December 2, 2009
Well, here is Dan The Man's first crack at the cover for January featuring the editorial style cartoon I created last week:

Notice that the top heads aren't written and Dan is putting in filler type. (He often makes these rude and crude to inspire us to fill them mucho pronto. Ha.)

Meanwhile, I went home for lunch a little early today and finished the big, Mesilla Brawl On The Mall painting for the splash page inside. Here's how it looked this morning:

And here's how it looked at 2:30 this afternoon:

As I finished I thought of a new title: "In The Shadow of God's House." The deadly gunfight (7 to 15 dead and some 50 wounded) took place on the northwest corner of the Old Mesilla square, catty-corner from the church. Oh, we are crazy mo fos, are we not?

Brought it back into the office, Robert Ray photographed it (too big for the scanner) and is working on the final layout (3:27 P.M.)

This is a very cool package in a very cool issue (one of the strongest I have ever worked on). Bob Alexander did an excellent job researching and writing this (and bringing it to us first). I really think with the current rancor in the political spectrum this story could get traction in the national media. We'll see. Some of it depends on a good press release, and that will fall to Mark Boardman. I'll keep you posted how this all shakes out. Goes to the printer tomorrow. Subscribers will have it in about two weeks.

"The thing you really believe in always happens and the belief in a thing makes it happen."
—Frank Lloyd Wright