Honkytonk Sue's Grannie?

 March 10, 2022

When I created the cartoon character Honkytonk Sue back in 1977 I was inspired by the old 1920s rodeo cowgirls. Here's someone who perhaps inspired them.

Nan Gable

This is Nan Gable who allegedly rode a horse from San Francisco to New York, in 1910-11, on a bet with Buffalo Bill Cody. So, if you ask me, this is Honkytonk Sue's grandmother.

Honkytonk Sue, circa 1999

   I found this Mexican vaqueros photograph way back in 1992 and ran it in my very first "The Illustrated Life & Times of Billy the Kid" to illustrate the hispanic side of New Mexico during the Lincoln County War.

   On the back it says, "Florencio Sotomayor Hijo de Jesus y Guadalupe Sotomayor Nacio 1868 murio 2-15-1915." Yes, it probably dates to around 1900 but I still dig the image.

   I'm still not happy with the Dalton cover image. Dan The Man's cover design is superb, but I want the lead rider to be a little more menacing and a tad more historically accurate to 1892.

Daily Whip Out:

"Bob Dalton's Fake Whiskers Fooled No One"

   I finally broke down and bought the controversial book, "The 1619 Project." I wanted to see what it really said, as opposed to all the lightning rod reaction to it. Here is my take so far:

• It's true we all suffer for the poor history we have been taught.

• We are a nation of defining contradictions.

• How do you explain an unflinching, bitter past to a polarized present? I'm not sure you can.

• As with most aspects of history, you can make a valid interpretation on both sides of most issues.

• Nations keep their shape by shaping their citizen's understanding of the past.

• Like all origin stories, we seek to explain our society to ourselves in order to give it some order and understanding. Good luck with that.

• Our preference for nostalgia and for a history that never happened is not without consequence.

• Most of us are guilty of a "glorious forgetting."

• "White Americans desire to be free of a past they do not want to remember, while Black Americans remain bound to a past they can never forget."

• If we are a truly great nation, the truth cannot destroy us.

   So much for the preface. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the book.

"The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there."

—Old Vaquero Saying