December 7, 2005
A Talk with Bob (“Boze”) Bell, True Westerner Posted by Allen Barra at 12:20 PM EST Immortalized in the title of a Sam Shepard play, True West, the oldest continuing magazine on the legend and lore of the Wild West, has been a part of Americana since its inception in 1952. In 2000, Bob (“Boze”) Bell–failed professional baseball player, radio talk show host, author, artist, and Western historian–bought the magazine with a group of associates, became managing editor, and began the process of revamping its content and image. From the magazine’s offices in Cave Creek, Arizona, Bell found time to field ten questions from AmericanHeritage.com. How did you get the name “Boze”? In 1964, during a high school baseball game with our archrivals, Needles, California, I hit a Texas Leaguer to short right field, rounded first, and realizing I could easily make it to second, I turned and ran the rest of the way backwards, with a slight but mocking chicken strut. The Kingman Bulldogs bench (my team) went nuts, and coach Baca, also my Spanish teacher, called me “Piaso” (Spanish for clown). My teammates picked up on this and began chanting “Bozo! Bozo!” As the season went on and the legend of my antics grew, my teammates began to call me Boze, for short. I guess you could say it has stuck. What other career stops did you have on the way to becoming the managing editor of True West? I was a drummer in a soul band (Faye Shaw and the Generation), I worked hard as an underground cartoonist (the Doper Roper), I was a drummer in a heavy metal band (Central Heating), I was a draftsman, I was a land surveyor, I was a drummer in a country band (Roy Brown and Country Gold), I was a freelance cartoonist (Playboy, National Lampoon), I was an editorial cartoonist (New Times Weekly, Phoenix), I published a humor magazine (The Razz Revue, 1972-1976), I self-published four comic books (Honkytonk Sue, 1978-80), I was a morning drive-radio personality (KSLX 100.7, The Jones & Boze Show, 1986-1994), and to prove I was still crazy after all those failed career moves, me and two friends bought True West magazine in November of 1999.
Hmmm. It would not be incorrect to say you were one of those . . . “underground cartoonists”? Something of, you know, a hippie?
To be honest, I never made it to full-blown hippie. I was at best a weekend hippie. If you don’t mind my saying so, all those jobs makes you sound like somebody who would have ended up working for Rolling Stone or The Village Voice. How in the world did you end up as the editor and co-owner of the most popular magazine on the American West? How far back do you go with True West as a reader and a fan? Although I have freelanced for Playboy and National Lampoon, my heart has always been in the West. I discovered True West magazine in the summer of 1957 at Desert Drugs in downtown Kingman, Arizona. For a 10-year-old kid it was a life-changing moment. My favorite show on television that year was The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, and I often wondered if that show and the many others on TV in those days were true. True West gave me the unvarnished truth. I soon came to love the real characters of the Old West even more than the cleaned-up versions on TV. After seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, my life changed in that direction, and I spent some 20 years chasing rock ’n’ roll dreams, but I never completely lost my love of the West. In 1974, I think it was, the David Wolper TV show Appointment with Destiny tackled the O.K. Corral fight in Tombstone, and I found myself reawakening my Old West interest. I would still see True West on the newsstand from time to time and pick it up and think, “My fave old mag is dying. I think I know what it would take to bring it back.” In 1999 that opportunity presented itself, and with two other crazy True West fans we bought the magazine and moved the headquarters to Cave Creek. It’s been a bumpy ride, but I’ve loved every minute of it. Some people would ask how Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and General Custer are still relevant to modern American society. How would you answer them? The more I learn about these Old West characters the more I understand about our times, our beliefs, our foibles and boondoggles. There’s plenty to learn from Custer’s career that applies directly to Iraq, and there’s just as much insight into the Crips and Bloods to be gleaned from studying Billy the Kid and Jesse James. And I do believe I sense a certain Wyatt Earp stubbornness and focus of vision in our current Commander in Chief. Someone once said the farther back you look the farther ahead you can see. I think that’s not only true but profoundly relevant to all aspects of our world. Other than that, I just think it’s damned fun. True West is an American institution. Did you irk some of the Old Western buffs by dragging the magazine into the new world? And have you succeeded in lowering the magazine’s age demographic? When we bought the magazine, in 1999, it was all but out of business. The previous owners were still printing on pulp paper, and I knew I had to take some drastic measures to get some life back into it. As we updated the paper from pulp to gloss and tweaked the graphics and the writing, it was amazing to me how many of the old-time fans resented the changes. Almost to a man they’d say, “Why change something that was working?” This was understandable to me, since we all had been reading the magazine for decades and loved it. Unfortunately, a reader’s survey in early 2000 showed us that the average age of our reader was 68. We also were receiving a disturbing amount of phone calls from relatives canceling subscriptions because “grandpa bought the farm”—or I guess I should say ranch. Well, I knew if I didn’t act I was about to lose the ranch myself, and I knew I had to act boldly. Finally, after six years, we are steadily gaining younger readers. Our current average reader’s age is 48, and we are working hard on getting history out to a younger audience. Still, we are committed to the same ideals that our founder Joe Small expounded: Tell the truth about our history, warts and all. That has not changed. I am very encouraged and excited about True West magazine leading the charge. We are making history exciting and interesting to a new generation of fans. To me, it doesn’t get any better than that. The new book from True West, True Tales and Amazing Legends of the Old West (published by Crown), reads like a who’s who of the Old West. I see stories on Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, Jesse James, Davy Crockett, et al. Which audience are you trying to reach with the book, the one that grew up on stories of these people or a new generation that you’re trying to bring up to speed. Or are you perhaps after both? Yes, we believe that there is a whole new audience that will be fascinated by Old West icons like Billy the Kid, Wild Bill, and Davy Crockett once they hear their stories. The trick is to expose our new readers to these old stalwarts but still make them fresh for our older readers. This isn’t easy. I’m talking more about the magazine here. One of the common complaints from our longtime readers is that they are tired of the same old names and want new stuff. However, I believe one of the reasons the previous owners were not making it with the magazine is that they went too deep and started talking about very minor characters like Dick Brewer rather than Billy the Kid, or Pony Diehl rather than Wyatt Earp. It’s a tough balance, but we’re getting better at it. Basically, we can’t forget who brought us to the dance. Do you regard the book as a new take on Old West legends? How do the profiles differ from the way they might have been written in the True West of half a century ago? When we bought True West magazine, six years ago, I made a vow to revisit the many gunfights I had read about growing up but to redo them with better graphics, better maps, better photographs, and better scholarship. I hired the best mapmaker in Arizona, Gus Walker, to give us a clear picture of where they stood, where they rode in from, and where they went to. On each gunfight we have gone to the experts. In the case of Wild Bill, that’s Joseph Rosa, a Brit who knows more about Hickok than any living person. In the case of Billy the Kid, we corresponded at length with Fred Nolan (also an England boy), and for Pat Garrett and John Wesley Hardin, we went to Leon Metz. The key is to find the best scholarship. Many of the “facts” printed in the old True Wests from the 1950s have been disproved or are based on the faulty memories of old timers. Also we have had the honor and privilege of utilizing the amazing photo collection of Robert McCubbin. To scan from the original photos is a tremendous advantage for our readers. And to see the actual bloodstains on Ben Thompson’s picture (found in King Fisher’s pocket when the two were gunned down in the Vaudeville Theater in San Antonio) is just the coolest. We pride ourselves on putting you right in the action, with no B.S. or Hollywood goofiness. Just the facts, warts and all. In my artwork I have tried to find the right clothing, weapons, and terrain for each gunfight. No saguaros standing in New Mexico, no 1895 Winchesters in a gunfight that took place in 1876, no 1950s cowboy hats on 1880s cowboys’ heads. I take these things seriously, and I want the look to be right. What are your favorite Westerns? What do you think is the most overrated Western? It depends on the mood I’m in. Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller isn’t a Western in the typical sense, but it’s a great vision of the West and one of the few Westerns that use weather in an important way. I love the way in the big showdown the snow muffles the sound of everything. It’s a strange movie, quite beautiful. I love the ensemble acting and attention to period detail in Tombstone, which has just about the best dialogue of any Western I’ve ever seen. Overrated? I’ve got to say I just don’t get Unforgiven. I find it dreary, depressing, and cynical. Let’s cut to the chase. Billy the Kid and Wild Bill Hickok face off. Who wins? In my opinion, nobody could face down Hickok in his prime. He was the Michael Jordan of gunfighters. On the other hand, Billy the Kid was a wily, slippery little devil and would figure out a way to win, either by distraction (“Hey Wild Bill, nice hairdo!”) or stealth. Virtually all of the Old West gunfighters had an uncanny knack for getting the drop on an opponent. Ironically, both Hickok and the Kid were done in by men who got the drop on them.
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