Just got our office copies of the Soiled Doves issue hot off the presses in Kansas City. It is without a doubt the most ambitious and, I believe, successful issue I've had the pleasure of working on in the last 13 years here at True West.
This issue was a very hard sell to some because women covers haven't performed as well as our Cowboy-Gunfighter covers (the Doc's Last Gunfight and Tombstone's 20th Anniversary covers are the biggest sellers of the year, so far). At the last minute we decided to double down and do a photo feature on Wild Women as well to really go all the way on the subject—and pay off the cover teases—and it all paid off in a great way.
The cover went through many phases and images, like this one:
The problem with this version was Lotta Crabtree (the cover girl) was not a Soiled Dove and we really needed someone on the line, as it were. Lotta is inside, however, and gets her due with a full page leading off the Wild Women of the West feature.
Some minor and some major differences as we covered the dog, as our art director, Dan The Man Harshberger, puts it.
"I slow danced at my prom to 'Four Dead in Ohio.'"
—@jonathan_katz
