April 5, 2006
Big wind during the night. Rained pretty hard this morning. Got in a walk with Kathy and the dogs before the deluge. Retired to the studio and whipped out two Kid Curry paintings. Really struggled. Worked until about 12:30, broke for lunch and finished at 1:15, got dressed and scooted up to the office for an executive session with Bob Brink and Carole Glenn. Growth issues, i.e. too much growth, not enough money. Ha.

Robert Ray scanned in the last two images for CG (Classic Gunfights) and I wrote the cutlines. Wanted to do an illustration of the unique pistol Pike Landusky was carrying (see Spangenberger Emails below), but ran out of time. Oh well, we’ll include it in the book version of the fight.

More Loud Gunshot Ricochets
"When we shot 'The Honkers,' way back in 1971, the sound we used for a double barreled shotgun blast was a howitzer."
—Stephen Lodge

One of the last authentic sign painters in the U.S., Alan Scott, is in town. I saw his big, sign-painting truck parked by the school house two days ago and I pulled over and yelled at him to come see me at the office. He came in yesterday and we talked about a new design for our outdoor sign. It currently says True West Trading Post, but we don’t have the store anymore. We’d like the new one to say True West World Headquarters. In the sign making biz, virtually everyone has gone to computers, but Alan still does it the old way, by hand, and they his signs are without peer. If you’ve ever been to Bisbee, you’ve seen his work, which is where I found him.

In case you think “World Headquarters” is just an empty slogan, here’s a letter marked “Urgent”, “Prior” and “Personal” I got today:

“I’m a Belgian subscriber from your beautiful magazine. Congratulations for your magazine ‘True West.’ I’m a great fan from Old West and I enjoy read your magazine (excuse me for my bad English language).
—Guy Jacquemin, Saint-Leger, Belgium

Ex-New Times Staffer Points Out Sweet Irony of Executive Editor Mike Lacey’s Legacy
“Do you realize the federal law that prohibits the illegal transportation of reptiles is the Lacey Law? Ha ha.”

Knowing The Right Chaps Department
Yesterday, I sent the following Email to Phil Spangenberger: I'm doing a gunfight for the next issue on Kid Curry vs. Pike Landusky in Montana. The fight took place two days after Christmas in 1894 and Landusky was carrying a semi-automatic pistol (an 1893 9mm Borchardt, supposedly a Swedish gun?). I tried to look this up in my Flayderman's Guide to Antique Firearms, but it ain't there. It seems so exotic, I'd love to illustrate it in Pike's hands. I envision a kind of German pistol with one of those magazines in front of the trigger kind of guns. Any idea what this bugger looked like?

Phil’s Immediate Answer
“The Borchardt was a German pistol, not Swedish. You need to get a copy of
the new 2006 Standard Catalog of Firearms, by Ned Schwing, and published by
Krause Publications, Inc. You should be able to find one at any gun store. I suspect they have a recent copy at Legendary Guns in Phoenix. You can get a picture there. The Borchardt is a unique looking auto pistol. Nothing else looks like it.”
—Phil Spangenberger

Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Insomniac Pulls All-Dayer

”A man shares his days with hunger, thirst, and cold, with the good times and the bad, and the first part of being a man is to understand that.”
—Louis L’Amour