Thursday, April 07, 2016

My Agent & Feeder Tube Lightning

April 7, 2016
   Juggling a couple of projects both at home and at the office. And, of course, still trying to capture the muy Mexicana images I scarfed off of YouTube a couple days ago:



Daily Whip Out Sketches: "Moebius and 'La Malquerida'"

   People often ask me how I got my True West Moments TV gig on the Westerns Channel and the short answer is I had a good agent. Here we are, Jeb Rosebrook and myself at the Tucson Book Festival last month. Jeb is a legendary screenwriter ("Junior Bonner," "Black Hole" among others) and he was actually talking to the powers that be at the Westerns Channel about a pet project he wanted to sell them and when my name came up he highly recommended me. The irony is he didn't get the deal he was there to pitch. But all this strangely led to my ten-year-gig there. Like I often say, if I saw it in a a movie, I wouldn't believe it. Ever since he has referred to himself as my "agent." Funny guy. I'm Bob Boze Bell and this has been a True West Moment.



My "agent" Jeb Rosebrook and me at the Tucson Book Festival


   Struggling with a big painting depicting Texas Ranger Frank Hamer on horseback as part of a splash-page opener. Hope to finish today. 


Frank Hamer in progress

      Meanwhile, grabbed another half-finished study and finished it before I came into work. 


Daily Whip Out: "Feeder Tube Lightning"

    This was inspired by those long feeder tubes leading to the volcanic neck known as Shiprock in northern New Mexico. The very idea that liquid lava would harden in the feeding tubes to the volcano's neck and then eons later the surface area would erode away to expose the tubes, is nothing short of spectacular to actually see. Anyway, this study started a long ways from there, but as I developed the shapes, and floated in the rocky escarpments in the foreground, that geological formation came to mind, thus the title.

Post Script
   Okay, I went home for a late lunch and finished the Frank Hamer piece at 3:30 and brought it back in. Goes down to Dan The Man for layout and final approval. Then on to Kansas City for the press run, a week from today. Great article from a spectacular new book on the toughest Texas Ranger by my friend John Boessenecker. It's interesting that for Baby Boomers Hamer gets a bad rap because he plays the heavy in Warren Beatty's "Bonnie & Clyde," when in fact, it took the veteran lawman to bring down these vicious animals that we have romanticized.


Daily Whip Out: "The Greatest Lawman of The Twentieth Century, Frank Hamer"


"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors and let every new year find you a better man."
—Benjamin Franklin

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