of urban and art was best conveyed by walt whitman's innovative verse and bold assertion that the ruffs and beards, the vast masses were really what gave the us its fullest poetical nature. and so i think what we're looking at and one of the big themes of the book is that that comics are right in there with with this community. and it's what i would describe as a kind of insurgent romanticism. for this reason, i often think of the comic artists of the 1850s, 1860s, 1870s as akin maybe to the kind of comic artists of the underground in the 1970s. you know, where there's just wild kind of innovation, but also lots of kind of bohemian ism and lots of sort of counterculture, you know, sort of stuff at work. and so comic artists were integral figures in this scene. for instance, the author, thomas butler gunn, the prolific artist frank blue, as a fixture among new york's cultural luminaries, baloo was regularly spotted in howell's tavern alongside, the likes of the poet walt whitman, the bohemian editor henry clapp, and the actor john brougham blue was said to recognize everyone. right. and