October 17, 2024
Took off from Phoenix this mornng and landed in Texas for a big Will Rogers event in Fort Worth.
Heavy traffic all the way. Ran into this guy outside Love Field.
Stockyards tomorrow. Need to buy Kathy a new hat.
"All my Exits live in Texas."
—Old Hard of Hearing Saying
October 16, 2024
Uno and I got out on the road early and caught this sunrise.
Thanks to the cooling temps (high 80s!) we can actually sit outside in the late afternoon for the first time in four months!
Still having fun with my 300 widows project and how a community would react to the slaughter of all the adult males in town. Of course, this is not a new concept. I remember certain comics growing up, giving this theme a go.
Meanwhile, while were on the subject of bigger than life women. . .
And, just for grins, here's a rough mock up of our next cover.
Highly Unpaid T-Shirt Models
Thanks to new web technology, now you can have your own shirt delivered right to your door:
A Monument to My Peace of Mind Shirt
"The first motorcycle race began when the second motorcycle was built."
—Old Flat Tracker Saying
October 15, 20024
Here are 7.5 more classic True West covers that kicked arse and took names.
Classic True West Cover #6
We had this issue on our booth table at the Tucson Festival of Books back in 2019 and people would stroll by, glance at the table, keep going, Mississippi one, Missisippi two. . .and they would come rushing back, pick up the mag and gush: "My mother loves Gus!" and this went on for three days. Sometimes they loved Call, sometimes their father made them watch "Lonesome Dove" every Christmas. It grabbed everyone, young and old. Such an iconic book, show and story.
Classic True West Cover #7
Just a great story and it's amazing it has not been made into a movie, yet. Mort Mortensen wrote a wonderful script with me and someday it will find it's way to the big screen. You can bet on it.
Classic True West Cover #8
Way off the wall, but Dan the Man loves this one. Didn't do great on newsstand but I like it that we took a chance. And, speaking of taking wing-ding chances. . .
Dan did a great job of grafting the head of Bass Reeves on to the iconic Lone Ranger but this did not sit well with readers or newsstand buyers. Stuart Rosebrook quoted the old Jim Croce song, "don't pull on Superman's cape, don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger. . ." Once again, not a newsstand winner, but a classic nonetheless.
This issue and my blog post about it, gets viewed and watched every day since it came out. This concept struck such a nerve and it didn't hurt that we scored the excellent photograph of Dennis Quaid as Doc Holliday from Kevin Costner's Wyatt Earp.
Oh, and Dan the Man said we would be remiss if we didn't include two more of his favorite covers.
"Wrong eye, Pilgrim!" is why Dan loves this cover and that is so Dan.
But enough about past covers. In my opinion, the best is yet to come. Dan the Man and I are working on a killer Samuel Walker cover that works on the premise, "What if there was an actual photo of Samuel Walker holding two of the Walker Colts named in his honor?
Daily Whip Out:"Samuel Walker Holds A Pair"
(in progress)
"Though the Mattie Silks Nude Duel was my 1st subscription issue the Wyatt Earp Without a Scratch was my 2nd issue. I still read the 32 page excerpt about the O K Corral gunfight from that issue that you and Jeff Morey did for your Doc Holliday Illustrated Book. I read it every October 26th and then watch the Appointment with Destiny program about the gunfight. Great stuff!"
—Mark TW Maniac 235
October 14, 2024
Honestly, I really wasn't fishing for complements, but it always warms the heart to get a response like this for my recent "dumb" cover exercise:
"Don't beat yourself up about 'bad' covers. You have hit so many home runs that a few less than outstanding covers don't matter. And I'd wager that every one that you call a dud is a few folks favorite cover. Excelsior!"
—Michael Lowe
"Love your magazine and the covers….even these! Just curious, what were your best covers?"
—Unknown
Funny you should ask.
The Best True West Covers Ever!
Let's get right to it.
Best True West Cover #1All time best newsstand seller in the 25 years I have been running the magazine. Is it the red stop sign background? Is it the intriguing questions? Whatever it is, Dan The Man outdid himself with this one. Just a brilliant cover all the way round.
Best True West Cover #2I always get this complaint that sex doesn't sell in True West but this one rocked. Also, Jennifer Tilly went on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and pulled out the issue and showed it on national television. That didn't hurt!
We got into what we called the Mexican Wrestler look, with woodcut poster images. Great graphics and cool type. What's not to like?
This is Dan the Man's favorite all time cover and he has a point. Just dang cool.
And, that's just the first five big time sellers. The rest tomorrow.
"Wyatt Earp matters because of what he means, not for who he really was."
—Thom Ross
October 13, 2024
And, now, for your viewing pleasure, we have a very angry chica from Divisadero, Sonora
Daily Whip Out:"La Poderosa"
She is one of the widows in Divisadero who is not fond of Mexican machismo which she blames for her husband's death. She is not alone with this idea in the village of 300 widows.
Halloween Cover Buy In
"Funny but the Halloween issue was the 1st True West I bought since you took over the magazine and I've been hooked ever since! Took out my first subscription and got the Mattie Silks Nude Duel issue in January 2001 and have every issue since then."
—Mark, TW Maniac 235
My original partner, Bob McCubbin, was not a fan of this cover. We were doing an Old West show in Mankato, Minnesota in 2001 and I had a sampling of True West issues on the table and this one had just come out so I had it prominently, front and center. I went out to get something and when I got back I noticed the issue was face down so I turned it over and was talking to someone and when I looked down again Bob had turned it over again. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I hate that cover. It's embarrassing!" So, it's more than a little ironic that Mark The Maniac #235 received this as his first issue.
Horse Humiliation vs. Horse Appreciation
"I don't do horseback riding, mainly because I prefer to be comfortable—and it's not the 1800s. I'm sure the horses aren't thrilled either: "Why am I carrying you around? I saw you drive up in a Honda Accord." But people love to horseback ride. I have a friend, she told me the reason she enjoys horseback riding is because she loves horses, which seems like a strange way of expressing love for someone. Making it carry you around on its back. I mean, I love my great aunt Katie, but I'm not making her carry me around on her back. Not anymore, you know."
October 12, 2024
A great guy with even better taste in art, just came out to the Triple B Ranch and walked off with my original painting of Charles Poston.
Yes, and he's wearing a Joe Arpaio junior sheriff's badge to answer the Patinas question, "I got your stinking badge right here!"
Meanwhile, down Douglas way. . .
We are getting set to honor the guy who took this wonderful photo of Julie Hagan way back in 1981 at the Wagstaff Land & Cattle Company in Wyoming. My best friend, Charlie Waters gifted me a signed print of this image and it now hangs prominently in my daughter's house. The photographer's name is Jay Dusard and he is a Master. He lives in Douglas, Arizona and is an Arizona legend.
Two More Covers I Wish I Had Back
To put the cover failures conversation in context, it isn't that I didn't like how these covers came out, it's that they wayyyy underperformed on the newsstand, thus the Dumb Cover title. When Craig Schepp came out today to pick up his original painting he commented that he loved all the covers, and in fact, some of them were his favorites. Well, yes, he and I and two others as crazy as we are. So, here's two more to discuss:
Covers That Were Too Hip for The Room
One of the pitfalls in choosing an image for the cover is the discovery of an actual photo of a major Old West character that is a little mind blowing. Take this cover for example:
The crazy thing is this is an actual photo of Sitting Bull wearing snow goggles! And we were just so excited to print it on the cover for the joy and benefit of our readers. And we knew everyone would freak out and tell their friends. Well, turns out, many of them were turned off by the image and thought it was faked. Later on, we ran the same photo of him without the goggles (taken at the same photo session) and it did quite well. The moral is, be careful about being too hip for the room.
Lots of negative phone calls on this one (not a surprise) but the extra attention did not result in extra newsstand sales. Still it's a classic and I'm glad we ran it because my Kingman kin all puckered at the site of this. And anytime you can make Kingman folk pucker, that is a fun thing to do.
Oh, and here's the painting Craig Schepp bought today.
"The Father of Arizona Charles Poston"The lad has such good taste in art.
"The quality of a painter depends on the amount of the past he carries with him."
—Pablo Picasso
October 11, 2024
It isn't often we take stock of our failures, but here's a partial listing of my biggest regrets in publishing, so far.
The Dumbest Covers I Have Ever Done
Normally, I would say "the dumbest covers we have ever done" because I believe in the edict that it's truly amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit, but these covers were my idea from the get go and I won't share any of the resulting embarrassment with my comrades in graphic design. Here's the first boneheaded one, done early in our ownership of the magazine.
I think it was Marcus Huff who found this weird old photo of a guy posing with a skeleton. It think it was an 1850s image. Someone, probably the sitter, was so embarrassed by this he put a postage stamp over his own head to hide his identity. That's just a guess. Why we would run this—on the cover!—is beyond me today. Well, maybe not beyond, because I green lit it, but dang, I wish I had this one back.
Same with this next one.
One of our writer's room jokes is that in the old days, True West featured a dead man in every issue. But on the cover! This flirts dangerously close to death porn and I wish I had it back, but it's dead to me. Sorry, and the "Craps Out" line is a total groaner.
One of The Dumbest Covers Ever #4
October 10, 2024
I think you would agree, we are living in a very weird time. First off, it's the era of choose your own news. And, is it my imagination, or is every single institution in our culture cracking or under attack?
A Historic Warning
Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those of us who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it!
If you love history, we are in this together. Why?
"Every self-conscious group of any size fabricates myths about its past; about its origins, its mission, its righteousness, its benevolence, its general superiority."
—C. Vann Woodward
Remember, if you help someone when they are in trouble they will remember you when they're in trouble again.
Meanwhile, I wanted to do a movie poster idea on a fleeing vaquero riding through the divide while a leering La Sterna, hovers over him with disdain. Instead, I got this. . .
Daily Whip Out: "Cleavage Rider"
Alcohol doesn't solve any problems, but then again, neither does milk.
October 9, 2024
Someone asked me why I get out on the road so early in the morning for my walk with Uno and the answer is the heat. For the past four months it has been in the high seventies before sunrise, but as soon as the sun shows up, it jumps ten degrees in a very quick matter of time. So, that's why I stepped out this morning to see this.
Sunrise this morning over Ratcliff Ridge at exactly 6:40 a.m. (one of the amazing and convenient aspects of iPhone technology is that it automatically time stamps every image taken).
Daily Reworked Scratchboard Whip Out:"The Man Who Tore Holes In The Screen
With His Eyes."
In case you were wondering, here is the view to the left of my computer.
"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself."
—Emily Dickinson
October 8, 2024
In 2015 Kathy Sue lined up a van Gogh tour for me and the Ds (Dan and Darlene Harshberger), starting in Amsterdam and down to Nunen, thru Brussels to Paris on the train and on to Arles and San Marie, San Remy, then back to Auver-sur-Oise where Vincent cashed out.
BBB at San Remy in the south of France
(note the plaid overshirt over my arm)
Fast forward to Saint Jo, Missouri in 2023 when Mark Lee Gardner took me into the courthouse to show me the actual bench where Robert and Charlie Ford were booked on April 3, 1882.
(photo by Mark Lee Gardner)
We Get Mail
"Congratulations on the reward you will be receiving from the Will Rogers people next week. I will not be there, but I have harangued you on article ideas since you bought True West magazine and moved it from Stillwater."
What's In A Name?
Everything. I see him as a cross between a Mexican Uncle Sam and Son of Sam Clemens.
Daily Whip Out: "Old Vaquero #41""Never give a sword to a man who can't dance."
—Old Vaquero Saying
October 7, 2024
When we bought True West magazine 25 years ago we also got two other titles with it: Frontier Times and Old West magazine. We sold off Frontier Times, but still own the Old West magazine name.
"Seems like you still care" and then for the doubters, "Let's see how this goes." This is how Ellen DeGeneres opened her "farewell" stand-up special For Your Approval. Given her recent cancellation for being "mean" and running a toxic workspace, I have to say I was rooting for her. She did over an hour of good material, then at the end, she simply said this: "After a lifetime of caring, I just can't anymore. So, I don't. . ." Long pause, "But if I'm being honest. . ." longer pause, crowd starts to swell with apprehension and support. "And, I have a choice of people remembering me as someone who is mean, or someone who is beloved, be-loved? Beloved? Be-loved," she rides this maybe ten times, and then ends it with this: "I choose that." Several in the audience stand and start cheering. Then more and more until she gets the big Standing O. Not sure it's worthy of a standing O, but she got one and you can't argue with that.
"The truth is simple. If it was complicated everyone would understand it."
—Walt Whitman
Daily Scratchboard Whip Outs:"Old West Types Galore"
The moral: Do dumb things until you get it right. There is no other path to the place you want to go.
"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."
—Winston Churchill
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.”
—Samuel Beckett
“[In sports] there’s a winner, there’s a loser. What I love about art is, it’s not like that. It’s about self-perfection. I love trying to make the absolute best film you can. Get everyone together and just do your absolute best. If you can actualize that, that’s the magic.”
—Richard Linklater
What's in a name?
Everything.
Given name: Louis Bert Lindley, Jr.
Stage name: Slim Pickens.
“Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere.”
—Orhan Pamuk
