words, Riddell's work is a kind of textbook for the study of media through writing, or, the writing of writing . The best-known example of Riddell's writing of writing is "Pope Leo, El ELoPE: A Tragedy in Four Letters," initially published in April 1969 with mimeograph illustrations by bpNichol through Nichol's small but influential Canadian magazine grOnk . It was published again, with more refined, hand-drawn, illustrations, once again by Nichol, in the Governor General's Award winning anthology Cosmic Chef: An Evening of Concrete (1970, the version included here) and in a further iteration in Criss-Cross: A Text Book of Modern Composition with illustrations by Filipino-Canadian comic book artist Franc Reyes (who would later pencil and ink Tarzan , House of Mystery and Weird War for dc comics and was involved with 1970s underground Canadian comix publisher Andromeda). "Pope Leo" relates a stripped-down comic-strip tale of the tragic murder of Pope Leo; the narrative unfolds partly by way of frames within frames, windows within windows, telling a minimalist story in which the comic-strip frame is nothing but a simple hand-drawn square with the remarkable power to bring a story into being. The anagrammatic text is an exploration of the language possibilities inherent in letters 'p,' 'o,' 'l,' and 'e' (hence the sub-title, "a tragedy in four letters") -- sometimes using one of the letters twice, sometimes dropping one, always rearranging, always moving back and forth along the spectrum of sense/nonsense: "O POPE LEO! PEOPLE POLL PEOPLE! PEOPLE POLE PEOPLE! LO