200 Words with Paul Dini #17 – Perspective

It was my first serious original art purchase, a beautifully rendered Walt Kelly Pogo Sunday strip featuring the titular possum and his critter buddies playing baseball. A heady sense of ownership swelled in my breast as I gazed at it fresh from its cardboard packaging and newly displayed in my office at Skywalker Ranch. As I’ve mentioned here recently, once upon a time we ranch workers were allowed to decorate our offices with originals loaned from the Lucasfilm archives. This glorious cartoon, however, was all mine. I had saved for months to purchase the piece and now I would proudly hang it alongside the Drew Struzan Indiana Jones portrait that was merely “on loan.” Exulting in my treasure, I took it down to the main house to show it around. Upon entering the library, I discovered two ranch hands hanging a familiar-looking work of art over the fireplace. “That’s Maxfield Parrish’s ‘Garden of Allah.’” I said in an awed hush. “The original!” “That’s right.” The librarian said. “George picked it up in an auction last week. What’s that you’ve got there?” I tucked the sheet of Bristol board behind me, sheepishly whispered “Nothing” and slunk out the back door.

Paul Dini is the Emmy and Eisner Award winning writer of Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Detective Comics, Countdown among many, many other things. You can find him online at either kingofbreakfast.livejournal.com or http://www.jinglebelle.com/.