Artwork Description
Black Book Graffiti Drawing Tg Throw Up Practice Personal Journal by TC5 x Totem x Psycho x ZiNk x Delk x Comet x Kaws Modern Street Pop Tag, Doodles, Drawings, Paintings & Thought Artwork.
1994 Signed Tagged Original Marker, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Sticker, Mixed Media Drawing Graffiti, Black Book Size 8.5x11. Various Artists Graffiti Blackbook, c. 1994 Hardcover sketchbook with artist's original tags and signatures 11 x 8-1/2 x 1 inches (27.9 x 21.6 x 2.5 cm) A hardcover sketchbook with various artists' original tags and signatures, including Kaws, ZiNk, Psycho Seen TC5and Totem from the TC5 Crew. There are a bunch of fill color drawings, tons of tags & marker art, some personal scraps, old phone numbers, hangout locations, ideas and private info about the crew. 50 Pages & the Cover Full of Drawings (There are also many blank pages). Also Includes IBM, Squad One, Pilot, MPV.
Black Book Graffiti Journal by TC5 x Totem x Psycho x ZiNk x Kaws
This black book sketch journal from 1994 captures an extraordinary moment in graffiti history, representing a convergence of style, rebellion, and creative experimentation by some of the most influential members of the TC5 graffiti crew. The 8.5 x 11 inch hardcover book is not simply a sketchpad but a deeply personal archive of raw street energy. The journal includes vibrant marker renderings, sticker layering, detailed character illustrations, fill-ins, throw-up drills, personal notes, and signed tags from core members like Totem, Psycho, ZiNk, Delk, Comet, Seen and Kaws. The book also includes aliases and side crews such as IBM, MPV, and Squad One, providing a layered snapshot of interconnected graffiti subgroups active in New York City during the golden age of black book culture.
Tag Evolution and Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork
The entries in this journal reflect the fusion of graffiti’s traditional wildstyle aesthetics with the graphic sensibilities that would come to influence Street Pop Art. Each page reveals a combination of practice and performance: tag outlines sharpened to perfection, psychedelic fill-ins, collaged flyer scraps, and character doodles full of humor and attitude. Artists like ZiNk and Psycho demonstrated their technical prowess in dimensional letterforms while simultaneously layering them with playful characters and surreal backdrops. Kaws’s early lettering tag, found here under FC and TC5, shows the nascent influence of his cartoon-fusion iconography that later became a signature in fine art and commercial crossover platforms.
Legacy of the Black Book Format
Black books were the heart of graffiti culture long before digital archives. They were traveling galleries, practice arenas, and intimate communication platforms among writers. This particular journal’s inclusion of personal tags, secret locations, phone numbers, and emotional reflections reveals graffiti as more than exterior expression—it was an interior life. Totem’s aggressive handstyle, Delk’s stylized urban iconography, and Comet’s classic wildstyle fragments reflect years of train-line experimentation brought onto paper. MPV and IBM frequently appear scrawled across sticker surfaces and borders, and while IBM's specific meaning in the context is still ambiguous, it consistently appears next to trusted tags and carries the weight of crew respect.
Cultural Weight and Collector Significance
This journal functions not only as a record of TC5’s peak graffiti years but also as an artifact of a cultural shift toward stylized Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork. The high saturation of media—hand-drawn lettering, collaged music flyers, branded pop references like Richie Rich and Nervous Records, and customized stickers—marks this black book as a multidisciplinary cultural object. In today’s art market, such journals are revered for their honesty, rawness, and the insights they offer into the private side of graffiti’s most public artists. The handstyle signatures from Kaws, Psycho, ZiNk, and Totem in particular make this a museum-worthy record of graffiti’s transformation from train to gallery wall.
