The subject for today’s Sketch Dailies is : Selfie. So, here’s the way it used to be.

Today’s Sketch Dailies involves the pop punk rock cartoon character Jem. I considered where Jem would be today and see her in a bar in Hoboken singing, as she can, the great American songbook….but still in her punk garb. Kinda as the fate of the singer in Copacabana.

Below are a few images of Jem in her prime:

Saw the subject for a daily artistic challenge is the celebrity, Mr. T. A couple months ago i was thinking I wish i had a reason to draw Mr. T. Here it is!

I took the angle of Mr. T’s roll as B.A. Baracus in the television series The A-Team. In the series, B.A. hates anything to do with flying. Thus, he flies!

The Life and Legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune by Nancy Ann Zrinyi Long

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a relatively short biography of Mary McLeod Bethune and very good. I debated giving it a 5 star rating. But, at the end are a set of individual memories of Bethune by various family and friends, which adds a so much to better define the biography.

The book is very thorough and well covers her life, along with the building of Bethune-Cookman College. It is also well written.

I’m trying to think of something to write bad about the book and it’s a bit tough. Maybe more about her personal life, but it appears her life was one of an endless engine for the college.

Bottom line: i recommend the book.

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Signed a couple of Swampy’s Florida books for my friends at the Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce. This alligator pirate sketch is for the book we did for the annual Billy Bowlegs Festival. Last year we worked together to produce two Swampy books about the Chamber’s annual Billy Bowlegs Festival and for the last reunion in Fort Walton Beach of the Doolittle Raiders.

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I an see why a.A. Milne didn’t see another mystery published. This one is a mighty stretch of reality that is poorly written and seems to have been written as the writer was thin king it all out.

The story opens well and i settled in with what I suspected a mystery in an English setting. Instead, I find myself, after the evil is done, slogging through, what seems, endless patter about what-might-have-happened, what-could-have-have-happened, who-did-it, who-didn’t, etc. All of this barely moving the story along at all for decades of pages.

Worse, the characters are never defined except for the beginning. Making this all worse involves two main characters who pretend to be Holmes and Watson. Seems Milne knew he had troubles defining characters, so he uses others to do it for him.

The solution is intellectually dishonest. Today would be impossible, but pretty hard to believe that such a mistake could have been made even in the 1920s.

Bottom line: I do not recommend this book.

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At the symposium of Florida springs last week, Scott Mitchell (above) gave an abbreviated talk of the history of the Silver Springs property. While initially sketching this out at the event, the idea of a telescope to the past came to mind. I was going to go further with a coin machine attached. I was going to keep the background blank and realized I needed to tie Scott to Silver Springs State Park.

While helping sell the new Swampy’s Florida Valentine line of greeting cards, I also did a small drawing on the back. A wife was telling me about her husband and his liking of the Gil-Man, of the ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ movie. He also likes hot dogs. So, the imagery above. Below is a photo of me drawing during the event February 2nd.

Here’s my latest editorial cartoon drawn today reflecting from a true media legend, Shirley Temple. Temple died this past Sunday at the age of 85. We will NEVER see someone like Tmple again. Society won’t allow it, as many other things are censored and not allowed. The cartoon above is speaking to our narrow view of the world today.

The Brothers O’Brien by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one Hell of a good book. Not much for using “Page turner”, but page turning I was. Don’t know who in the Johnstone Clan wrote this, but this is the best I’ve read of the twelve or so read so far. The ghost writer really got the idea of early Johnstone books of defining characters and fleshing out story. Seems this might be a writer that had not written any of the other books I’ve read so far. Very good work.

One of the best things of this book is that the plot that develops in the second half of the book is very different from the other Johnstone books. There are some characters that are very different and even a bit of a sorcery angle spilled in. There is a cat in this book that is really well placed. Was never sure just how this book would end, except that this is still another series and that the brothers would survive. That’s something else in this book, as was the case with earlier Johnstone novels, mot everyone survives. There are some who meet their fate in ways very unexpected. Really like the levels as they get built throughout the book.

After a series of mediocre to bad Johnstone books, this charges me on to the dozens of others I’ve collected over the past year.

Bottom line: I recommend this book!

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This is part of the Florida Trail Association cartoon I illustrate for each issue of their Footprint magazine. The Florida Trail Association is the organization for hiking throughout Florida. I need to occasionally post some of the cartoons I made for past issues. I won’t be posting the current cartoon, though, as that’s one of the benefits of membership when getting the Underfoot magazine. 🙂