Oddballs

Front Cover
The Porcupine's Quill, Dec 17, 2015 - Reference - 104 pages

They say truth is stranger than fiction. In Oddballs, Jim Westergard proves it.

This collection of wood engravings accompanied by short, tongue-in-cheek biographies showcases forty fantastically detailed, warts-and-all portraits of some of history’s most peculiar figures. Jim Westergard creates a veritable rogues’ gallery, populated by notorious historical rebels and eccentrics like Rasputin, Pope Joan and Ned Kelly as well as lesser-known oddballs such as octogenarian bank robber Red Roundtree and Mike the headless chicken. From victims of spontaneous human combustion to the masterminds behind archaeological hoaxes, Oddballs pays tribute to the zany, bizarre, mischievous and just plain odd rascals who, by accident or design, have found their way into the annals of history.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Introduction
9
Archie Belaney
22
The Collyer Brothers Homer Langley
36
Howard Hughes
50
Marvin Heemeyer
64
Mary Reeser
66
Rasputin
80
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
86
Acknowledgements
99
Copyright

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Oddballs
Jim Westergard
Limited preview - 2015

Common terms and phrases

Aimee Semple McPherson Andy’s Annie announced armour Arthur Conan Doyle balloons bank barrel Barry Moser became began Bill Miner blurb Bredo bulldozer Burgess California Canada career caught chicken citizen claimed Clem Cogswell Colorado create prints cryonics Dead Guy Days death Demara died discovered doctor dressed drugs edition of Oddballs eventually friends Frozen Dead Guy George Georgie White Gordon Liddy Grey grudge Gunnlaug Harry HARRY BENSLEY hoax Houdini Hrafn Iceland Jean Baptiste Jim Westergard Langley Larry LARRY WALTERS later lifeboats Lizzie Borden Lloyd London detective Marvin MARVIN HEEMEYER Mike Mike’s Mother Goose Eggs Naco Nederland never Norway º º Piltdown police Pope Joan Porcupine’s Quill Porter Rockwell prison Ralph RCMP RED ROUNTREE Reeser robbery rumour Salvador Dali sentence Sherlock Holmes shot Sir Arthur Conan Sloper space brothers story surrealists survived Timothy Leary tion told took trapping Unn the Deep-Minded Utah Viking warrior wife wood engraving wrote

About the author (2015)

Jim Westergard was born in Ogden, Utah in 1939. He was educated at a variety of colleges and universities in California, Arizona and Utah where he completed his BFA and MFA at Utah State. Westergard moved to Red Deer in 1975 and taught at Red Deer College until his retirement in 1999. He became a Canadian citizen in 1980.

Jim Westergard has been creating prints from wood engravings since university days in the late 60s, but had never completed a book-length collection until the original limited letterpress edition of Mother Goose Eggs. The first engraving for this project was finished in 1999. Then, after a four-year struggle which included an unexpected hernia operation and reprinting the press-sheets a second time with helpful hints from Crispin Elsted of the Barbarian Press (Mission, BC), Mother Goose Eggs was finally bound and released in a deluxe edition of eighty copies in 2003.

Westergard continues to create wood engravings on his cantankerous old VanderCook SP-15 proof press which he has affectionately named the ‘Spanish Fly’.

 

Bibliographic information

TitleOddballs
AuthorJim Westergard
Editionillustrated
PublisherThe Porcupine's Quill, 2015
ISBN0889843899, 9780889843899
Length104 pages
Subjects › 

Art / Canadian
Reference / Curiosities & Wonders
  
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