October 4, 2003
Found it! Finally. After a week of searching, I finally found my box full of Jesse James-Northfield reference photos. They were under one of my tables in the studio with a great big Jesse James poster-tin over the top. Doh! Great reference shots in the actual bank in Northfield. Oodles of shots of the gang fleeing towards Millersburg, and in the rain. And, lastly, the date on the photos is 9-10-01, which is kind of haunting in itself. Now to do the actual art. This is for the Classic Gunfights book which goes to the publisher a week from Monday.

The good news is I’ve found numerous things I have been looking for, others that I didn’t even know I had and much I should have thrown out sooner. All in all, it feels good

Stayed in office late last night and worked on copy for Hickok vs. Tutt fight. This Classic Gunfight was produced way back in the beginning of the feature (I thought of the idea for the feature on March 7, 2000) and the narrative is very weak. I hadn’t worked out the tenses yet (we do present tense in the actual narrative and then past tense in the Aftermath: Odds & Ends). I spent a bit of time padding out the story, but unfortunately there isn’t much there in the way of “facts.” Unlike the O.K. Corral battle where you have reams of eye-witness testimony, the Springfield gunfight is about a paragraph of newspaper reporting, a smidgen of court proceedings and a bushel of BS from Harpers. I also need to rewrite the Mescal Springs fight between Curly Bill and Wyatt Earp’s gang. That will be a bit easier. Plan to do it Monday.

After the funeral yesterday I took Grandma Betty, Debbie R. and Kathy to breakfast at IHOP (International House of Pancakes). It was Debbie’s pick and I hadn’t been in one since about 1973. Me and my clubbing pals, like Mike Torres, used to go to the IHOP at 19th Ave. and Bethany Home Road almost every night after Mr. Lucky’s closed. We practically lived there. It’s funny, the smell when I walked in the door took me right back to those wild days. I guess it’s the unique smell of their grease. Hard to believe it could be that consistent for three decades, but there it was. Had the big steak omelette, girls had waffles and eggs ($31.76 cash, girls got tip).

Tommy is excited. He got tickets to see the Strokes in Barcelona. Or is it the Hives? I think it’s the Strokes, the New York retro rock band that sounds like early Kinks (to me).

Well, back to work. Got to do about seven pieces of art this week.

”We do not want churches. They will teach us to quarrel about God.”
—Chief Joseph