Arizona Highways August 1991 A Very Special Issue

[Flying R]

My wife went to a Goodwill store in Scottsdale yesterday looking for knitting books and look what she brought me home. This issue has an article and original cover art by some guy named Bob Boze Bell that claims he's crazy about everything Billy. It was a fine article and I learned some things about the Kid I did not know. Thanks Bad Bob!

[Flying R]

The thing I think is cool is that Bad Bob painted the picture backwards to the photo which is the correct way to see the picture. Very cool..

[Bob Boze Bell]

Yes, this was a big breakthrough for me. I almost didn't get the assignment. I went into AZ Highways to talk to the editor, Bob Early, and I had an entire presentation about Billy the Kid's life and how he died and what it meant. Right off the bat he says, "The Kid was in New Mexico. If there isn't an Arizona angle I don't want to do it." I immediately shifted gears, told him Billy killed his first man in Arizona, how it shaped his life and the myth. I was really pulling stuff out of my rectum. "Okay," Early said, barely convinced, "but this is only a small, history piece." Fast forward to the day I handed in my artwork. I'm talking to the art director, Gary Bennett, and in comes Early and he says, "Those Flagstaff cover shots are horrible. We can't use them." And I said, going against all of my small town training, "Give me the cover." He laughed. I held my ground. He wanted to think about it. I got it! One of the biggest lessons of my life: "You can do your best, you can hope someone notices, but sometimes you've got to ask for the order."

[Flying R]

I'm wondering if she paid too much for the issue, LOL...

[Bob Boze Bell]

I have a box of that issue and I paid more than double for mine ($1 ea., which was wholesale at the time).

[Flying R]

What happened to that painting. Who ended up with it?

[Bob Boze Bell]

Dirk and Tonya Rash came by the True West offices. I gave them the tour. They asked about the painting of Billy (which hung in the atrium between the store and offices). I told them it was $5K. They left. They came back and said, "We want that painting." It's in their living room in California.

[Carbine]

Flying R- looks like your wife found you a nugget of gold there. Or should I say copper as Arizona is the copper state? This is not the first time that BBB art work has appeared in that famed magazine. I have an issue dated November 1984 that features his art for an article by Ernie Pyle about a Snake Farm dealing with Rattlesnakes!
My Grandparents gave me their collection of AZ HWYs from 1953 all the way up into the late 1980s early 1990s. Alot of good info,spectacular photography and fine artwork is in each issue. My Gr'dmother even sent me an article dated Sept 3,1978 from the Arizona Republic about some issue's of AZ HWYs that are rare and considered collector items.
I'm thinking that Bob has other art in AZ HWYs but the issue you got, an article by him plus his art on the cover,well amigo it just don't get much better than that! I think copies of the August 1991 just went up in value.