Norman Saunders and my childhood friend, the smoking cowboy.

Norman Saunders led an interesting life.

For starters, it began in Minot, North Dakota where Wiz Khalifa, Josh Duhamel, Jerod E. Tufte, and poker player Greg Raymer also entered the world. Minot is infamous for being one of the most dreaded assignment selections for those in the Air Force, and not just because of its location and winters, but since North Dakota is generally the butt of jokes, I don’t dwell on it.

Saunders was a legend in the world of pop culture illustration. His work could be seen on the covers of books, comic books, and magazines. They were images of high drama and contrast, full of visual terrors and climactic moments that made you want to read what was behind the cover.

But I didn’t know Saunders that way, initially.

The closest I ever came to such pulp fiction was a book in my grandparent’s basement called Bodies Are Where You Find Them, by Brett Halliday. The cover illustration is by Robert Stanley and seems to show a woman in a prom dress potentially on her way to becoming one of those found bodies.

But Saunders did more than the covers of comics and pulp fiction, particularly when decency laws seemed to have squeezed his career. And it is this other work he did that gave me the Smoking Cowboy friend from childhood.

(For X-Files fans, this was very different from the Smoking Man.)

In the house I grew up in, high on the wall at the top of the stairs, still hangs “The Night Shift.”1 My sister saw it every morning when she’d come downstairs for breakfast, including the morning she fell down the stairs and hurt her tailbone before church to my loud and long laughter.

When my sister and brother weren’t around, I’d go up the stairs and sit on the top step and look at that faded lithograph print that hung high from the little half-wall over the top of the stairs.

How did Dad get that picture up there?

Who is that cowboy?

Does he have any friends?

Those cows look like Grandpa’s.

He shouldn’t smoke so much.

For the latter, remember that I only ever saw him smoking. He never once, in all my years at home, put down the cigarette.

I made up many stories about that cowboy, and when no one was around, I would talk to him. I would tell him he shouldn’t smoke, that he should be careful that no one was coming up behind him, that I hoped the cattle wouldn’t stampede. After I got into reading Tom Swift books, the stories and warnings became far more fanciful and woven with science fiction.

He had different names. Duke. Luke. Bill. Louis.

Being on the farm meant no one was around most of the time. These conversational moments with the smoking cowboy were frequent.

After college, having gone through five years of art training that can either remove the will to live, taint your art so much that you can’t figure out left from right, or really give you a grasp and appreciation for the materials, I looked at Saunders’ image differently.

That guy was a good artist.

I’d done a quick acrylic study of an old photo of my great-grandmother giving one of their farm horses an apple, and so I decided to hang that up near the cowboy so he’d have someone to talk to now that I wasn’t around.

I reached out via Saunders’ website and learned from his son (who gave me permission to discuss the print and share it with you) that the publisher was the Fox Lithography Company, which had hired Saunders to create an image for their 1957 calendar. They also used the image for a jigsaw puzzle and several other applications, including a thermometer.

According to Saunders’ son, the image was very popular and sold in a wide variety of sizes.

“The Night Shift” is very different from Edward Hopper’s “The Night Hawks,” but there is still a similarity. What I find interesting is that the people in Hopper’s painting look lonelier than the lone cowboy with his horse and cattle and cigarette.

Saunders had the ability to depict the human figure and emotions much better than I’ll ever hope to. Add to it his real-life story of riding the rails, getting chased out of town by angry fathers, WW2, and pulp art, and I can’t think of anyone better who should have a conversation with me every week of my childhood.

But smoking is bad for you, Duke.

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1 I’ve seen it called The Night Shift, the Night Rider, and even Night Hawk.