Rob Smith Jr – Turtle Signing – Daily inks 7

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 turtle resting along the waters of the Silver River.

This is the painting my father got for his birthday this year. Each year the painting involves a frog and some other subject matter. This year it’s frogs and Weeki Wachee mermaids..

The Weeki Wachee mermaids are legendary in Florida. It all goes back to over fifty years ago when young ladies donned some hand made fins to promote Weeki Wachee Springs, a tourist attraction featuring the natural springs that flow out to supply the Weeki Wachee River. The ladies used an underwater breathing apparatus developed by, inventor, Newt Perry, to be able to perform swimming routines underwater that visitors could watch in a specially made theater.

The theater is still there today as are the mermaids. The park is now part of the Florida Park system and visitors still travel there today to watch mermaids dance and swim :

The Swampy Machine decided to take a break from it’s operating procedures Monday as I made my way to a meeting in a Palm Bay, Florida , with Tim Reynolds of The Knowledge Exchange. That had me staying at my friend Jim Fern’s house during the time it took to fix the catalytic converter.

Was I surprised when I drove the car a mere few miles away and it kinked out again in a Publix parking lot. Tim Reynolds and his wife were too kind to drive out to the stilled vehicle during New Years Eve. But not before a number of Publix customers gathered around the car trying to figure the trouble. A group consensus was that the starter had gotten clogged with oil that had gotten loose under the hood.

The crowd dispersed and Tim had the real answer to my trouble and that’s what we did. I bought a new starter and Tom and his son inserted the replacement.

To do this meant doing it at Jin Fern’s house, where I was staying. Thus I drew the drawing above as Jim’s home became a mechanic’s den.

Gonna get back to Daily Inks in a couple days and thought I’d add this of the Swampy’s Florida cartoon I inked today. I’ll post the Swampy’s Florida cartoon in a couple days.

Been playing an enormous of Catch Up after a very hectic five days. Almost didn’t draw a thing. The #DailyInks got me to ink the pencils I did for this a few days ago. This will be the next Swampy’s Florida webcomic next Sunday. You’ll have to wait until then to se what the exchange is between Swampy and Pasco Pete.

Above Dr. Bob Knight, Lisa Saupp and Natalie Lyons save Swampy from the bite of the saber-tooth tiger!

Had a lot of fun tonight at a party celebrating Silver Springs becoming part of the Florida State Park system. The event was held at the Silver River Museum with famed photographer Clyde Butcher headlining the event. Clyde featured a slideshow and film of his recent photography work out west and in the past week around the Silver River.

Otherwise, for me, the room was filled with many, many friends. Most of my fellow members of the Marion County Historical Commission were there. As were Marion County Commissioner David Moore and his wife, designer and fellow Florida buff Rick Kilby, new vice-manager of Silver River State Park Nicky Aiken, the Ocala Star-Banner photographer who snapped pictures of me a couple days ago, a whole variety of folks from the Springs Alliance and the Springs Festival committees.

It was a great celebration with great food – Especially the grits bar! Looking forward to the “soft” opening of Silver River State Park this coming Tuesday.

Gold Coast by Elmore Leonard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is part of my Swampy’s Florida book collection.

Not sure why I had trouble connecting with this book. It does occur to me that I’ve had trouble connecting with characters in past Elmore Leonard books in the past. It was particularly difficult with this book. It could be that I’ve recently been reading books with very well drawn characters. These are well defined, but in the typical Leonard caricature that I struggled with. I should add there is one character that has a few levels that appear along the way.

This is a 1980 book that set a tenor that got expanded further by Carl Hiassen and Tim Dorsey, amongst others. The wacky Florida mystery stories really began with Leonard and this is one of the first. The story sops up the south Florida lifestyle of the rich and famous and adds the contemporary dark characters with gusto. The story is good and this book is well written. Many today are likely to be dissatisfied with the ending but, as occurs in Leonard novels past the characters, the story has a unique ending.

I’m chalking up my dissatisfaction with the characters with reading recent strong character driven novels and so the bottom line is: I recommend it.

View all my reviews

Here’s a large group of University of North Florida students with little stuffed Swampy of Swampy’s Florida. I was there to entertain with caricatures and I’ll post later about those.

Our monthly Socrates Cafe meeting on Tuesday covered an assortment of topics. Above and below are a series of sketches about the topics brought up. The first was the struggle of selfishness. The second was about how open we should be about our private life. Then the question of where conscience comes from. Next a question of perception….

The next to last discussion was asking where complaints come from. Finally, the standard philosophical question of the connections of truth and beauty.

Swampy’s Florida cartoon artwork by Rob Smith, Jr.

This is cartoon artwork for the upcoming ‘Swampy’s Florida: Dunnellon’ coming out next month. Watch for more coming in the next few weeks!

Here’s a bit of art from an upcoming Swampy’s Florida book. More as it comes along. Should be done by the end of the month.