We have two poetry events happening today. First up is Carol Guess reading at Pilot Books tonight. Guess has written many books of prose and poetry, including the forthcoming Doll Studies: Forensics. She will host a prose poetry workshop after the reading. And also, down in Rainier Valley tonight, Michael McClure reads. McClure is someone who read at Ginsberg’s debut reading of “Howl” in 1955, so this is you chance to meet and talk to someone who was present at a major turning point in literary history.
And today is the Emerald City Comicon at the Convention Center. It’s shocking to me how quickly ECC has grown to become a major force in the funnybook publishing world. It’s now the unofficial beginning of convention season, and major players from all the major comics publishing houses will be in attendance. If you’ve ever wanted to break into funnybooks, you should attend this. If you ever wanted to get fistfuls of cheap-ass funnybooks, you should attend this. It’s a major religious holiday in the Northwest Nerd calendar season, and it’s time for you to go worship at the nerd altar.
And if you think that ECC is too focused on corporate funnybooks, Fantagraphics will prove you wrong. Tonight at the Fantagraphics store in Georgetown, they’re hosting an ECC afterparty with Gilbert Hernandez. Hernandez is one of the best comic creators in the world today. He debuts his newest collection, Love & Rockets Book 25: High Soft Lisp, tonight. I wrote an article for The Progressive back in 2007 about why the Hernandez Brothers matter. The Progressive doesn’t seem to have their archives available, so you can read the article, if you’re interested, over here.
The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you’re planning on staying in and you’re looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.
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.)