i was curious because the bulk of the Hell canon is now literary, and in spite of that, his reputation and perceptions of him, and much of the Hell-related threads here tend to be about a genre and mode of expression that he hasn't been active in for decades. Blank Generation, in particular, has actually become something of a concrete and almost 'closed' artifact in popular culture, in that post-punk and revisionist journalism has imposed a rather hegemonous and finite concensus of opinions on it. Yet, this has not happened to Hell's writing -something rarely discussed, even at this spiky forum. And there is a sense that the majority of contributors are only interested in nostalgia over that album. i have no problem with that at all, so don't misunderstand me. But what i was interested in when i started this thread is the fact that although Blank Generation is undoubtedly a seminal document, great record, etc. and probably accounts for the majority of Hell's income as an artist, particularly with earnings from the rights of the single appearing on so many compilations of late (i'd love to be wrong on that) it represents a mere fraction of his diverse artistic output. So, in short, whilst the Richard Hell implied by that record and its trappings remains a fascinating and iconic figure, i suspect that the Richard Hell of letters -if you will- might ultimately be of greater interest. If perceptions of Hell are trapped in the late 1970's then that would seem to be to the detriment of an understanding of what his concerns, and the concerns of his art might be now. The pastoral side of Hell's writing seems to be so at odds with the popular concensus of Hell and his art -a concensus based on Blank Generation- that it seemed a good place to start talking about what Richard Hell's work means now...