Nope. This isn't the 'before picture' in an ad for Grecian Formula...

...I wanted to post yet further proof that I do indeed have friends who neither dress up in Civil War garb nor draw cartoons.

More sketchbook stuff... and meanderings...

I found these two caricature drawings in with a box of other stuff. They've got to be a couple of years old, I suppose. I really like feel of the lines and shapes. I suppose that is why I hung onto them.

More recently, I caricatured at the Art Institute of Michigan-Detroit's Open House gala. At some gigs, all things come together nicely and I leave feeling pretty good and unapologetic about myself - and my stuff. This was one of them. The situation was perfect (i.e. a party at an art school for pity's sake - how much better than that can you get!). I've gotten to know the AiMD President (Ted Blashak) and the Academic Dean (Marc Sherrod) pretty well - and the rest of the staff - so I felt very comfortable (and welcomed).

And everyone knew what caricatures are and what they aren't.

I remember doing one gig at some big hospital at Christmas time, while at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, a holiday party for surgeons. Early in the evening I did a pretty good caricature of an thin, angular doctor. She wasn't very happy when I gave it to her. And as the evening wore on and as she got drunker, she grew even less pleased. She kept coming back and heckling me and cussing me out. Finally, she rolled up the picture and beat me about the head and shoulders with it. In self-defense, I got marker all over her new, expensive holiday dress. I imagine in the morning when she had sobered up, the marks puzzled her.

Another event was a multi-day deal one of the suburban 'burgh malls - at Horne's. There were several of us, each at a different Horne's. It was all part of a promotional deal for some expensive make-up. If you bought "X" amount of dollars in make-up products, you got a free caricature! Whomever thought up the idea, failed to realize that if you spent that kind of money on make-up, you really wouldn't much appreciate a cartoon that exaggerated your facial features! I think I did two or three caricatures the entire week. But we all got paid regardless. And it paid of my final quarter tuition so I could graduate with my class.

Finally, a few years ago in Ohio, I did two company picnic gigs back-to-back. Both at the same wooded recreational facility. One was in the morning and then the other in the early afternoon. The first was a dry and as boring as dust. It was for some ritzy Law firm - or maybe an Accounting firm. But in either case, everyone was stuffy, dull and bland. They were all ultra-conservative cookie cutters of each other (obligatory golf shirts and khakis and penny loafers). Like "The Firm" meets "The Stepford Wives". Stiffly drinking wine coolers and eating hor'durves. I tried to engage them and joke with them, but they would have none-of-that. I was the hired-help and like their maid or their caddy, I was to be barely tolerated and mostly ignored. Their kids were spoiled and snotty; and everyone was catty to the other and kiss-ass to the boss. I almost got up and left. It was that painful and un-fun.

The second half of the day was terrific! It was the company picnic for a trucking company. Everybody was having a great time, laughing and teasing each other. A real, salt-of-the-earth, red-necked, good-ol'-boys bunch. All fun to draw. Beards, bibs and ball-caps (and those were just the women). Husbands, wives, kids, the boss, truck drivers and mechanics and dispatchers - all enjoyable to be around. I felt much welcomed and very, very comfortable. I was able to joke with them and banter back and forth with the crowd. Everyone encouraged and teased each other about their caricatures. Loud " Lynyrd Skynyrd" and "Black Oak Arkansas" blasted from some pick-em-up truck's 8-track! They made sure I had plenty to eat from their tables and brought me Cokes... some tried to give me tip money.

And the night at AiMD was like that. I was in caricaturist's heaven! I wish I could have gotten copies of the ones that I did. In fact, after drawing a certain one, I told them that if I were to die that night, I would have gone happy and well-satisfied. I've done none better. And that is not to toot my own horn! If was the mix - not me. I can't take any credit. It must be like that for a musician or a stage actor, I suppose. Sometimes it all comes together just right - and it's magic - and I'm in heaven.

One or two, I think, I could do again from memory - they've stuck with me that much. And its been three weeks! Check back and see if I could and have posted them.

Fran Ford

This is a portrait of Fran Ford. Fran was one of the cartooning instructors at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for many years. I recently heard from another AiP alum upon whom, Fran, along with John Johns and Thomas Helwig, had a great and lasting impact. It is at his request (and my pleasure) that I post this pic. This is from a promotional piece the school put together touting their staff... around 1978, I would suppose. As time goes by, I will post and comment on other instructors. Any requests?

One of those zits is a mole. Honest.

And man, what is it with me and plaid sport coats!? At least the plaid is a bit smaller than the sixth grade picture. Still, ugly as homemade sin though (me, the coats, whatever). Here's a clue for you all, this was taken the year Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" was released.

Back in those days, we didn't have yearbook or class pictures taken every school year like they do now. I think I might have one other "professional portrait" from fourth grade maybe. I'll see if I can find it and post it. Other than that, this one and my "senior" portrait posted earlier, I have just one other - and that is my real senior portrait. I post-graduated - stayed an additional year (jocks usually do this to get one more year of high school football in - growth and experience - before playing college ball. I did it to get in some additional art classes. I went to a Vo-Tech school for Commercial Art my Junior and Senior years - half days - and missed a lot of what my High School had to offer).

Regretfully, I don't seem to have much of my work from Junior High School (and really, not much earlier than the stuff in my previous post from Senior High at that). And nothing from the Jr. High school newsletter. Dad had some water damage in his attic and my old stuff was lost.

These "Class Notables" were originally done for the school newspaper (again, which I don't have), but were reprinted in the yearbook (which, obviously, I do). Mr. (Joseph?) Wolfer, an English teacher, was the faculty adviser for the newspaper. I can't remember a thing he taught in class, but I will always remember his kindness to a painfully shy, chunky kid with a speech impediment... who had no identity or self-esteem (or hope for identity and self-esteem) other than he could draw half-well. In a future blog, I will go into more deserved detail about influential teachers.

You will recall that they took my Sr. High School and made it a Jr. High School (consolidating with the High School across town). My Jr. High School they tore down and put up a grocery store (and my Grade School they tore down "and put up a parking lot". At least my college still exists - and it doing great!).


...okay, I found them. And I am wearing a plaid shirt for Pete's sake! Like I said, maybe fourth - or maybe the fifth - grade.

In the senior portrait, the coat and tie are both borrowed (and, I don't know, maybe the shirt is too). In the other "senior" portrait - again, posted at an earlier date - the coat and tie were borrowed there as well. That shirt was mine. I was all for wearing a t-shirt and my jean jacket (in both), but the photographer would have none of it. His studio was in a strip mall, and he would take guys devoid of a coat and tie down the mall and borrow them from a clothing store. The girls tended to like getting dressed up and didn't need such hand-held encouragement. I do take satisfaction in knowing that, in both senior pictures, I am rebelliously wearing jeans and sneakers. I found another picture... even goofier, with me wearing the obligatory cap and gown. That can just stay in the box, alright? That is a blessing none of us deserves.

"The 21st in the 19th"

The 21st Michigan Volunteer Infantry, my Civil War Reenacting group, does a myriad of fun things throughout the year. Besides the more obvious battle recreations and encampments, we march in parades and speak to schools, scouts and other groups. Last week, a few of us met with a local historical society... the "entertainment" at their monthly meeting. Here are a few photographs that I took. One of the nice things about the East Detroit Historical Society, in Eastpointe, is that they hold their meetings in a 1872 School House (its museum). We have our Christmas party (in period garb) there as well. The place is a well-cared for gem and it is easy to feel like we've gone back in time - and we live for that kind of rush!

"Valley of the Gwangi"

My own personal version of

"Six (or is it Seven?) Degrees of Kevin Bacon".

Jeff Moore just emailed me this photograph (found on myconfinedspace.com). He thought I would enjoy it - and he was right! Civil War soldiers (Union, of course) with the pterodactyl that they shot...who would have thought!

It puts me to mind of the classic movie (from 1969, staring James Franciscus), "Valley of the Gwangi". One of my favorite movies as a kid (along with the original "Planet of the Apes" - 1968 - and the original "Time Machine" - 1960).

Check out this clip on YouTube... www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRkwR9zDRc

Cowboys find a lost valley of dinosaurs in the desert! It looks like this bunch of Yankees came across that same valley.

The late James Franciscus also starred in the first sequel to (the original) "Planet of the Apes", 1970s "Beneath the Planet of the Apes"... and the great television series about a newly blinded New Orleans investigator, "Longstreet" (just one season - in 1971 - back when seasons lasted some 24 episodes and lasted almost from Labor Day till Memorial Day).

Astronauts find a lost planet of apes!

The equally late James Gregory starred as the ape "Ursus" with Franciscus in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes". James Gregory had appeared in the pilot for the late Rod Serling's great "Twilight Zone" series (in 1959), "Where is Everybody?" as an Air Force general.

Rod Serling was raised in my hometown of Binghamton, in Upstate New York (graduating in 1943 from Central High - where my cousin Linda would one day graduate and where he would speak at her graduation). Rod Serling died (1975) at the same hospital, Strong Memorial in Rochester, where my Grandmother Payne and my mom had once been a patient.

The Greater Binghamton Area is known as the birthplace of IBM as well as the Link flight simulator. Binghamton was mentioned in several "Twilight Zone" episodes.

Franciscus played a German lieutenant in an episode of the "Twilight Zone" ("Judgment Night", 1959)... an episode oft-times compared with the aforementioned, "Where is Everybody?"

Not without coincidence, Serling also was a co-writer of the original "Planet of the Apes".

With much coincidence, James Gregory also starred in Serling's 1961 episode of the "Twilight Zone", "The Passerby". It is my all-time favorite "Twilight Zone"! Gregory here plays a Confederate sergeant at the end of the Civil War. In it, a woman waits on her porch, for her husband to return home after the war. Along the road before her home is a long line of soldiers marching by. Gregory stops and speaks with the woman. And it slowly becomes evident to her that he, along with all the soldiers, are dead... as is she... and that she should join them on their final journey.

I remember seeing that as a young kid and falling in love with the Civil War. It was just a cool on-going scene with all the unformed and bedraggled soldiers on the march...

H.D. - A.D.D.

Looking back on my school years, I wonder what "title" I would have been bestowed with.

"Civil War Nut"

This bottom photograph was taken the summer of 1978 (...I''ll give you this one: this was the year that Jethro Tull released "Heavy Horses" and "Bursting Out") in Pittsburgh while I was caricaturing at some outdoor festival. I remember that my face was pretty sunburned.

I was more than willing to slap down some of my freshly hard-earned money to have this Civil War picture taken. I've always been a Civil War Nut. However, in retrospect besides being Confederate, it is pretty "farby" (as in "far be it from accurate").

The top photograph was taken much more recently and is much more "period correct".

What you can't tell, however, is that in both photographs I am wearing blue jeans.

"Back to the Ol' Drawing Board"

Just some random, recently uncovered, "at the drawing board" photos over the years. I won't date them, but I will, again, give clues. From bottom to top: taken the year Jethro Tull released "Broadsword and the Beast". Next, Tull's album "Rock Island" was released. Then, this was the year before their "Catfish Rising" hit the record stores. And finally, the first being last here, the year of Jethro Tull's "A Little Light Music".

High School Stuff...

Above is some sampling of my work from high school. The photograph is of me from the yearbook, doing my best to look like a real cartoonist - even if the following samples of my work betray me.

The next two images are from the school newsletter. I was on staff, as the art editor. Which, in retrospect, was akin to putting the Hatter in charge of his end of the table at the Tea Party. However, Patricia Gazda Grace, who was the faculty adviser, was nothing but supportive and gracious. The co-editors-in-chief (Leon Cosler and Ray Ashman) were very tolerant of me as well. I was allowed to cartoon merrily to my heart's content. As I recall, the only cartoon she, and they, ever rejected was a large, multi-panel piece. I forget exactly what it dealt with (after being rejected, it accidentally fell into the trash, mysteriously crumpled and torn). But I do seem to recall some cartoon character in a stall in the school's boy's room, singing lyrics from Alice Cooper's "School's Out" (specifically, "School's out for summer, School's out forever, School's been blown to pieces") and something in the last panel that might have been "Ka-BOOM!"

I learned a couple of things by that experience. One, show a rough sketch before going ahead and doing the finished drawing in ink and zip-a-tone. I could have saved myself a lot of time. And Mrs. Grace might have been able to guide me so we'd both been happy. Two, don't be surprised when you get rejected. Three, save the rejected stuff - what I wouldn't kill to have that now. Four, "Ka-BOOMS!" - even more that thirty-years ago - isn't really something to joke about happening in schools.

The remaining two panels are from the school yearbook. Faculty adviser Larry Feltham was one - is one - of my favorite teachers. He treated us all like young adults (even when we - I - didn't act like it or deserve it). Like Mrs. Grace, Mr. Feltham was wonderfully encouraging of someone like me who might have had a modicum of latent or rudimentary talent.

He and the editor, Tom Farnetti, had me do the double-spread division pages throughout. The whole thing was on a Native American theme (we were the "Indians" after all - the school has since become a junior high school and the "new" combined/consolidated high school across town - our former rivals, the "Bulldogs" - and became something neutral... and safe and inoffensive... I want to say the "Patriots. But don't quote me) and it was the Bicentennial year as well. So the whole thing was played up big. It looks, as I flip through the book, that I had just discovered the fine art of stippling and went wild with the technique.

I also did the advertisements in the back of the yearbook. For the most part, all the ads were hand-lettered by yours truly with the occasional appropriate cartoon illustrations. It was Tom who gave me the idea of "Earth Pig"... for then, as now, I love to eat... Tom started calling me "Earth Pig" after I polished off a whole plate of Mrs. Feltham's delicious cookies while working on the yearbook at their home one night.

I was a surprised as any of them that no-one else got any.

Anyway, the thing then evolved into a character and a comic strip over the balance of the school year. I've heard that Tom is now an accountant, in Syracuse, NY, I believe. I like to think I had something to do with that. If Tom had been counting that night, somebody other than me would have had the chance to taste Mrs. Feltham's cookies.

From Will Finn's Sketchbook...

I finally got out to the garage to hunt for Will's sketchbook (from December of 1977), from our days at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I am sure I have more of his stuff (on envelopes and in my sketchbooks, et c.) , but it was getting kind of cold out there. Maybe if spring ever comes to Michigan, I'll head out to look for more. I'll post some additional stuff over the next few months from his sketchbook (as long as it lasts or he tells me to knock it off!). But these are some of my favorites.

Starting at the bottom is a quick sketch of me blowing a gasket... and he nails me quite adeptly too. The background is that I had just found out that I gotten switched out of our classes together (and a little hottie I like to call "wife"). Ralph Bacon had gotten to the classroom before me and broke the news to everyone... that I "was no longer with them". They all thought I had died.

The top two pencil drawings Will did of mutual buddy and classmate - and the aforementioned, Ralph. Ralph was - and is - quite an artist in his own right, had this terrific white-fellow "afro" (much like the guy in "Room 222"... Bernie?). Ralph also was big time into all things medieval, including making his own chain mail from scratch. Will's got him down in the top one and the two as "Ralph Mouse" is as much Ralph as "Iago" is Gilbert Gottfried and "Cogsworth" is David Ogden Stiers (two of Will's characters at Disney as supervising animator).

Check out Ralph's stuff at http://www.nois.com/baconportfolio.html

From My Sketchbook...

"This Was"

I won't tell you when this picture, of me and my sixth-grade classmates, was taken. But I will give you a clue. Jethro Tull's debut album "This Was" had only just been released a few months previous and they had begun their first US tour.

I look literally squeezed into that ugly plaid sport coat. Like it's some sort of Scottish sausage casing and I'm the porcine filling. I don't know where it came from, but I pray I didn't wear it but this once. I do remember that it was a clip-on tie... and that the little pocket kerchief that is showing was fake. It was just a bit of folded cloth sewn onto a rectangle of cardboard. All in all, a rather classy get-up.

I won't embarrass anyone by identifying them, although I think I can recall everyone's name.

Pvt. Previs Perry

"Pen Gillett"

Okay, okay, Penn Jillette - the magician - as far as I know, isn't a relative (distant of otherwise). He well could be. He is an odd, odd man. My ears just perk up when I hear his name on the radio or television. "Pen Gillett" sounds like it would be a good cartoon feature someday. Too bad the name is taken.

Jillette is an atheist. I've read where his license plate reads "DOG ON". Which backwards is "NO GOD".

If that is what he wants to believe, that certainly is his right - but you'll never catch me riding in the in a car with the man.

"Gillette - The Best a Man Can Get"

You'd be surprised how many times guys have tried to use this as a pick-up line with my daughters. Regardless, for the little bit of shaving that I do (and infrequently at that), nothing will do but a Gillette Good News disposable.

Anyway, King Camp Gillette, shown here, another distant relative of mine, is the inventor of the Gillette Safety Razor. He was a bit of an eccentric himself, and was a "Utopian Socialist" and advocated that "all of industry should be taken over by a single corporation by the public and that everyone in the US should live in a a giant city called Metropolis powered by Niagara Falls."

"Holmes, Sweet Holmes"

The famous William Gillette, pictured here as "Sherlock Holmes", is a distant relative of mine. It was Gillette portrayal of Holmes on stage (and later in motion pictures) in the very late 1890s and first third of the 1900s, brought us the now firmly fixed and stereotypical image of the detective with a deerstalker cap, curved briar pipe, magnifying glass and violin.

Below, the eccentric Gillette Castle, built by Gillette in East Haddam, CT. overlooking the Connecticut River... was a kind of a early version of the "Neverland Ranch." It is now part of Gillette Castle State Park.

Today's trip to the Henry Ford Museum

"You May Already be a Wiener!"


The "Weinermobile". This was right at the main entrance to the Museum. It was a long time before I got that stupid "my bologna has a first name..." song out of my head...



This is Edgar Allen Poe's portable writing desk. A first generation "lap-top".



This is the Montgomery (AL), city bus that Rosa Parks was riding on when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.



George Washington slept here. Quite literally. This is Washington's camp cot from his military days. The whole thing folds neatly into a wooden box, seen there at the head of the cot.



The limousine that John F. Kennedy was riding in, in Dallas, when Lee Harvey Oswald shot him.



The chair, from Ford's Theater, that Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when John Wilkes Booth shot him.



Abraham Lincoln delivering his "Gettysburg Address". History teaches us that Lincoln wrote the "Gettysburg Address" on the back of an envelope. But here we can quite plainly see that he wrote it on a scroll.



And this is Lincoln writing his "Gettysburg Address". We know this is the real Lincoln, because he has "Abraham Lincoln" right there on the bottom of his shoe.

The Museum authenticates everything...

The 2nd Federal Battalion

My first foray into the world of Civil War Reenacting was, a few years ago while living in Ohio, with the 2nd Federal Battalion (Reinforced). Made up primarily of the 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, Co. D and the 4th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Co. B. It was a great, great experience for me... and after we made the move here to Southeast Michigan in January of '05, after getting the utilities turned on and the kids enrolled in school, our next priority was to find a local CW reenacting group. All four of us now are happily and much involved with the 21st Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co. H. Be sure to check out our website at http://21stmichigan.org/

I joined the 2nd as a battalion staff officer, their chaplain - a 1st Lieutenant. Major Steve Reincke, Captain Shawn Farkas and 1st Sergeant Rick Williams, pictured here, were wonderful mentors and good friends. These images were taken at my very first event in late summer of '04, at Caesar's Creek Pioneer Village, between Dayton and Cincinnati. If you can't see their ranks, Steve is wearing boots, Shawn has the long dark mullet and mustache and Rick the long blonde hair and goatee (he also portrays a wonderful General George Custer).

Captain Erv Rock is the military commander of the 21st. The 21st is a member of the Cumberland Guard... an umbrella organization of regiments from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin. The Cumberland Guard is a brigade... made up of battalions... there is a Cumberland Guard battalion, as well.