This is Estus Whitfield, who has been an environmental adviser to four Florida governors and one of the most respected of Florida environmentalists. He co-authored the Save our Everglades program that setup initiates to help clean water for the future of South Florida and it’s residents. He has also steered a series of other outdoor programs critical to the state of the Florida outdoors and all of us who live here.

I recently finished a series of paintings of speakers who spoke at an event I was involved at Silver River State Park back on June 23rd. The event was created to help educate folks about water and springs issues here in Florida. I’ll feature the 5 illustrations in the next week.

35 years ago today Groucho Marx died and the news was virtually lost as folks kept checking to be sure that Elvis had died 3 days earlier. Even the anniversaries of the death of the greatest raconteur of the insult and quick quip are buried by the showy warbler & hip shaker. Well, I’M not going to let the anniversary go by! So, here I place an illustration I drew of Groucho a few years ago and salute with a leer and a wiggle of the eyebrows!

The last of the caricatures I drew last night after an intense 4 hour event. Surprised I got a likeness at all! 🙂 This is Alexandra who was placed to assist me during the event. Turns out she knows & lives near dear friends of mine, comic book artist, Don Perlin and his wife. More than twice as many came to the event as expected and had me in full speed mode.  The event was for an opening of a school in St. Johns County, Florida, at the Caddy Shack Restaurant there. Hundreds of children attended and I did my best to draw as many drawings as I could for them.

During the always creative onslaught that is The Charliebear Show, an internet program on website Justin.TV, the idea of a Ham Fairy was conjured up. Not sure why, but that is the fun, isn’t it? It is also inspiration. So here is the Ham Fairy cloaked in bacon strips delivering hams to all good little boys and girls.

Acres and Pains by S.J. Perelman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

S.J. Perelman is my favorite humorist. I love the way he plays with words and sets a scene with eh cleverest turn. This short set is of his families move to the farm life of western Pennsylvania. Though short, it is best to savor each entry and take in the word fun and hilarious situations. Included is his infamous column involving Chicken Inspector No. 23. If you haven’t read Perelman before this might be the best to get started as it is the shortest of the collections and a great taste of one of America’s best humorists and writers.

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On July 28th I introduced the new Florida History text book at The Knowledge Exchange. I conducted to talks. One about cartooning and the other about Florida history. Above are some from the Florida history class.

During the cartooning class I got the attendees to contribute various ideas and we all came up with this scene.

Here’s a close up of the artwork.

Dead Silence by Randy Wayne White
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Every so often I give another swing to a book by Randy Wayne White. Each time I walk away disappointed. There are a number of reasons why I know that happens. One is the embracing of illegal drugs. To me this makes the characters dirty and I immediately don’t like them. In this book practically all the “good” guys are involved in illegal drugs of some sort. This puts me in an odd position with the bad guys who don’t use drugs. I found myself rooting for them at times. Since the book’s intent is to have some kind of good guy stop the bad guy, I’m obviously having trouble with the intent. This all pointing to White’s pointed political viewpoints being intertwined with the characters so that it is often difficult to say one is bad or good. If that is his intent then his books really stink because it leaves him with the option of killing off even the reoccurring characters. I mean, what the Hey, if he doesn’t know who is after who or if they even should be, just knock off the Tomlinson character, which I think would be a step in the right direction.

About the story: Kidnapping, Senators, Castro, secret papers, horses makeup the core of this story. If that sound confusing, the book doesn’t help. All of it is convoluted and way too much coincidentally happens in one area. There’s a whole thing about Castro papers that really doesn’t matter to the plot except as a MacGuffin. There is waaaaay too much about the kidnap victim that really bogs things down.

All in all, as much as I dislike White books, this one also gets a thumbs down due to the plot.

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Me, Lars Erik Robinson and Dan Smith got together to do some cartoon chatting in Largo today!

Florida: Enchantment of America by Allan Carpenter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Enchantment of America: Florida’ is part of a 1960s series that each cover a different state and written for students in junior high school. My experience with this is that state series typically do a poor job of telling the history of Florida. This one is an exception. Especially refreshing to read the non-PC version of Florida history that is setup in all Florida history books I’ve seen published in the past fifteen years. I also like the author’s writing style. The watercolor illustrations are outstanding. That is another difference in a young person’s textbook from the 1960s and the textbooks of today. Today’s textbooks have little artwork. Illustrations in today’s textbooks are usually boring computer graphics and static photographs. I recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn about Florida history.

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Been going for a few days without much rest to get a project done. Here’s a few illustrations I drew for it.

History of Brevard County Vol. 2 by Jerrell H. Schoffner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This volume of Brevard history is in sharp contrast to the first volume by Jerrell Schoffner. The first book was very thorough and related the ups and downs of the community. The second volume drowns in numbers of all shapes and sizes. Numbers of people moving in, numbers of costs to various construction projects, too many results of elections and way more information than needed about the space program. There is very, very little about the community so well covered in the first volume. There are glances at Erna Nixon and various politicians and too many involved with the space program. It was as if all that happened in Brevard County from 1950 to the printing of the volume in 1992 was space and political elections. I can think of any number of various milestones that occurred in Brevard County in that time. Some focus on other businesses might’ve been fun. Just a few paragraphs about the Thompson family and Dixie Crossroads restaurant would’ve been interesting and much needed in this very dry effort that falls short of what Schoffner is known for in covering history.

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