This is the kick-off post in a seven-week summer series of Graffiti Amoeblogs, focusing on the art of graffiti and running every Saturday from now, July 4th, until Saturday, August 15th, 2009 -- the date that will mark what would have been the 40th birthday of Mike DREAM Francisco, the legendary Bay Area graffiti artist who was tragically murdered nine years ago on the streets of Oakland. Rest in peace, DREAM. Your legacy will live forever.

Included in the numerous blogs in this series will be an interview with DEMER of the longtime NYC Wallnuts crew, who decades later is still making graffiti art, and who currently runs the store Graffiti Comix in Belleville, New Jersey, where he combines his two life-long passions/hobbies -- graffiti and comic books. There will also be an interview with OB, who runs the graffiti supply (and record) store All City in Dublin, Ireland. That same Graffiti Amoeblog will also take a look at the Irish graffiti scene.

James & Karla Murray, the hard working and prolific graffiti photo-journalists (Broken Windows, Burning New York, Store Front, Miami Graffiti), will also be interviewed here and high-quality images of their best New York City and Miami graffiti shots will also be included. Future Amoeblogs will also focus on Cali graffiti and its makers, and of course there will be a whole blog dedicated to DREAM, who was an amazing artist. 

Next week will be an in depth interview with Henry Chalfant (Style Wars, Spraycan Art, Subway Art, etc), plus an opportunity to win a signed copy (by Chalfant and Martha Cooper) of the recently republished version of their amazing graf art book Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition (Chronicle Books). But meantime, check out a few random fun graf videos below, including one of ZEPHYR and REVOLT in SF eight years ago at Upper Playground (not far from Amoeba SF), a quick tour of the Graffiti Hall of Fame in uptown Manhattan from a few winters ago, old school New York subway bombing and a T-Kid interview, a clip from legendary aforementioned graf movie Style Wars, plus a clip from Are you up? or are you Down!? about bombing in Oakland.