I am here, or pretty darn close

I got pretty excited yesterday morning, when I checked my referrers and noticed that someone clicked to this space from the Jim Behrle Show. Naturally, I had to check in at Jim's graphics-heavy site to see where he had linked me. As it turns out, my name appears in his rather extensive blogroll (btw, many thanks, Jim).

I check in on Jim's Show at least every other day. I've become a fan of his little comic strips. What they lack in draftsmanship they make up for in humor. Honestly, his art is better than mine is these days; so, who am I to judge.

Now, I don't get all of his humor. Some of the strips require inside knowledge of the current American poetry scene. For example: on the surface, Foetry dot com would seem to serve a useful function (warning people away from bogus or dodgy poetry competitions). Jim seems to be having a bit of fun imaging the Foetry offices as some sort of X-Men style HQ.

I learned sometime back that my name and link also appear on Ron Silliman's blog. I get the impression that Ron has linked to just about every person who has even mention poetry, or the desire to write poetry, even in passing. I respect him for this radically democratic spirit. The examples of his poetry which appear on his blog seem about as different from my style as possible. I find most of his writing so steeped in modern academic jargon that it's nigh unto impenetrable. Still, I'm honored to be part of his blogroll.

Jim has had an on-going series titled "Ron is Ron" which pokes fun at Mr. Silliman and one of his "disciples" (Curtis). Since I don't read Ron's blog that often, and rarely read the comments, I have little notion of what the bottom-line gag is in this series. Though I do appreciate the implicit humor of a parrot writing Ron's blog entries.

There are two comic series by Jim that I enjoy: "Horatio the Unicorn" and "The Purple Ninja". "Horatio" is political commentary using furry animals. Significantly more blatant than "Pogo", but still a great deal of fun.

I think some inside humor is at work in "The Purple Ninja", as well, but there's enough slapstick (primarily of the Monty Python/Black Knight variety) to carry the day.

Well, like I say, I got pretty excited when I saw somebody had clicked through from Jim's blog. I thought I had *ahem* arrived.

I thought I had appeared in one of his cartoons.