I saved this image for last. It’s my favorite Backyard Enterprises illustration. I did the base drawing and Jeff Swenson painted it. The original (and all the other large BE paintings) is in storage now. The darned thing is huge.

And, now, at last, the second to last Backyard Enterprises post. The man behind the company packed it in after a little over a year. Would there have been a lucrative market for the materials he was proposing to produce? He’d started out thinking there was. The marketing he’d had us do indicated that there was some kind of market but that reaching it would probably require more capital than he had to invest. And there would be no guarantee of success. At that point he’d already spent a few thousand and really wasn’t interested in spending any more without an immediate turnaround. So Backyard Enterprises was put out to pasture.

I know I’ve shown this illustration before but I like the layout of this brochure cover. So thank you for your indulgence.

Once the individual vignettes had been pulled out we (well, Jeff) reassembled them so that each image flowed more cleanly to the next. Compare this version with the original painting.

Let’s lock it up and forget about it for the next twenty thousand years.

If toxic waste really did look all ghosty and vicious there’d probably be more enthusiasm about cleaning it up. It would be a macho thing.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a cop!”

“Oh yeah? I put out oil fires!”

“Feh. My son wrestles toxic waste on live television!”

After ten years I don’t remember what the duck is supposed to be doing. I’m guessing that he’s filtering the wastes but why he would want to do this when it’s raining is beyond me.

Or maybe keep them cool and dry. I don’t remember now. So don’t hire me to take charge of your toxic wastes. I’m no longer an accurate source of information.

The educational posters were also meant to be used for brochures and pamphlets. Once the original art had been scanned we isolated individual images so they could be used as individual illustrations.

This the original art for another planned Backyard Enterprises educational poster. As before, I did the pencil artwork and Jeff Swenson painted in the colors.