Oliver Reed had no aspirations to become an actor while serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He took work as an extra in the early 1950s in mostly comedies. The more extra work he got, the more it looked like this was the career for the young Reed. He was featured in several films …
This week’s challenge word on the Illustration Friday website is “detective”. I read William Hjortsberg’s detective novel Falling Angel in 1978. The novel began life as a piece of feature fiction in Playboy magazine, but Hjortsberg fleshed it out into a captivating homage to the hard-boiled detective novels of the 1930s and 40s. Told in …
“When you’re a kid, you can be friends with anybody. Remember when you were a little kid what were the qualifications? If someone’s in front of my house NOW, That’s my friend, they’re my friend. That’s it. Are you a grown up.? No. Great! Come on in. Jump up and down on my bed. And …
This week’s Monday Artday challenge word is “friendship”. Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole met in 1976 in a Jacksonville, Florida soup kitchen and they became instant friends and eventual lovers. Lucas, the son of an alcoholic father and an abusive prostitute mother, served prison time for armed robbery and had murdered his mother and …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “linked”. “There have been people who have tried to take advantage of me. They want to be linked to me just because I’m Ethel Merman.” Ethel Merman That quote from Ethel Merman, about herself, is baffling. One would think a more charismatic celebrity with a more compelling …
In 1998, The American Film Institute named Some Like It Hot the fourteenth greatest movie of all time. Two years later, The AFI once again honored Some Like It Hot by declaring it the number one comedy film of all time. The film’s screenwriter/director, the great Billy Wilder, was a Hollywood legend. Emigrating to the …
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This week’s Monday Artday challenge is “ancient civilization”. Between the Upper Palaeolithic and the Late Stone Age, a forgotten civilization existed briefly. Archaeologist would rather it remain forgotten. These ancient people were called the Ineptics and carbon dating has determined that they roamed the early Earth for approximately seven weeks. There are few things known …
When I’m not doing illustrations, I am a graphic designer. I have been in the advertising/marketing/printing/publishing business for almost thirty years. Here is a recent ad I created. Click on the above image for a larger version.
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “dip”. Springtime. It’s the time when the skies are clear, the air is fresh and another baseball season begins. After a six-month rest, the Boys of Summer are back on the green fields and dirt basepaths. Dressed in their familiar hometeam colors. Shagging flies. Laying down the perfect …
The current Monday Artday challenge word is “flight”. In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a talented Athenian craftsman. Daedalus built a labyrinth for King Minos to contain the fierce monster the Minotaur (half man-half bull), which was sent as punishment for tricking the god Poseidon. King Minos also imprisoned Daedalus and his son, Icarus, in the …
