ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

CHARLIE MARSH was born in the midst of the Second World War and was, you might say, a prototype for the baby boomer—not the successful and prosperous model selected for mass production, but the other one. He was born with an inexplicable and unshakeable desire to be a cowboy but with no aptitude for that or any other profession. Relatives with vivid imaginations, thinking they recognized objects in his childish scribbling, in fearful desperation encouraged him along those lines. In retrospect, it was probably not so much encouragement in that line as much as thoughtful discouragement in all others. However these things happen, he became what might by broad definition be called an artist—not the prolific and famous sort, but the other. As for being a cowboy, he has pursued that lifelong ambition with far more enthusiasm and much less success, so that today you might refer to him with equal chance of error as a “cowboy artist.”

Fortunately, he is married to a woman whose talent and useful abilities more than cover his deficit. He, his wife, Pat, and her mother, Vade, live on a small farm about forty miles south of Muskogee, Oklahoma, in Briartown, which would be, had its aspirations been so lofty, a wide place in the road. Between unclogging toilets, painting fences, and hosting events at the Gooding County Fair, DON GILL saddles horses and fixes motorcycles for his children, Hailey and Jordan. On occasion he will draw a cartoon.

Don and Denise Gill live in Gooding, Idaho, with their children, their petting zoo of animals, and a stray teenager or two.

Like any boy born during the great baby boom in the U.S., BOB BLACK yearned to live the American Dream. Alas, due to a fluke in the hospital paperwork, which listed his birth country as Uganda, this dream would be hard to fulfill.

As a preschooler he taught himself to forge a series of ten-day visas using only an old mandolin nut, some coal oil, and a farrier’s apron. Spending every spare moment creating documents gave him little time for socializing until, as a senior in high school, he discovered that the average government-issued visa was good for a year or more. Suddenly, Bob was on top of the world! But, at that altitude his nose started to bleed. Even so, his dream came true.

He and his wife, Stephanie, and their daughter, Samantha, make it all happily happen somewhere in the deserts of central Arizona.

As a professional domestic bovine management technician, DAVE HOLL spends most of his time involved in ag-viro perimeter containment engineering and equine adolescent behavioral therapy. His hobbies include semivintage automotive mechanical perpetuality and drawing pictures.

Dave lives in the bustling suburbs of Klondyke, Arizona, with Jan, his understanding wife.