I tried to get into Love and Rockets. I really did. But I just don't get it. But then, I'm not a huge magical realism fan in general.

Michael McLure! I read in Kevin Killian's Jack Spicer biography, POET BE LIKE GOD, that McLure was the headliner at Six Gallery, in San Francisco, on the night when Ginsberg debuted "Howl." There were six readers and Ginsberg read 5th, followed by McLure. Imagine how he felt.

An excellent recording of Ginsberg reading "Howl" several months later at Reed College (where he read with Gary Snyder) is online http://www.reed.edu/news_center/multimed… . This is the earliest known recording of Ginsberg reading "Howl." Listen and then try to imagine Michael McLure, the headliner, obliged to get up and read his poetry after that.

Shit, I'm out of the country for this event.

The graphic of the Hernandez book looks a lot like Ellen Forney's drawing style, at least when shrunk on my screen.

It's ECCC. Three C's.

Too broke to go to comic con, which breaks my heart. I wish I'd read about Carol Guess' reading before it happened. She was one of my favorite teachers at Western.

Gilbert must have a thing about lisps. Is that Fritz from Birdland on the cover? (I gained a lot more respect for Birdland after reading this review on The Comics Journal.)