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Giraffes in my Hair: A Rock 'N' Roll Life
Bruce Paley turned 18 in 1967 during the Summer of Love. Paley's tumultuous journey took him from being a hippie in the 1960s to a heroin addict for much of the 1970s. These stories are vividly brought to life in Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'N' Roll Life by the compelling visual storytelling of Bruce's partner, the cartoonist Carol Swain. Swain's trademark visual approach to comics, typified by exquisitely composed panels that vividly capture both anomie and pathos, is perfectly suited to dramatizing Paley's life during that confusing, tumultuous period of American history - a life lived in the countercultural margins, amidst personal chaos and social dissolution. Swain's storytelling rhythms are contemplative and breathe inner life into Paley's turbulent stories, creating a perceptive prism to view the vast possibilities and endless pitfalls as experienced by a kid growing up in America in the late 1960s and early '70s.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
37 people want to read
About the author
Carol Swain
24 books23 followersI can now be reached via my new website:
carolswaincomics.com
where fans can now purchase my original comic art, or just say Hello. Below is my bio, from the site:
Born in London and raised in Wales, Carol Swain is one of the UK's foremost comics creators, whose comic stories and graphic novels have been translated into 15 languages. Dubbed "The Raymond Carver of comics" by Time Out magazine, Carol's many admirers include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman, underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, UK Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph, and Watchmen and V for Vendetta creator Alan Moore, who wrote the foreword to Carol's acclaimed graphic novel Foodboy.
Carol's father was an architect, her mother an antiques dealer who once took her to the famous Greenham Common protests. After a spell at art school in Stoke-on-Trent, Carol moved back to London. Inspired by the punk ethos of DIY, she began self-publishing her comic Way Out Strips, while contributing stories to various comics journals worldwide, and serving as colourist on the controversial graphic novel Skin. Way Out Strips was eventually picked up by America’s Fantagraphics Books, who would go on to publish Carol's subsequent graphic novels Invasion of the Mind Sappers, Foodboy, Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock’n’roll Life (a collaboration with her partner Bruce Paley), and Gast. Considered by many to be her finest work to date, Gast is a coming-of-age story in which a young English girl investigates the suicide of a reclusive, cross-dressing Welsh farmer by seeking out those who knew him best, though it's his dogs and sheep who have the most to say. Gast has since been optioned for a short film by the French director Frédéric Bayer Azem, and was the subject of a doctoral thesis by Alice Vernon of Aberystwyth University entitled "Exploring Identity, Landscape and Language in Carol Swain’s Gast."
In 2007, pages from Carol’s comics were included in an exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery entitled Cult Fiction, alongside works by the likes of Robert Crumb, Joe Sacco, Dan Clowes, and Raymond Pettibon. Her work has also been exhibited at San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum.
In 2009, Dark Horse published a career-spanning anthology of Carol's work entitled Crossing the Empty Quarter.
In 2013, Carol was a panellist at the Cork International Short Story Festival, along with Etgar Keret, participating in a discussion of the graphic novel as an art form and its relation to mainstream fiction.
Carol lives in Pembrokeshire with her partner and dog, who seems to have a lot to say. She is currently working on a new graphic novel tentatively entitled Mwnci Swit (Welsh for Monkey Suit), which is set in Llanparc, the fictional Welsh town in which several of her stories are based.
carolswaincomics.com
where fans can now purchase my original comic art, or just say Hello. Below is my bio, from the site:
Born in London and raised in Wales, Carol Swain is one of the UK's foremost comics creators, whose comic stories and graphic novels have been translated into 15 languages. Dubbed "The Raymond Carver of comics" by Time Out magazine, Carol's many admirers include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman, underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, UK Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph, and Watchmen and V for Vendetta creator Alan Moore, who wrote the foreword to Carol's acclaimed graphic novel Foodboy.
Carol's father was an architect, her mother an antiques dealer who once took her to the famous Greenham Common protests. After a spell at art school in Stoke-on-Trent, Carol moved back to London. Inspired by the punk ethos of DIY, she began self-publishing her comic Way Out Strips, while contributing stories to various comics journals worldwide, and serving as colourist on the controversial graphic novel Skin. Way Out Strips was eventually picked up by America’s Fantagraphics Books, who would go on to publish Carol's subsequent graphic novels Invasion of the Mind Sappers, Foodboy, Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock’n’roll Life (a collaboration with her partner Bruce Paley), and Gast. Considered by many to be her finest work to date, Gast is a coming-of-age story in which a young English girl investigates the suicide of a reclusive, cross-dressing Welsh farmer by seeking out those who knew him best, though it's his dogs and sheep who have the most to say. Gast has since been optioned for a short film by the French director Frédéric Bayer Azem, and was the subject of a doctoral thesis by Alice Vernon of Aberystwyth University entitled "Exploring Identity, Landscape and Language in Carol Swain’s Gast."
In 2007, pages from Carol’s comics were included in an exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery entitled Cult Fiction, alongside works by the likes of Robert Crumb, Joe Sacco, Dan Clowes, and Raymond Pettibon. Her work has also been exhibited at San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum.
In 2009, Dark Horse published a career-spanning anthology of Carol's work entitled Crossing the Empty Quarter.
In 2013, Carol was a panellist at the Cork International Short Story Festival, along with Etgar Keret, participating in a discussion of the graphic novel as an art form and its relation to mainstream fiction.
Carol lives in Pembrokeshire with her partner and dog, who seems to have a lot to say. She is currently working on a new graphic novel tentatively entitled Mwnci Swit (Welsh for Monkey Suit), which is set in Llanparc, the fictional Welsh town in which several of her stories are based.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 17, 2017
A summary of the author's life up to age 30.
Nothing interesting really.
He worked hard to escape war duty, stole stuff, dabbled in drugs, got thrown in jail more than once, slept with his friend's wife, visited a prostitute... You get the picture.
Now, why is 'A Rock N Roll Life' even part of the book title? I have no idea.
Nothing interesting really.
He worked hard to escape war duty, stole stuff, dabbled in drugs, got thrown in jail more than once, slept with his friend's wife, visited a prostitute... You get the picture.
Now, why is 'A Rock N Roll Life' even part of the book title? I have no idea.
November 23, 2019
Dude, weed!1!!11!
This was pretty mediocre, Simon Hanselmann is the only cartoonist who can somehow write stoner comics without it being absolutely cringeworthy.
This was pretty mediocre, Simon Hanselmann is the only cartoonist who can somehow write stoner comics without it being absolutely cringeworthy.
October 23, 2015
Written in an episodic format. Pretty much every story ends in him getting fucked up or arrested. Some of these are actually really pathetic. A couple were interesting, but most were really dull. There wasn't any substance to anything and, when read all at once, it suffers from the extremely repetitious nature of each story. Art didn't do much for me.
October 21, 2014
Really like this. Sad to see transition of culture into heroin era. Really great stories though. Just a dude living in the sixties / seventies / eighties in little vignettes. Drawn by the incredible Carol Swain.
February 13, 2011
Enjoyed the art but found Bruce to be rather obnoxious.
January 22, 2019
Warning: This is not going to be the same book for the un-initiated. The more you "mis-spent" your youth the better this is.
On top of that, there is plenty of "buy-in experience" you will need to understand/relate to this and you sure won't find it constantly funny as I did.
I don't know why I didn't give it ***** but here's my guess:
-It was done in the right tone more-so than not but if it had changed (a lot to ask) at least somewhat with the tone of the story it would have been so much better because the whole thing is by no means dreary throughout! It only gets that way as his hair recedes.
On top of that, there is plenty of "buy-in experience" you will need to understand/relate to this and you sure won't find it constantly funny as I did.
I don't know why I didn't give it ***** but here's my guess:
-It was done in the right tone more-so than not but if it had changed (a lot to ask) at least somewhat with the tone of the story it would have been so much better because the whole thing is by no means dreary throughout! It only gets that way as his hair recedes.
January 19, 2015
This is a tricky book for me: I love Carol Swain's work, and will pretty much take anything she offers, but Bruce Paley's anecdotes are dull, utterly pointless and would probably amount to less than five type-written pages without Swain's (sadly slapdash-looking) illumination.
Giraffes in My Hair covers largely random experiences from Paley's wastrel life from the 1960s into the 1970s (I think: there's not a lot of clarity about when things happen). There's none of Swain's talent for imbuing everyday tales with an almost mystical flavour, and in spite of what Paley may think there's no deeper purpose to his ramblings a la his hero Kerouac. There's little doubt that, if the publication of Giraffes... depended solely on the text, it never would have been seen outside Paley's home. Fortunately for him, he has a critically-noted, regularly-published 'companion' in Swain, who I can only imagine championed him to her publisher Fantagraphics.
As for the titles: the main one is taken from a line on a T. Rex album, which Paley and one of his (apparently numerous) 'companions' loved but never understood (and which appears to have no overall relevance); the subtitle is clearly something to lure unsuspecting chumps (like myself) in to this mess in hopes of some sordid fun. Paley's life was not 'rock'n'roll,' nor was he (although he has some passing encounters with that lifestyle). In reality, the most notable things to happen within the book are summarised ably on the back cover (and in the Goodreads synopsis); read that, and you've gotten as much rock'n'roll as you're likely to get from this book.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this book is how much I kept thinking, 'Hell, I could've written this crap about my own life!' I've had occasional brushes with famous people, run-ins with the law, a largely pointless existence bouncing from one place/job/relationship to the next and a deeper devotion to my principles than Paley ever seemed to (which is to say that I have any compared to him). So, why don't I just do that? Because my 'companion' isn't Carol Swain, or any other creative artist with a source to sell my anecdotal existence to.
So, I'll probably keep it in spite of my promise to myself not to keep anything I rate 2 stars or less here, because I'm a sucker for Swain. If you have to have every last thing from Swain you can get your hands on, by all means pick this up. Otherwise, don't bother and save yourself the time and space in your bookcase. (For a thoroughly entertaining, but not illustrated, genuine rock'n'roll life memoir covering roughly the same period but an entirely different scene, I recommend Martin Newell's This Little Ziggy.)
Giraffes in My Hair covers largely random experiences from Paley's wastrel life from the 1960s into the 1970s (I think: there's not a lot of clarity about when things happen). There's none of Swain's talent for imbuing everyday tales with an almost mystical flavour, and in spite of what Paley may think there's no deeper purpose to his ramblings a la his hero Kerouac. There's little doubt that, if the publication of Giraffes... depended solely on the text, it never would have been seen outside Paley's home. Fortunately for him, he has a critically-noted, regularly-published 'companion' in Swain, who I can only imagine championed him to her publisher Fantagraphics.
As for the titles: the main one is taken from a line on a T. Rex album, which Paley and one of his (apparently numerous) 'companions' loved but never understood (and which appears to have no overall relevance); the subtitle is clearly something to lure unsuspecting chumps (like myself) in to this mess in hopes of some sordid fun. Paley's life was not 'rock'n'roll,' nor was he (although he has some passing encounters with that lifestyle). In reality, the most notable things to happen within the book are summarised ably on the back cover (and in the Goodreads synopsis); read that, and you've gotten as much rock'n'roll as you're likely to get from this book.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this book is how much I kept thinking, 'Hell, I could've written this crap about my own life!' I've had occasional brushes with famous people, run-ins with the law, a largely pointless existence bouncing from one place/job/relationship to the next and a deeper devotion to my principles than Paley ever seemed to (which is to say that I have any compared to him). So, why don't I just do that? Because my 'companion' isn't Carol Swain, or any other creative artist with a source to sell my anecdotal existence to.
So, I'll probably keep it in spite of my promise to myself not to keep anything I rate 2 stars or less here, because I'm a sucker for Swain. If you have to have every last thing from Swain you can get your hands on, by all means pick this up. Otherwise, don't bother and save yourself the time and space in your bookcase. (For a thoroughly entertaining, but not illustrated, genuine rock'n'roll life memoir covering roughly the same period but an entirely different scene, I recommend Martin Newell's This Little Ziggy.)
June 13, 2011
Got its moments. Bruce Paley's spare narrations of nomadic hedonism ranging from his teen years to his early 30s are totally precedented, but as filtered through Carol Swain's distinctive stubbly pencil textures, nine-panel grid, and supernatural quietude, the stories threaten to loose themselves from gravity and witness America from a satellite's eye. Her grid's steady beat and the collision of rough and soft pencil marks have the same hypnotic effect as holding your hand out a moving car's window as it alternates hail and snow. In her own personal comix, which tend to more pastoral narratives, this hypnotism often overwhelms anything that happens in the stories. Her universe's cast of punk rockers, all of whom seem to share the same face, are ultimately subservient to the rolling hills and empty roads that swallow them.
Here, though, Paley's accounts of scoring drugs, hitching rides, sexing chicks, getting busted, and finding places to sleep provide dirty counterweight to Swain's ambient flying saucer ride. It's a peaceful, easy read -- chapters average five or six pages and have punchlines -- but I wonder about everything that the skeletal story structures omit -- what did Bruce and his wife fight about? How did he convince the girl in the bar to go home with him? How did he save up enough money to move to London and open a comix shop? When he quit drugs, what did he do with all that surplus time/energy? But they'll keep me wanting. In a rock'n'roll life, it's important to keep the stage banter short and funny, and jump straight into the next song.
Here, though, Paley's accounts of scoring drugs, hitching rides, sexing chicks, getting busted, and finding places to sleep provide dirty counterweight to Swain's ambient flying saucer ride. It's a peaceful, easy read -- chapters average five or six pages and have punchlines -- but I wonder about everything that the skeletal story structures omit -- what did Bruce and his wife fight about? How did he convince the girl in the bar to go home with him? How did he save up enough money to move to London and open a comix shop? When he quit drugs, what did he do with all that surplus time/energy? But they'll keep me wanting. In a rock'n'roll life, it's important to keep the stage banter short and funny, and jump straight into the next song.
September 30, 2013
Sometimes comic book memoirs work- sometimes they don't. This worked well for me largely because enough time has passed to give these stories of aimless drugs, sex and freeloading a historical interest. And, it must be said, Carol Swain is wonderfully good: superficially simple, but actually wonderfully well composed and free from the triteness and
over-expressiveness that can taint memoir comics. The book does not judge, condemn or praise: it just says, this is a life.
over-expressiveness that can taint memoir comics. The book does not judge, condemn or praise: it just says, this is a life.
September 22, 2016
Si otras obras se denominan 'Novela gráfica' esta debería llamarse 'Colección de relatos gráficos'.
El subtítulo hace pensar en una vida de desfase, a tope de sexo, drogas y rockanroll, pero no es así. Hay viajes en autoestop, trabajos y casas de mala muerte, y también, por supuesto, sexo, drogas y música. Pero son historias autobiográficas, bastante intimistas, casi poéticas, de la vida de un joven a la deriva.
El subtítulo hace pensar en una vida de desfase, a tope de sexo, drogas y rockanroll, pero no es así. Hay viajes en autoestop, trabajos y casas de mala muerte, y también, por supuesto, sexo, drogas y música. Pero son historias autobiográficas, bastante intimistas, casi poéticas, de la vida de un joven a la deriva.
June 25, 2015
This is more of a warning than a review. Don’t be fooled when you see the words ‘A Rock ‘N’ Roll Life’ on the cover of a graphic novel and think, “Hot damn! This is not just in my wheelhouse, it is my wheelhouse.” I made that mistake so you don’t have to. Read more
October 13, 2009
A batch of quirky memoir stories by Bruce Paley, but the real greatness is to be found in the excellent drawings by Carol Swain!
December 22, 2009
Gritty and good.
August 8, 2011
I like the art, but the stories were too anecdotal for me to really feel that interested or moved. Snapshots in a life can be meaningful, but this somehow fell short...for me.
April 24, 2017
Right down to the product names ...
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews