Ernie Stomach

Uh is an artist's book originally published in 1971 (in a run of 500 copies) by a 21-year-old Richard Hell, and issued under the pseudonym Ernie Stomach through Hell's Genesis : Grasp Press. Stomach/Hell's aim was to create "a version of the Roman alphabet in which the glyphs correspond in their differentiations to lower case block-lettered forms, but stripped to the naked elliptical minimum … using X-Acto Knifed mylar templates and a felt tip pen." Now, with the advent of font software, Stomach has been able to recreate the book as he would have done it at the time were such technology available. This book is a facsimile of the original, but for the improved precision and consistency of the strokes of the "alphabet peepshow." In an enclosed leaflet, Hell discusses the relationship between poetry, typography and punk aesthetics that informed the making of Uh.