February 1, 2005
Gus and I are whittling away at CGII and it is looking mighty fine. Of course we are over our deadline, as of today, and we are at least a couple of weeks, at least, away from handing off to Meghan and production, but at this point it will be what it will be.

Brian Lebel and his partner Bill Welch of Legacy Gallery came by the office at four to talk about doing a special show for the release of the book. They followed me out to the house to look at the piles and piles of original art going into CGII (I think I’ll end up with close to 150 pieces of art). They told me they liked what they saw and that we will decide on a date for the rollout show, probably in late August or early September.

I’m going to post the Jesus Out West cover ideas over the next several days. The black and white scratchboard is the first one I did, before the crown of thorns controversy. The yellow Jesus in the desert seems too serious, although it was intended to be more formal (read that less blasphemous). The halo one is too cute (read that too lame), but the Good, The Bad & The Holy one I think could work, although I’ve got everyone so riled up now, hardly anyone can look at it with fresh eyes. Bob Brink came in my office, looked at the art and said, “Is that supposed to be Jesus?” And I said, “Well, it’s actually Clint Eastwood. Why? Does it look like Jesus?” And he said, and I quote, “It better not.” Now would he have said that if he and Trish weren’t reading this blog? Probably not. So I have no one to blame but myself for the feeding frenzy.

As I told the staff this morning in our weekly meeting, I find it more than ironic that the very people who I thought would love to see Jesus on the cover, are the most uptight and hysterical on the subject. But then, I did actually read all the dire warnings from Paul Hutton, Charlie Waters, Jeff Hildebrandt. Mark Boardman and others.

Here’s three Emails I got today:

"I really liked the sketch of Jesus in the West, it actually gives me a
little hope for us out here. Course, if I like it, that probably means it's
too weird and you shouldn't do run it. Confused? Welcome to my strange
world."
—Carol. D.

"Just cuz you can doesn't mean you should. I concur with the secret death wish comment."
—Jim C.

"Having seen the sketch I did not think it blasphemous (except for using a spaghetti western theme!) at all. But then I think The Alamo should have been a box-office hit, so there you go."
—Alan Huffines

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."
—Woody Allen