This is a sample of one of the final pages from the Kooky Pets book. It’s the one for Smokey Bookie and it’s exactly the same as it will be printed.
While I was writing the text about this pet, I was thinking about how much my culture has been influenced by the American Old West legends and that’s something I’d like to share in detail with you today. In my former post about Smokey Bookie, I already talked about how excited I was about paying a little tribute to the Old West. So when members of the Kooky Pets Team told me about Smokey Bookie’s cowboy look it kind of reminded me of myself as a kid.
For North-American people it’s hard to imagine how their influence of their culture is in Europe. My wife Naomi is from a typical Old West town in Colorado and she was pretty shocked when I started telling her about all of my childhood icons and memories.
My earliest memory about the Old West is watching Bonanza on the TV during lunch time when I was 3. This was one of the most popular TV shows at the time, in black and white since color TV didn’t reach Spain until mid 70′s. I believe it was this TV show that made my generation crazy about cowboys and Indians.
There were other very popular American TV shows related to the Old West at the time. I also remember being fascinated with Daniel Boone, the show about the legendary American explorer. When I was four, I used to have a costume just like his, knife, leather hat and all.
Another American hero show from the same period was Davy Crockett, which used to be part of the Disneyland TV series. The guy in the picture is a Madelman , one of my favorite toys when I was five. Starting in 1968, Madelman were the very first action figures sold in Spain and they became extremely popular during the early 70s.
So in the early 70s in Spain, we used to play with lots of things related to the Old West. This is a picture of a sheriff badge and handcuffs which I used to have. Many years later, I was really amazed when Naomi told me that her grandpa Leland used to be a real sheriff! I couldn’t believe it! You must understand that for a Spanish guy, a sheriff is some sort of mythological figure. We were even later when she learned about an uncle of mine who was a bullfighter!
Anyway, when I visited Naomi’s homeland in Colorado, I had the opportunity to visit the old sheriff’s office. Naomi’s aunt Jackie still works there, in the same spot which used to be a county jail!
This is a picture of another classic toy from my generation: a revolver. I know that many of you might think that you don’t like weapon toys. Well, neither do I. But let me tell you something: I think that they will always exist as long as they are around in our culture. Because kids after all need to play with the stuff they see on the TV, movies and anywhere else. So if we don’t want them to play with toy weapons, first we should be more conscious and try to take them out of our culture.
And there’s something else about weapon toys that I’d like to share with you. I grew up playing cowboys, soldiers and policemen. But it doesn’t mean that I wanted to be any of them when I grew up. As a mater of fact, when I was a teenager I became a pacifist and was very active in an important social movement in Spain which refused to serve the compulsory military service. Because of this, I spent quite a few years in trials along with some other thousands of Spanish people from my generation. The compulsory military service was finally abolished in 2001. So I think that lack of love, discipline and education can be a lot more dangerous for a kid than any plastic weapon.
These are other typical Old West toys from my generation that I used to play with: cowboys and Indians. And I believe they were also big in the US in the 60s/70s.
The paper bag in the picture was from a extremely popular brand called Montaplex. Just for a few pennies you would get an army of really small monochrome plastic figures!
Exin West was a Spanish toy that started in 1975 and it was the best toy I had ever seen at the time. It was a construction toy which included several painted plastic figures of typical cartoony characters from the Old West. Each toy was a different building from the village. When I visited my wife’s hometown in Westcliffe, I was amazed about how everything looks just like this!
I used to be crazy about this toy and I remember taking the figures to school and inventing a little episode adventure every day for about two years. When I was a kid, I never played sports and didn’t watch very much TV. If I was not drawing I was probably making up stories with little figures. This was pretty much an intensive training for what I do today.
And this is another Old West icon from our childhood: Josemite Sam. This is one of the plastic figures I played with the most during my childhood. It’s from a series of figures called Dunkin (nothing to do with the American doughnut brand). They were a version of the American Disneykeens which became really popular in Spain. I used to have hundreds of them: Disney, Warner Bros., Hanna Barbera, Asterix… I still keep most of them as a treasure and must confess that this was my dearest toy from my entire childhood.
And here is Lucky Luke, by Belgian cartoonist, Maurice De Bevere. This was one of my fav comics when I was 10. I have noticed that they’re not that popular in the US, which is kind of curious being this an Old West comic. If you don’t know about this and you like to read comics you should check it out.
And finally, here’s another Old West influence from my childhood: Pecos Bill. I didn’t see Disney’s movie until I was older but I had these wonderful collection of Disney comic books since I was born so they are the first I ever read. I still keep these books and when I look at the illustrations of Pecos Bill riding the horse I can feel exactly the same feeling of amazement as when I was a kid. That’s the magic of illustration!
Our pet Nanook thinks you’re gonna love this!
