuous, molecular flow of traits, speeds, and affects shared with the non-human world. It does not mean mimicking, imitating, or literally transforming into an animal - and it involves more than merely using an image of rat, for example, as a band logo à la The Stranglers. 

 

 

In Memory of Two Kings of Graphic Design

The Two Kings of Graphic Design: David King (1943 - 2016)

and David A. King (1948 - 2019) [1]

 

 

I. 

 

When I was informed that the next SIG meeting would be on the graphic designer Dave King, I assumed we were going to be speaking about the British artist who assembled a huge collection of old school Soviet imagery and propaganda; photographs, posters, and other materials commemorating and celebrating the Russian Revolution (1917) [2].

 

King, a self-confessed communist with Trotskyist leanings, was particularly keen to insert his hero back into the picture after Leon's name and image were comprehensively erased by Stalin from Soviet history and after Trotsky was physically eliminated by a Spanish-born NKVD agent who used an ice pick to make his ears burn [3], in an operation known as Operation Duck (August 1940).    

 

Despite his political leanings, King worked for many years at The Sunday Times Magazine as a designer and art editor and designed book covers for mainstream publishers, such as Penguin, alongside more radical presses.

 

But King is perhaps best remembered as the man who designed many famous album covers - including the controversial cover for Electric Ladyland (1968) by Jimi Hendrix, featuring a photo of 19 naked women by David Montgomery [4] - as well as his graphics in support of the political causes he supported, such as the Anti-Nazi League's red arrow logo on a yellow background (see figure 1 below). 

 

King died, aged, 73, in 2016.  

 

In 2020, Yale University Press published Rick Poynor's book David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian. Poynor, in collaboration with the editorial designer and art director Simon Esterson, also set up a website featuring designs by King from his private archives.

 

 

II.

 

My assumption, however, was mistaken: the Subcultures Interest Group is, rather, going to be discussing the work of David Anthony King; an English American artist and another key figure in the history of graphic design, famously creating the cross and serpent symbol by which the anarcho-hippie band Crass are recognised around the world. 

 

An Essex boy born and bred, King fell in with Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher in 1964, when studying graphic design at a technical college in Dagenham. Later, in the 1970s, he would move into Dial House, the commune set up by the above in rural North Weald and it was here he came up with the iconic emblem (see figure 2 below).

 

In 1977, King moved to NYC and became part of the punk scene there, both as a designer and a musician. Later, he relocated to San Francisco and, in 1990, enrolled at San Francisco Art Institute, where he studied drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, and poetry, producing a substantial body of work in numerous mediums over the next four decades.

 

King's graphics are now a regular feature of exhibitions showcasing punk visual art in galleries worldwide and several collections of his work have been published, including, most recently, David King Publications 1977 - 2019 (Colpa Press, 2024), which comes with an interesting introduction by Matt Borruso as well as plenty of images to enjoy [5].

 

King died, aged 71, in 2019. 

 

He is fondly remembered, however, by those who have long championed scrapbooks, photocopied fanzines, print-on-demand books, mail art, etc. For if anything was at the heart of the punk ethos it was surely the notion of DIY and not caring about anything other than putting one's ideas and images into the world (often at great personal cost and with no thought of financial reward or commercial success).   

 

Fig. 1: David King Anti-Nazi League logo (1977)

Fig. 2: David A. King Crass symbol (1977)

    

Notes

 

[1] The photo of David King is by Anthony Oliver for Eye magazine, issue 48, (2003). The photo of David A. King is by Sean Clark (2016).

 

[2] King assembled more than 250,000 items in a collection which has formed the basis for a series of exhibitions and a special gallery in the Tate Modern. 

      Stephen F. Cohen, a professor of Russian studies, described King's work as 'a one-man archaeological expedition into the lost world, the destroyed world, of the original Soviet leadership. He was determined to unearth everything that Stalin had buried so deeply and so bloodily.'

 

[3] Technically, Trotsky was killed with an ice axe and not an ice pick, but I'm referring here to the lyric of the song 'No More Heroes' by the English rock band the Stranglers. The track was released as a single from an album of the same title in September 1977 (United Artists) and reached number 8 in the UK Singles Chart. Click here to play.

 

[4] King attempted to justify his design for the Hendrix album, Electric Ladyland (1968), by arguing it contrasted with the unrealistic and often airbrushed images of nude women found in magazines such as Playboy. Montgomery's photo, however, was deemed too risqué for the US edition of the album and was replaced by a picture of Hendrix. 

[5] This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition of King's work held at the San Francisco Center for the Book, from 25 October until 22 December, 2024. Matt Borruso explains in his introduction: 

      "The exhibition and book collect a chronological sampling of the publishing work that King made over his lifetime, in addition to flyers, photographs, and graphic design projects. But neither the show nor the book are in any way complete. We are still digging through King's archive, consistently finding new things that he made, and piecing together a better picture of his life and work." 

      Click here for more details and to purchase a copy.