Michael J. Weller

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 nom-de-plumes - he has produced artists books, zines and small press publications. Since 1990 he has been associated with London's poetry scene and poetics of performance writing.

References

• 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)
• Below Critical Radar, Roger Sabin and Teal Triggs (Slab-O-Concrete, 2000)
• Comix, Comics & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art, Roger Sabin (Phaidon, 2001)
• Nasty Tales: Sex, Drugs, Rock'n'Roll and Violence in the British Underground, David Huxley (Headpress Critical Vision, 2001)
• Comix: The Underground Revolution, Dez Skinn (Collins & Brown, 2004)
• The Complete David Bowie, Nicholas Pegg (Reynolds & Hearn, 2004)
• Great British Comics, Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury (Aurum Press, 2006)
• Complicities: British Poetry 1945 - 2007, (Eds.) Robin Purves & Sam Ladkin (Litteraria Pragensia, 2007)
• 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)
• Any Day Now, Kevin Cann (Adelita, 2010)

External links

Entry at the National Center of Contemporary Art, Kaliningrad