Bruce Paley turned 18 in 1967 during the Summer of Love, putting him on the front lines of the late-1960s youth movement. Paley s tumultuous journey took him from being a Jack Kerouac-loving hippie in the 1960s, on the road with his 17-year-old girlfriend, dropping acid at Disneyland, living in a car, and crashing with armed Black Panthers at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention, to hanging out at Max s Kansas City, shooting heroin and cocaine with the likes of rock star Johnny Thunders, and frequenting Times Square s seedy brothels a journey that mirrored the changing times as the optimism of the 60s gave way to the nihilism of the punk years. Over a dozen years, Bruce crossed paths with hippies, violent cops, rednecks, rock stars, and Black Panthers... and ended up 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 breathes 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.