As I ship this piece off to its new owner, a quick story:

I remember getting the brief for this magazine job. I loved the art director, but she was always overly busy. The final draft of the story I was to illustrate wasn’t ready so she gave me the gist: “It’s about some guy who buried his dog under a tree in his backyard. We need it by tomorrow.”

She said it so casually like the dog was a bag of leaves. Coincidentally at that time, I recently had to put down our own dog, Lex Luthor. A Doberman we had for 13 years. He guarded our house like it was Fort Knox. He was also a big goofball. What took Lex was something called ‘twisted-stomach syndrome.’ Common with large dogs.

I remember the 3AM ride to the vet. It was the longest drive. The entire time, I lied to Lex. I kept telling him he’ll be OK. That everything will be OK. When the vet diagnosed him, he said he wouldn’t survive another stomach surgery at his age. The only option was to euthanize.

After a bit, I hugged Lex and walked toward the exam room exit. I looked back one last time. He looked at me like he knew his time was up. I lied again and said, It’s going to be alright, buddy. And shut the door.

If you look closely at the tree in this piece, you’ll see a dog’s head. Oooookay, I’m definitely not ending this story with two dead dogs. Here’s a pic of Lex in his hey day. See below.

Congrats to Abraham, the new owner of this original art. I give away 5 memories every week. Get on my list for a chance to win!

~Tom

See the shape of a dog's head in the tree?

Lex Luthor