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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Tons of artwork has to get done today! From caricatures to hiking cartoons to illustration, etc! Was hoping to be at a presentation today by Rick Smith, son of author Patrick Smith who wrote the Florida legendary book, ‘A Land Remembered’, but that looks impossible two hours before his presentation. Pen to paper and I’ll post what I can.

Here’s a piece of the Swampy’s Florida weekly cartoon that will appear tomorrow. The subject is Ma Barker, the famous gangster who met her end in Florida.

Because I keep politics out of the web of this website, this is a pantomime performance of these cartooned characters set up for this week’s editorial cartoon. Feel free to caption this yourself below!

This was penciled on paper, inked the same, scanned and colored.

On January 28th I was part of a symposium about the condition of our springs in north Central Florida. My part was to illustrate each of the speakers. This is one of the set of Dr. Bob Knight, one of our most knowledgeable experts about water in Florida. Knowing Bob helped me play more here than i did with the others.
Bob opened his talk by announcing he had more bad news. I took it from there.

I’ll be posting the rest over the next week or so.

Here’s a page from the upcoming ‘Swampy’s Florida: Melbourne’. Swampy and friends off to construct everything in sight as so many did around Melbourne in the 1950s. The book should be available in two months through The Knowledge Exchange.

Here’s a preview of the Swampy’s Florida cartoon coming Sunday.

A set of Swampy’s Florida Valentine cards coming soon.

This is one of the drawings being proposed for a set of Swampy’s Florida Valentine cards. I’ll post the color version as it comes along.

As i signed a couple sets of Swampy’s Florida books for the Silver River Museum to sell, I added a critter or two along the way. You can get your copies by going by or contacting the Silver River Museum. Click here to learn more. Here’s a happy raccoon. I have no idea what he’s so happy about. That’s what psychiatrists are for.