April 3, 2006
Well, I did a record 28 research sketches on the Wyatt Earp blitzing illustration and I've got not one usable image, yet. In the good news department, I’m at 917 drawings, at six a day, without missing a day since November.

Paul Hutton sent me a great French Comic Book, “Histoire Du Far West” featuring Wild Bill Hickok on the cover (by the way, I got a phone message over the weekend from a guy arguing with his friend, a filmmaker, who claimed Wild Bill was not a real person and completely made up. I just called “Greggor” from Cosanti, like Arcosanti, but without the Ar, who told me his friend said, “If you don’t believe me, call Bob Boze Bell.” So he did). Anyways, back to Hutton’s oversized comic book, it was published in 1981 and has some pretty remarkable artwork in it, although heavily influenced by the movies. Here’s a sample of the dialogue balloons in the O.K. Corral part:

“Compte sur, moi, Whyatt!” (yes, they spell Wyatt Earp with an h)

“Ike. . .me Vengera!”

“Tom et Frank Maclaury (sic) sont Morts.”

“Ou vas-tu, Clanton?”

“Vous arrivez un peu tard, Sherif!”

I can’t speak French, but I assume the last passage is a reference to Sheriff Behan being a tad tardy at the fight, even though he was, in fact on the scene.

One More Tidbit On Wendell’s Funeral
“I heard about Wendell’s funeral. Did you stick it out for the entire time? I think I would have like to have gone to the wake the night before. They said the funeral on Saturday that you went to was actually for all the Christian Hualapai, and the wake was where the action was.”
—Brenda Hamilton

Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Hungover Heineken Promoter Can’t Remember What He Said About Heineken Last Night

“[Historian J. Frank Dobie believed] that truth lies in narrative and allusion, more than in facts and proof.”
—A quote from a new exhibition on the Texas legend and former True West contributing editor by the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University at San Marcos