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© 2003 Elwood Smith
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Elwood's most vivid childhood memory is of crawling across the Sunday comics, his fat baby knee bones smudged with images of Krazy, Pogo, Mickey, Popeye, Barney Google, Snuffy Smith and the incorrigible Katzenjammers. They seeped into his bloodstream like a virus.
Symptoms appeared early on. Hats began flying from hairless heads. Talk balloons materialized to encircle exclamations like "Yow" and "Huh?" Hence, as he became increasingly preoccupied with clown shoes, white gloves and stinky five-cent cigars, the only suitable remedy available to him was to become a humorous illustrator. Laughter is, after all, the best medicine.
Since then, Elwood's award winning illustration has graced the covers of some of the nation's leading magazines such as Newsweek, Forbes and US News & World Report. It has appeared regularly in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and TIME. SONY, Kohler, Saturn/GM, GE, Cellular One, Blue Shield/Blue Cross of Texas, Pizza Hut, Cornell University, Carlsburg Beer, Bell Atlantic, AT&T, McDonalds, Prudential and Quaker State are some of the advertising campaigns he has worked on. He has illustrated many books for children and has written and produced, along with his wife and rep, Maggie Pickard, a musical entitled GRUMPY LOU & HIS KAZOO: A WESTERN MUSICAL ADVENTURE which was performed in the Fall of 1998 at the Center for Performing Arts in Rhinebeck, New York. The performance incorporated four slide projectors displaying six hundred and fifty slides of Elwood's characters and scenes. In addition, he wrote twelve songs for the production which were performed by a seven piece band.
Elwood's other calling, music, encompasses everything from classical and jazz to bluegrass. He has been playing guitar since the late nineteen fifties, and writing songs since the seventies. Lucky Dog, a CD of twelve of his original songs featuring John Platania, side man for, among others, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt and Randy Newman, was released in February 2002. |
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