O.K. Lynching Prep, A Father Gives Thanks And Black Jack Before The Drop

 August 27, 2023

   My father's birthday. He was a good man.

Allen P. Bell

(1923-1998)

Said This to A Friend With A Terminal Illness

   I want you to know you are loved and respected by all the intelligent and sensitive people in this neck of the woods. True, that's perhaps only 12 people, but still you can take that to the bank. Love you bro.

Meanwhile, A Father Gives Thanks

The author R. j. Palacio ("White Bird") was interviewed in the New York Times Review of Books today and she relates the story of sharing "Les Miserables" with her two sons. She says, "I love how affected they both were, not only for the heroic intentions of young people their age, but by the small affirmations of human goodness reflected in the subtlest of gestures, the briefest of dialogues. I can't say these conversations made us actually closer than we already are, but when your children become adults with whom you can have deep, philosophical conversations that blow your mind, well, it's really a joyful, exuberant, life-affirming moment in the life of a parent."

   I shared this with my kids and told them I hope they get to have those conversations with their children when they are grown, as I have. It is a very wonderful and fulfilling thing.

O.K. Lynching

   Doing sketches for an ambitious set piece on a hypothetical lynching at the O.K. Corral. Want to capture the crowd in an accurate way.

   Slack-jawed goobers at the corner of First and Toughnut in Tombstone, at the impromptu hanging of John Heath in 1883. If you ask me those mouth-breathers are not the brightest looking citizens of Cochise county.

Daily Whip Out:

"Slack Jawed Goobers"

Another piece of reference I am using is this close up of Black Jack on the gallows.

Black Jack Before the Drop

      And, if you know the story, he lost his head.  

"These days my preferred brand of sunscreen is a house."

—Cranky Old Boomer