Once Upon A Time, In The Land of Leaden Skies

 March 7, 2022

   Cleaning up the Daltons package even as you read this. Still lots to design and storyboard, but that is the fun part. Here's how the Eighth Street view of the Daltons riding in, came out:

Daily Whip Out: "Daltons Ride In Final"

   And here's Dan The Man's second pass on a cover idea.

Daily Cover Whip Out:

"In The Land of Leaden Skies"

   I'm still on the hunt for better storytelling techniques. As I have mentioned before, good storytelling is basically withholding information. I have searched high and low for storytellers to learn from, but I have to say, this old radio guy sure knew what he was doing when it came to withholding information.

The King of Withholding Information

   Here's the late, great, Paul Harvey setting up a couple of his famous Rest of The Story radio broadcasts.

"The speckles in the Pacific night sky were bombers. Nine twin-engine Japanese bombers, in formation, on course to their target: the aircraft carrier Lexington." [A Rest of The Story on how O'Hare Airport got its name! No, really!]

   "Once upon a time, in a land of leaden skies and creeping fogs and flat, barren countryside, there lived a boy. His name was Dietz Edzard. The place was Bremen, Germany." [The mysterious history of a famous painting.]

   "An oily midnight mist had settled on the city streets. . .asphalt mirrors from a ten-o'clock rain now past. . .a sleazy street-corner reflection of smog-smudged neon. . .the corner of Sheridan and, incongruously, Sunnyside. . .Chicago.

   "A lone lady lingers at the curb. . .but no bus will come." [A former nun who worked undercover as a decoy prostitute to arrest johns].

Information Successfully Withheld

   And if you were wondering just how a Japanese attack on an aircraft carrier in WWII led to the naming of O'Hare Airport, here you go:

   The namesake of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport never lived in Chicago—Edward H. "Butch" O'Hare—was born and raised in St. Louis. Butch's father,  Edgar Joseph "EJ" O'Hare, helped snag Al Capone, and Butch helped win World War II by downing five of the Japanese bombers all by himself, then ran out of ammunition and his comrades arrived to finish the job.

"And now you know. . .the REST of the story."

—Paul Harvey's signature sign off