WHEN A CHARACTER COMES TO LIFE - LITERALLY

Over the past weekend I had a rather interesting experience involving the cover to O'Doul, one of my Western Trail Blazer "dime novels" that has gotten some new life breathed into it recently via a nice uptick in sales. In fact, along with the Peacemaker Award-winning This Old Star, another of my "dime novel" titles (please believe I mention this out of pride, not to sound boastful) it has, for some time now, been holding in the top 20 in Amazon sales for the Westerns > Short Stories category.

In the course of this, O'Doul came to the attention of an Arizona gentleman named C.L. "Lee" Anderson who sent me an e-mail with this query: "Just curious. How (or where) did you find the photo on the O'Doul cover? The ol' boy sure looks the part."

I replied, explaining that the cover was done by Laura Shin back when she was helping Becca Vickery put out the WTB brand (since taken over by Troy D. Smith). I added that I was pretty sure they got the image of the "ol' boy" from Dreamstime as I had subsequently seen other poses of that same cowboy still available there.

Mr. Anderson then wrote back, informing me that the picture was of him seated on his horse, Concho. He included this link to his website: http://historicaloldwest.org/index.html

I got a real kick out of this --- meeting (via correspondence, at least) the personification of one of my fictional characters. If you check out Lee's website – and I definitely encourage you to do so – you will learn much more about him and Concho, the skillfully trained rescue he calls "my faithful partner". They do authentic living history presentations/re-enactments all over the Southwest and serve as the Arizona ambassadors and flag bearers for the National Day of the Cowboy.

I really appreciated Lee getting hold of me and introducing me to the "real" O'Doul but, in so doing, I fear he may have gotten my hopes up for something more that will likely go unrealized … You see, I have also purchased and utilized Dreamstime images for some of the work I've put out under my own Bil-Em-Ri Media banner. In particular, I'm thinking of some of the "sexy babe" covers I've done for some of my crime shorts and the recent Joe Hannibal re-issues. (See below.)

 

You don't suppose there's a chance any of the models such as shown here might be contacting me with some inquiries, do you?

Nah, I don't figure so, either ...

But an old geezer can dream, can't he?