December 15, 2022
Dang, it's cold out for a desert rat. Mid-forties all day, dipping down to 33 at night. Oh, the humanity!
"Hey, can you show me those great dog cartoons one more time?"
—Uno
Okay, now are you happy?
"It's funny, 'cuz it's TRUE!"
—Uno
December 14, 2022
A cold one yesterday. Threat of snow all day, but we didn't get any. Stuart Rosebrook told me it snowed all day in Prescott Valley. All in all, it made for some pretty cloud formations. Here's Uno, last night, waiting for a slowpoke on Old Stage Road.
Some people I know have such good taste in art, it's not even funny.
Mark Lee Gardner with his latest acquisition:
"The Walk Down" by BBB
photo by Vance Lee Gardner
Saint Carole Gets Her Due
In honor of her retirement, we are featuring our very own Carole Compton Glenn in the next issue of True West. Here she is with her family in a classic photo from 1953.
Man, is it just me, or does Carole's mama look like Jane Russell?
Also, Carole's brother, William Edward Compton, was the voice of KDKB radio back in the Valley in the seventies and, yes, Compton Terrace, the concert venue was named for him.
For The Love of Story
Meanwhile I have been avidly studying "Story" and it is pretty damn amazing, to me, all the rules and the underpinnings I thought I knew, but I was just a damn fool Kingman kid who knew just enough to get in trouble. Here's how McKee puts it: "The love of a good story, of terrific characters and a world driven by your passion, courage, and creative gifts is still not enough. Your goal must be a good story, well told."
"You'll know you understand it when you can do it."
—Robert McKee, "Story"
December 13, 2022
Drove over to the Desert Caballeros Museum in Wickenburg this morning. Stunning clouds the entire way. Threatened to snow, all day. Full house at the museum learning center for Jana's and my talk on The Real Women of The Wild West. Here is my opening statement:
"We have a problem as a nation, as a community and as citizens of the United States. It threatens to destroy us. If you love history, we need to tell better stories. Tell better stories where people who disagree cooperate to achieve a higher goal. That's what's missing in the social landscape today. And that is what Jana and I have set out to do. Tell honest stories about the real women of the Wild West who deserve to be celebrated."
We sold three cases of books, so I guess you could say they got the message. Just really, really successful. In fact, now the problem is we don't have enough available books to do our January-February dates and a second edition is six weeks out. A good problem for sure, but there you go.
"There's nothing more futile than trying to explain a cartoon to someone who doesn't get it."
—Lee Lorenz, cartoon editor at The New Yorker, (1973-1997)
This is a cartoon by Lee Lorenz, above, proving he could walk the walk. I especially like the detail of the semi-empty theater. I can't remember the last time I was in a full theater.
December 12, 2022
Rained most of the night last night. Going to Wickenburg tomorrow for a big history talk with Jana, getting ready for that. Drove over to Ken's at eight this morning to pick up books and had to stop to capture the whisps of tattered clouds clinging to the sides of Continental Mountain.
We are revisiting some of our favorite Western images and no matter how far away we get from "Lonesome Dove" I still keep coming back to this amber glow image of Gus.
Damn, that's a cool image. I think the light on the wall, makes his shirt look beatific.
Back to our rain soaked world, got out on the road this morning around ten and caught these low moving clouds moving across our landscape.
Found this old logo and think it has some potential. Might need some Southwest colors and a rework of the "Original Features" title, but it has a humorous charm that fits me like a glove.
Flashback Whip Outs
Sometimes the work up sketches for my books contain images I wish I had used instead of the ones I did use. Here are a couple examples of this "buyer's remorse."
Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:
"Cantina Cowboys"
Damnit! Well, it just goes to show, I am sometimes my own worst enemy.
"A work of art that did not begin in emotion, is not art."
—Paul Cezanne
What if the emotion is disgust?
—BBB
December 11, 2022
My longtime curator, Kristi Jacobs, is stepping back from her daily duties as keeper of the chaos key at the Triple B Studios. She has managed to organize and label many, if not most—certainly in the thousands!—of the Daily Whip Outs I have created into an orderly system she has managed to wrangle over a ten year period.
Into that breech steps this young man, Eric Griggs, who came out last Saturday to help me mail off some art print orders.
Eric & Uno Wade Into The Chaos
Utilizing Kristi, on speaker phone, he was able to locate the following requested scenes from my morgue.
And then, almost defying gravity, Eric managed to locate this ancient illustration from a land far, far away.
Donna Jean and Honkytonk Sue make a toast
at Handlebar J's in Scottsdale, circa 1987.
Couple of cuties who still live in the hearts of horndog men everywhere.
Meanwhile, on the cover front. . .
"Thank you for sharing these last two posts with us. The psychology of a cover that sells vs. one that doesn't is fascinating. So much work goes into a magazine that we take for granted, thank you and your staff for their hard work and dedication- we fans of the west truly appreciate it! Let's see more of these covers-winners and losers!"
—Bradley Ross
Yes, coming up next, the outrageous covers that nobody, especially my staff, thought I had the nerve to actually put on the newsstand. There were many, this is just one:
—Robert Hughs
December 10, 2022
Early on, we ran a cover story on "Mattie Silks: Topless Gunfighter" and it tanked on the newsstand. It was totally my idea and I painted the cover. I couldn't understand it, because, well, Sex sells, right?
A couple years later, we ran a cover story with Jane Russell on the cover looking all-1950s-sexy and it also tanked! Okay, so it just wasn't my artwork that was repelling readers here. So what is it?
Didn't Work for Us
I was stymied until a couple from Montana came in our store in Cave Creek and I asked the guy with the Carhartt jacket and the cowboy hat, "Hey, look at this cover on the wall here and tell me what you think of it. Would you buy it?" He took a gander, scrunched his nose up as if he had smelled a fresh cow pie in his bedroll, and with his hands jammed in his pockets, he gestured at the offending cover with his chin and said with a drawl: "Maht as well put a red laight on it."
So, apparently there is a Puritan streak running through the Cowboy Zone that is larger than I thought.
Here's another newsstand bomb. We have never lost money on a Tombstone cover until we ran this one.
Is it the word "Hell"? Is it too gruesome? Whatever, it was not successfull.
Way back in the beginning of our regime, our editor at the time, Marcus Huff, lobbied hard for a Halloween cover, and so we came up with this monstrosity.
It was an actual Old West photograph of a skeleton with a stamp over the head of a guy who was holding it and apparently too embarrassed to be identified. After it ran I was a little embarrassed for thinking it was a good idea. We thought this would make a macabre cover that people would clammer for. I am here to tell you that is not true.
"Make no mistake, no one can achieve excellence as a writer without being something of a philosopher and holding strong convictions."
–Robert McKee, "Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting"
December 9, 2022
Still compiling best selling covers for a big pow wow on Monday where we will be selecting cover images for our 70th Year Anniversary. For example, this was our best seller in the last three years.
And this one also scored big numbers across the board.
Excellent cover story by Paul Andrew Hutton, plus a stellar feature inside by Art T. Burton on The Cherokee Kid.
Here's another solid performer, including the top head story on Little Bighorn's Forgotten Hero by Robert M. Utley.
And we always score big with our Mountain Man covers.
And, here is one that took us all by surprise.
" They say you can't judge a book by its cover but you damn sure can buy one off the newsstand by judging it in 1.5 seconds."
—Old Newsstand Saying
December 8, 2022
Got out on the road this morning around nine. Very nice out. This is the view going up to Morningstar.
You can file this one under two titles: "Get A Move On Old Man" or "Grandma Was Slow, But Grandma Was Old." Uno is a patient boy.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.
A world famous author purchased one of my Whip Outs on Tombstone yesterday. He has a good eye, he made a good choice so I made him a good deal.
Daily Whip Out: "Walkdown #4"
Thieves Drunk On Impunity
Is it just me, or is there a broad slackening of jurisprudence? I heard somewhere traffic accidents are up 20% partly because DMVs are closing, licenses are being handed out without any evidence of training or traffic law education and, except at a few schools, Driver's Ed is kaput. Meanwhile, store employees are told not to stop flash mob thievery and gangs sweep into retail stores and clean out shevles of cosmetics and other specialty items to sell online.
The Death of Customer Service
It took me two weeks and five tries to get past the AI operator at Walgreens to get to a real person and then three trips to the pharmacy (they close for an hour and a half for lunch?) to get a prescription filled and then when they filled it, they filled it twice.
“Unless we learn how to prepare for, and avoid, the potential risks, AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization. It brings dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for the few to oppress the many.”
—Stephen Hawking
December 7, 2022
Lots of dramatic weather in the last several days. This is from a couple nights ago:
Late light over the Triple B Bunkhouse
Sometimes it pays to get up early to take the garbage can out to the end of the driveway. Sunrise over Ratcliff Ridge this morning.
Out for my daily morning walks I spied these new rain clouds over Black Mountain.
Recently retired Carole Compton Glenn,
and her trusty dog, Jake, out for a walk
near their home in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
I have been researching our best selling covers over the past eight years and this cover, from April, 2016, is head and shoulders above anything we have done. Why do you think that is?
I'm also researching the new scholarship on Jesse James from Michelle Pollard (see, this blog Dec. 2nd)
And, I have to say, every extra day I am alive on this planet the more I appreciate these two crazy kids.
"Funny how blessings brighten as they take their flight."
–Old Vaquero Saying
December 6, 2022
I took Uno to dog training at Hunter Canine this morning and basically I learned how not to be a Pez dispenser. In other words, he took me to school. On the way home he wanted me to take a photo of him in front of his favorite backdrop, so I did.
"Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."
—Mark Twain
December 5, 2022
Here are a couple more screen grabs I got from watching the four-hour film "Greed."
And, if I'm not mistaken, isn't that the strata around Zabrinski Point near Furnace Creek in Death Valley?
Meanwhile, here's the same posse stopping at a mining claim that will lead them to the killer. Notice how the non-actor points at it like he's in a still photograph and not a film.
We've had quite a bit of rain the last two days. Woke up this morning to low lying fog everywhere.
And, here is the view from the top of Morningstar, looking west towards New River.
Meanwhile, Down On The Border
(masterfully retouched by Brian Winkler)
Titles With Tension
Good titles provoke tension and this tension begets attention.
Want to come up with a powerful title? You might try to emulate this one.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid
This title, created by cartoonist Jeff Kinney in 2004, hit a nerve. There are now 17 books in the series and a spin-off series, centering on the character Rowley Jefferson, has three installments so far. The first, second, fourth and ninth installements have been adapted into films by 20th Century Fox. Two books have been released chronicling the production of the films. More than 275 million copies have been sold globally, making it the sixth best-selling book series of all time.
Here's how Jeff created this juggernaut:
"A lot of kids in children's literature, the protagonists are like miniature adults, and they always do the right thing. They're brave. They're aspirational characters. While I was writing 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid,' I was actually reading 'Harry Potter,' and Harry's brave. He's magical. He's powerful. He's famous. He's all the things that I was not. So I wanted to create a character who was more like me."
—Jeff Kinney
