March 29, 2007
Surprisingly cool this morning. Perhaps it's one final cold spell before the brunt of summer squats on our collective faces. Almost started a fire in the studio stove this morning, but ran out of time.

Working hard on two Classic Gunfights at the same time. We're going to do a six-page El Paso Salt War gunfight for the August issue based on Paul Cool's forthcoming book, and that incident will round out the CGIII book, which goes to press in two weeks. I have a bunch of art to do to finish that, in addtion to the next gunfight, Black-faced Charley Bryant's shootout aboard a baggage car in Oklahoma. We are using Robert DeArment's excellent coverage of that fight.

Robert Chenal came in yesterday. The young marine, and close friend of my son T. Charles, is shipping out to Iraq in a couple weeks. He has had special training on IEDs (improvised explosive devices and the number one killer of our troops) and the latest ways to spot them. The insurgents use trash bags, kids and anything that suits them so it's not the easiest thing in the world to do, as the death count illustrates). He also told me he was up at the Hideaway (a local biker bar) and after his twentieth beer, Sonny Barger offered to pay for a U.S. Marine Corp tat. So now Robert has a big tattoo on the inside of his right arm of the Marine Corp symbol. Sonny is the legendary former president of the Oakland Hell's Angels, and also a marine I believe.

Onion Headline de Jour
Teens: Are They Laughing At You?

"Over the lips of evidence passes the truth of the dead."
—Steve Sederwall