"Santa's secret silo"

rough sketch for magazine cover illustration, ink & gouache

During the mid 1980s there was a big chill in the Cold War. US president Reagan was calling the Soviet Union "the evil empire", a reference poached from the Hollywood movie Star Wars, while he was trying to initiate his own hi-tech and massively expensive "Star Wars" defence system. A real B movie scenario complete with a B movie actor. Protest movements in the west were making a lot of noise about the deployment of a new generation of American nuclear missiles. Where would it all end?

The editors of an Athens magazine wanted a cover illustration for the December 1984 edition that was "Christmassy" as well as illustrating an article on nuclear disarmament they planned to run.

I quickly did five rough sketches, of which this is one. Here is the Dark Side of Xmas. Sinister Santas, armed with pink sub-machine guns guard a missile silo. This may be the first time ever that a Christmas tree has been depicted as a weapon of mass destruction. Maybe the guard dog in the gas mask should have been a reindeer, but who ever heard of a guard deer?

Unfortunately, the American Secretary of State made a surprise visit to Athens and they decided to run a photo of his ugly mug on the cover instead of one of my creations. Curses!

But all's well that ends well: I was able to make a finished version of one of the sketches and sell it to another magazine.