December 5, 2003
While digging through the piles of rubble in my TW office yesterday I found an old catalogue from the University of Nebraska Press and inside it had this big, blow-up photo of John Escapule (his handsome visage has been run many times as being a photograph of Doc Holliday but it isn’t). I walked out to the production area and said to Robert Ray, “Hey, do you think we should run this on the cover to illustrate ‘Fakes’ rather than the Carrie Nation Guy?” Robert Ray immediately responded that he did, as did R.G. when he came over. Both said they thought the Carrie Nation Guy was too “National Lampoon,” which both Dan Harshberger and I can be guilty of because we both are inclined in that direction from our Razz Revue days (and because we’re from Kingman). Dan is now developing the new cover image.

Well, here they are. Which one do you like the best?
• Carrie Nation Guy?
• John Escapule: Big Face Guy (in case you cant read the copy on his face, it says: The most famous photo of Doc Holliday. Too bad it's not him. More fakes inside.

Let me know which one you like. Click here to email me and let me know.

Bob Reece flew in last night and is in town to talk to us about selling for the magazine. He’s in right now (10:27) meeting with Mike Melrose. Holly is coming in at 11 for a circulation meeting (her direct mail piece actually made money).

Bill Kurtis Productions in Chicago is requesting as much Billy the Kid artwork as I can send them, especially the new art of the McSween house fight which is only in the new Classic Gunfights book. Gus and I went through both the Billy book and the CG book yesterday and culled out all available artwork on Billy and put it on a CD for them.

”We often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
—Helen Keller, who, ironically was blind and couldn’t see the open door anyway