In the 1960′s when comic books first started getting really popular, kids would throw the books away after they read them. Comics only cost a couple of cents and no one considered them art, so they were entirely disposable. The medium was deemed as cheap, gaudy shit for kids. Fast forward twenty years and dudes like Roy Lichtenstein put the art world onto the beauty of comic books. Now motherfuckers were paying thousands and sometimes millions of dollars for rare issues of comics. Back then they didn’t want ‘em, not they hot, they all on ‘em. Apt words from noted art historian Mike Jones.

I bring that shit up, to point out the coming future of artwork done by 90s rap album designers Pen N Pixel. Notorious for their surreal implementation of newly created Photoshop filters, and total regard for what most would consider “taste”; dudes were the go to for southern rap album covers. Especially if you wanted your shit to look as rich as possible, while still retaining the naiveté of a piece done by an insane, ADD riddled child. Because they would work with anyone—seriously anyone—a lot of their work has been lost to the ages (ie. it’s sitting in the basement of the dudes that ordered the CDs that no one wanted to hear). Thanks to FFM though we can now all bask in the glory of the Pen N Pixel archives.

The FFM Pen N Pixel Graphics Madhouse is filled to the brim with over 600 covers. Each one a goddamn modern masterpiece of the Pen N Pixel aesthetic. I personally look forward to the point when MoMA purchases this collection for display and I can take my kids to see the cover of Stayin’ True in person. That’ll be a great moment for rap, art, and humanity as a whole. Browse their collection and get inspired, apply the lens flare filter to your entire life.

- raythedestroyer