Bob Boze Bell Art Blog

November 13, 2009
Charlie Waters has just completed editing a multi-part series on Valor as it applies to our servicemen and women at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 54-part series started Sunday and you can read the stories of heroism at Americanvalor.net

Charlie adds, “We will add stories of the six Medal of Honor winners on Sunday, then start adding one new profile of a medal recipient each day to the site next Tuesday through the end of the year. Eight stories are already on the site.”

I checked out one of them yesterday, the story of Michael David Carter, a photographer who got caught in one of the worst firefights in the long Afghan war. I had tears in my eyes reading it. And you can click on a video version where he tells the story himself. Amazing stuff and it should be required viewing by every American.

Also check out Allen Barra’s article on the first football game, including info on John Clum. It’s called The First Down, Ever

Just got word from Allen Huffines that the Coen Brothers next flick, True Grit, has landed the following casting: Matt Damon as LeBeouf (Glenn Cambell), and Josh Brolin as Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall).

“If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.”
—Doug Larson

November 12, 2009
My son Thomas Charles came out today to show off his cherry 1984 El Camino which he just bought from a Snowbird in Mesa:

A car buff from Minnesota sold it to T. and it is very nice.

Meanwhile, I took one more crack at the Medicine Lodge Hanging:

That’s the barn, at top, where the prisoners were being held. There is a famous photo of the four outlaws standing in front of the doorway just hours before they were killed. Some of the men in that picture I used for reference in this scratchboard. I may add a few distinguishing windows in the morning. Or not.

“Making money is like digging with a pin; losing money is like pouring water on the sand.”
—Old Vaquero Saying

November 11, 2009
A week from hell in the office. Lots of stress all around. Record territory issue, but it took its toll. Trying to repair damage and recover. Production manager out sick.

Went home for lunch and took another couple cracks at the Medicine Lodge hanging where they hanged three guys with two ropes. Here’s a new sketch:

And a scratchboard attempt:

Still not quite right, but I’m getting there.

“All censure of a man’s self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.”
—Samuel Johnson

November 5, 2009
Got a call this morning from a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, who is doing an obit piece on Ted Yeatman, who passed away on November 1. After praising Yeatman’s stellar research and skills regarding Jesse James, Fred Rasmussen, the reporter, asked me how I got along with Ted. That was a tough one. Ted was a challenge for my staff, to say the least. I tried to answer as honestly as I could.

100 Covers: From Wipeout to Mickey Free
As we close in on the last two years of covers on our march from the January 2000 issue to today, it’s interesting to me to note how wide the swings are for themes on covers. Here’s our January, 2008 cover:

In the fall of 2007 I attended True Grit Days in Ridgeway, Colorado. For three days, Jason Strykowski and I sat in a tent and looked out at a constant stream of 200-plus people waiting to get a peek at Angie Dickinson, Johnny Crawford and Kim Darby.

Sitting there it became crystal clear to me: we live in a celebrity driven culture. Thousands of people came to this tiny town to see the three of them, while we sat there with one or two people coming up. The celebrity tent had long lines all weekend (snaking right in front of us). We quickly realized we needed to work the lines and began giving mags to many of them. On the way home, it finally sank in to me why Cowboys & Indians runs a celeb on each and every cover.

First came Russell Crowe and Glenn Ford on our 3:10 to Yuma cover (see October, 2007), then came Brad Pitt as Jesse James, followed by Tommy Lee Jones in No Country For Old Men, and we followed that into January of 2008 with:

Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. As with most trends, the strength and length of it depends on results and when I attended the Dude Ranchers Association confab in Cody, Wyoming in January of 2008, I brought along these covers in a power point presentation and showed them to the banquet dinner crowd of about 300 people (all dude ranch owners or ranch hands). I was stunned when I asked for a show of hands and only one guy in the room had seen all three movies (and he was from New York!). A handful had seen 3:10 to Yuma. That’s when another realization hit me: they may be bigtime celebrities but not that many Westerners are seeing their movies. Ha. This ended, or at least curtailed my shortlived love affair with Western movie stars on the cover.

It was during this stretch, in February of 2008, that I had my heart attack while playing “Wipeout” at a reunion band gig in Kingman. My able staff worked on without me for about six weeks. Although I worked on the April cover concept, not much inside came from my hand:

I really like this cover of Geronimo: the idea that the Travel Issue banner is on the wall behind him, like a Wild West poster. Very clever, Dan The Man!

When I got back in harness I became obsessed with amber glow. I noticed that photographs with an amber glow, especially log cabins with the lights on, really appealed to me. I wondered if that might be true on covers. So, that idea led to this cover:

I was obsessed with having just a couple lights on in the house behind Buffalo Bill.

We had some controversy on the next cover choice for obvious reasons, but I still like the cover:

The July issue was supposed to have amber glow but it didn’t quite get there:

Switching gears, in August we featured a wonderful black and white image of a cowboy, his boy and a dog:

It doesn’t get much better than this for my tastes. Back to amber glow for the September issue:

Although I normally rave about Dan The Man’s design, I can’t say this cover is one of my faves:

I chose the photo because of the cool hat Charlie Russell had on and it’s totally buried behind the logo. However, Dan totally redeemed himself with the next cover:

This really has all of the design elements I dig, along with understated elegance and yes, a touch of amber glow. Perfecto! Dan hand colored the sepia photograph and did a masterful job. It was a great way to end a tumultuous year.

Next up: the year we are living in now. Ha.

“Watch out for the idiot behind me.”
—Bumper sticker

November 4, 2009
A couple of loose items to catch up on. When I was in Tombstone for the Vendetta Ride, I gave a walking tour and afterwards I signed books outside the Crystal Palace. One of the riders presented me with a complimentary bottle of wine:

That night, in Bisbee, we opened the wine and sat on the balcony of the El Dorado Hotel on O.K. Street. Our porch looked right down on Brewery Gulch and it was a beautiful evening. With the first sip of Cosentino Winery 2005 Cabernet Saugvignon, Deena said, “Oh, this is amazingly good.” Tom Bell and I agreed. Then with the second sip we all raved again until, on the third sip, Deena blurted out, “This is the best friggin’ wine I have ever had in my life.”

Turns out it is a $70 bottle of primo wine from the Cosentino Winery in Napa, California. For someone who drinks mostly Two Buck Chuck, it was a revelation, just how much better really good wine is.

Meanwhile, as we continue to celebrate our tenth anniversary here at True West (it was November 3rd, when we had our first staff meeting at El Encanto), here is a photo of the original staff:

The only two people in this photo who are still here at True West are Carole Glenn (second from right) and myself.

I Can’t Believe I Drew It
Another amazing page from my sketchbooks where I was in the zone:

These were inspired in part by Ed Mell style paintings. And speaking of Ed, our show Capturing Billy the Kid Country comes down today. In fact, Kathy is down in Scottsdale, picking up the paintings, and we are meeting for lunch at Kashman’s Deli on Scottsdale Road.

Tom Bell got a job today so we are celebrating tomorrow night with a Taco de Bell party at our house. Grandma Betty is coming out to party hardy with us.

“I like everything about filming except the acting. I’m wonderful in rehearsals, but I have never been very good when they actually switch the cameras on.”
—Hugh Grant

November 4, 2009
As we continue into 2007 on our 100 Covers march, we did another sepia cover on our good friend Jim Clark, aka, The Trainman:

After a successful run of 11 sepia covers we decided to mix it up a bit and try something completely different:

Royal Wade Kimes joined us for this photo shoot, which we shot on the top of the hill on School House Road, cattywampus from the town library. The classic Ford pickup belongs to our art director Dan Harshberger.

A major museum show in Albuquerque curated by none other than the Top Secret Writer, produced this cover:

And a very expensive painting got the nod for June, 2007:

In July we honored Robert Utley on the cover:

Although Bashas’ Bakery replicated this cover on Bob’s birthday cake last weekend as a surprise for his 80th birthday party at the Roaring Fork in Scottsdale, I was quite disappointed in this cover, especially when I saw it on the newsstand. It “mushed out,” as we say. Too many mid-tones and not enough pop. Ironically, it sure looked good on that cake. Ha. Go figure.

In August we came up with a pretty funny gag cover:

The very idea that a reporter (who uncannily resembles LBJ), would go out and poll a bunch of Sioux chiefs on their favorite books got big laughs in our offices, but I’m not sure it translated out in the real world.

For September of 2007 we tried a different tact [this just in: "I’ve noticed what I believe is a possible misuse of the word tact in describing cover choices on you blog. Since we often do not enjoy being corrected, I’ll use as much tact as possible. I think the word and usage you are looking for is tack, as in, 'changing tack', or “trying a different tack”. It’s a nautical term that refers to a zigzag technique of best catching the wind in sails while sailing toward a particular direction."—Lance Ross]

Okay, so we tactfully tried a different tack:

I have always been a firm believer in people on the covers and this was a first for us. Whatever. In the next issue we made up for this bigtime:

I got criticized by Paul Hutton for putting the wrong guy at the top. He feels the right call would have been Russell Crowe big and Glenn Ford, small, at the bottom, but I felt Ford’s look was more classic to our readers and besides, I hated that fruitcake looking hat on Crowe. Ha. Now you know how major decisions are made in our office.

Keeping with the movie theme, we tried to tie Brad Pitt’s next movie, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford to the real history (amazing how much Brad looks like Jesse in this duotone):

Although I personally think Assassination is one of the best Westerns ever made (and certainly the best Jesse James movie ever), the movie sank like a stone, so we got very little traction on this.

Coming next: more movie stars and amber glow.

Mashing Metaphors and Wincing Witticisms
“Carpe Mañana.”
—Old Vaquero Saying (submitted by Mad Coyote Joe)

November 3, 2009
I’ve been walking Peaches every day (sometimes twice a day) and noticing that I sometimes get really good ideas while I’m walking along. So, I have been coming back to the house, going inside and writing down, what I call, The Big Idea. For example, Sunday I was thinking about the John Ford classic “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” and in the old story telling tradition of using a quote, or passage from an earlier, classic story to begin a new story, I asked myself how would that apply to Mickey Free?

Okay, it’s probably a medium idea, but the walks are productive and the scenery is pretty damn sweet.

100 Covers: Wrapping Ourselves In The Flag
After the flurry of Stunt Covers in 2006, I was tired of the controversy and irate phone calls and decided what we needed was a nice, solid series of covers that had integrity. My marching orders to Dan The Man were, “Give me something that will look good on a coffee table.” And, so, Mr. Harshberger did exactly that:

A very clean and striking cover with headlines that don’t scream or even shout. Perhaps it’s not a great newsstand ploy, but it sure works for my tastes. I would place this cover in my top five favorites of all we have done.

Continuing with the sepia integrity, we followed with this cover on The Racial Frontier:

And then followed suite with a sports cover in the same vein:

This cover was not as successful as I had hoped, at least on the newsstand (I know, I know, I was allegedly giving up the newsstand mania for an understated look, and then, still comparing our numbers and complaining. Welcome to Dan Harshberger’s world). Next up, another one of my favorites, this one was inspired by the short lived movie, “Dude, Where’s My Car?” That, and attending the annual Dude Ranch Association Convention in Cody, Wyoming where I met several young people who are carrying on the traditions of the Dude Ranch and the West:

In September of 2006 we put a striking In-din on the cover. I like this cover very much, but we have never had much luck with Native Americans on the cover. Not sure why.

Next up, a slam dunk: Tombstone, Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell as Doc and Wyatt, all done in sepia. What’s not to love about this one. This cover did quite well (and still sells briskly as a back issue):

In November we tried a slightly different tact with the sepia look, utilizing an old publicity still of William S. Hart. Not real successful but still a worthy offering in the run of sepia covers.

Then, a tip of the hat to the ladies:

And going into 2007, another Native American cover making the claim “Cowboys Are Indians”:

As we continued into 2007 we made efforts to go deeper and wider with some successes, and a few turkeys as well. We were on a roll and doing good.

“The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment.”
—John Gay

November 2, 2009
It was ten years ago today—November 2, 1999—three moving vans pulled up to Clantonville and demanded a cashier’s check for $12,000 and change. The vans were full of True West back issues and assorted office materials from a warehouse in Stillwater, Oklahoma. As me and my small staff helped the Mayflower crew unload and put the boxes in our flimsy storage shed behind the Goat Sucker Saloon, I was quite aware that one era was expiring and another beginning.

It’s perhaps fitting that today is the Day of The Dead celebration when Mexicans everywhere celebrate death in high style. I noticed when I was in Nogales a couple weeks ago that Day of the Dead skeletons have become all the go in the curio shops, commanding entire aisles of goodies, whereas I don’t recall seeing many Day of the Dead inspired skeletons 20 years ago. What I guess this means is that tourists from the United States are finally catching on. Yes, Posada inspired skeletons are all the go today. Ironically, ten years ago I created a couple Day of the Dead style logos for our morning radio program: The Jones & Boze Show: “Live from the Mineshaft in Cave Creek, Arizona!” And, yes, that radio show is dead, as well.

100 Covers: Stunts Galore
Our covers for 2005 reflected a growing effort, on my part, to try and get some much needed attention for True West. This led to what some have called Stunt Covers. See if you can spot them.

In January we went back to the Bob McCubbin well and featured more of his amazing photo collection:

In March we featured a cover story on the phenomenon of the HBO series Deadwood: Although we had a honeymoon of sorts with HBO and the production company, a tongue-in-cheek ribbing about the costuming on the TV show by Alan Huffines ended up getting us banned from the set. David Milch, the creator of Deadwood would not even talk with us and would go into a rant if any reporter even mentioned True West.

Yes, that show is also dead.

For April we featured our growing category of Western travel, while also featuring a good grave feature:

Continuing with the travel theme we expanded to include trains:

One of the aspects of the Old West that kind of gets overlooked is the influence of religion in the West and so, we decided, or at least I did, to tackle this head on with one of the most provacative covers we have ever done:

Someone once said that all good ideas make someone pucker. This cover made my mother pucker. Ha. In July we featured another Bob McCubbin photo article, this time about cowboy images:

The issue was quite popular, especially with collectors. Next up, we wanted to feature Western wear but from the perspective of history, and so, who better to put on the cover than Tom Mix:

A painting of mine, done for the Blaze Away! book Classic Gunfights, Volume II series graced our cover for September:

A chance comment made by a friend of mine (Leon Metz) about “the Wyatt Earp era in Tombstone being over,” led to this cover story which attempted to tackle the issue of historic authenticity (the town was about to lose its historic designation). Of course, some in Tombstone hated this cover and I am reminded of it to this day. I was filming a batch of True West Moments on Allen Street when the mayor walked by, saw the camera, recognized me and shouted out, “Tell the truth!” Whenever I’m accosted, I’m tempted to say, “Hey, don’t kill the messenger,” but I usually bite my tongue when I’m getting a tongue lashing from well meaning Tombstonians:

As if the Wyatt Earp cover wasn’t controversial enough, I created this painting to illustrate the impending gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain:

Anyone who answered the phone at True West in the winter of 2005, often first held the receiver out away from their ear to defend against the screamers who hated the movie and hated us for covering it. Of course, not everyone hated the cover or the coverage and some even hailed us as being brave to tackle the controversy with wit and style.

Two more stunt covers followed, the first about the controversy in Texas over Mexican insurgents (with echoes to the war in Iraq):

And the second, which resulted from a comment made by Paul Andrew Hutton in Tinnie, New Mexico in 2002, which led to this award winning cover story:

In April we would take a new tact with our covers, one that we still mostly adhere to today.

“It pays to examine each activity carefully and determine which category it’s really in. It may feel urgent. Is it? Or does it just seem that way because someone or something else is creating pressure? Is it really important? Or has the feeling of urgency made it only seem important?”
—Stephen R. Covey

October 30, 2009
Really chilly this morning, but it’s supposed to get up to 80 today. The Top Secret Writer is coming out for lunch today to go over our wayward half-breed, Mickey Free.

We got attacked by five beefy javelinas last night (our gates are off, being fixed and we piled chairs and wooden barricades in the gaps but the Bastards blew right by that). Peaches was going crazy. I finally took a mop and, while making a modified version of my coyote disperser voice, herded them out the gate. But not before they knocked over the chicken feed barrels and ate all the chicken food. They came back twice more in the night because they are pigs after all, so we didn’t get a great night’s sleep.

100 Covers: Dead Man Tells A Tall Tale
As we moved into 2004 we utilized one of our strongest weapons, Phil Spangenberger, and turned him loose to do a major feature on Six-guns of the gunfighters:

In March, we tackled a growing problem in the Western field and that is fake stuff being sold for outrageous prices. Dan The Man created a spectacular cover, one of my all-time favorites of any we have done:

In fact, I would put this cover in the top five faves of all we have done. This type of cover entered our lexicon, as in, “I think it’s time for another Big Face cover.”

In April we introduced our very popular True West Maniac Club and within a few months sold 1,000 plus memberships:

For May we tackled the transcontinental railroad and David Crockett:

With the failure of The Alamo and The Missing (Ron Howard’s Western with Tommy Lee Jones), and the moderate box office success of Hidalgo we didn’t have much faith in a new HBO series to be called Deadwood. Lo and behold, it was a roaring success and we rushed to make hay with it:

In July we went back to the Old West icons and played with the cover magic of numbers:

Yes, for some reason people buy covers with numbers on them. Sales prove it. Unfortunately, when everyone starts using numbers then the effectiveness is diluted.

In August I rolled the dice and put a dead man on the cover:

Several business types cautioned me against doing this, but I was determined to get some attention for our little ol’ magazine. I can’t say it was a total success, but I did get a phone call from a pretty hip guy in Boulder, Colorado (he’s a film producer) and he told me he saw it on the newsstand and went, “Now, there’s a cover with attitude!” Ha. Totally anecdotal, but it made the gamble worth it to me.

Sticking with the death kick, I did a blood soaked cover to draw attention to a big feature on The Wild Bunch:

While visiting the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming I saw a great rodeo poster of African-American rodeo legend Bill Pickett. Thanks to our friends there, we got a good scan of it and utilized it for a cover story in October:

We ended the year with a great cheesecake shot of Dale Evans in all her cowgirl glory:

As we approached our fifth year with True West we expanded travel, did another stunt cover (this one with Jesus! Yikes!) and had the audacity to ask the question: Is The Wyatt Earp Era Over?

Got some interesting feedback on that one. Ha.

“Yes, it is well known that all Texas Rangers have Mexican blood. On their boots.”
—Annie Proulx, Accordion Crimes

October 29, 2009
Just had a young man in the offices who loves Doc Holliday. I met Marshall Tanner, 12, last week in Bisbee. Actually, it was at the Breakfast Club in Lowell, as Deena and Tommy and I came in for a late breakfast after the walking tour in Tombstone. Tanner came over to our table and asked for an autograph on his Doc Holliday book which he had just purchased. I told Marshall he should come visit our offices in Cave Creek sometime and today I gave Marshall and his dad the tour of the offices and he asked if he could come back some time and bring a friend. I assured him that would great.

100 Covers: Stop The Presses!
As we worked our way into 2003 we began to utilize the wonderful photo collection of Robert McCubbin:

Sticking with the fifty theme (as mentioned 2003 was our 50 year anniversary), we did the 50 Guns That Won The West:

The actual birthday of the magazine was the April issue and so we not only celebrated our birth, but the birth of John Wayne:

We had been doing only eight issues a year, but our new partner, Bob Brink, felt it was time to expand and add a special issue, or two, and here is the first special we came up with:

Our newsstand consultant told us we needed a different name for the issue so we came up with Renegade Roads, but it caused us a ton of confusion with the newsstand rackers and we didn’t make that mistake again. Back to Custer for May-June:

And back to our old stand by Wyatt and Doc for July:

As we were going to press with our August-September issue we got the word that an effort to dig up Billy the Kid was underway, and the story landed on the front page of the New York Times. For the first time in my career, I got to say the line, “Stop the presses!” even though our printers are in Kansas City and we are in Cave Creek, Arizona and the issue had all of seven days before it actually went on press. Anyway, close enough for an itinerant typo, as we tore up the cover story on Pancho Villa and replaced it with this one:

I had the honor of sitting in a Barnes & Noble in New York City (we flew to New York to pitch Classic Gunfights to the History Channel) and watch several New Yorkers pick up this issue off a very crowded rack and buy it. I had to restrain myself from running up and hugging them. I was a very happy boy.

After a speech in Wickenburg at the Desert Caballeros Museum, a woman came up to me and asked if I’d be interested in her family collection of rodeo photos. She said her mama was an early day rodeo performer I asked her mother’s name and the woman said, Vera McGinnis, the Rodeo Queen. Was I interested? Oh, I think so:

Back to Billy the Kid for our second special issue of the year:

And then for November-December we went with Billy Bob Thorton and the new Alamo, which we hoped was going to be a blockbuster:

It was not and the movie and the issue was a disappointment to everyone. Still, all in all, a very strong year. We were adding back issues and learning a ton as we went alonng. The year 2004 would include one of the best covers we have ever done and certainly the grossest. Was I walking on water? Not quite, but even if I could, I instinctively knew miracles have their limitations.

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson