Description: Welcome to the world of hobo art and railyard subculture.

In Texas in the early 1900s, a little chalk drawing started to appear on boxcars: a minimalist sketch of a figure with a 10-gallon hat, smoking a pipe, signed “Bozo Texino.” This famous railroad tag defied the human lifespan, appearing over 100,000 times over 90 years.

Verdict: So, who exactly was Bozo Texino? Artist and filmmaker Bill Daniel set out to solve the mystery of the man behind the pipe and hat. It turned into a 25-year quest, taking Daniel on a tour of railyards and graffiti throughout the US.

The result was the documentary Who is Bozo Texino? and the book Mostly True—a chronicle of modern-day hobos, rail workers, and a forgotten outsider subculture. Obscure railroad nostalgia, freight-riding stories, interviews with hobos and boxcar artists, historical oddities, and tons of photos of modern-day boxcar tags are all presented in the guise of a vintage rail fanzine.

With the book’s design team noted as being Rich McIsaac, Gary Fogelson, Phil Lubliner, Jordan Swartz, and Vald Nahitchevansky, it is easy to see why it took so many to create such an engrossing, entertaining, and thoroughly alluring book that I myself have now perused - front to back - four times in the past few weeks!

A book chock full of most wondrous prose from author Bill Daniel along with the aforementioned design team’s efforts, Mostly True: The West’s Most Popular Hobo Graffiti Magazine is just one of those reads that you simply find oh-so hard to put down.

A cultural anthropologist’s delight, not only is it all that a whole lot more, but it is an endlessly fascinating, and highly impassioned documentation that weaves known facts with dreamy folklore about the lost world of the rail yard.

The book also spotlights beloved railroad artists Matokie Slaughter (Margaret Kilgallen), Colossus of Roads (Russell Butler), Herby (Herbert Meyer), Mind Detergent (Big Will), Twist (Barry McGee), and others, including an interview with itinerant sign painter Heidi Tullman. Contributing writers, researchers, photographers and artists include: John Held Jr., Joey Alone, Duke Riley, Old Broads, Daniel Leen, Eden Batki, Andy Dreamingwolf, North Bank Fred, Michele Lockwood, The Historical Graffiti Society, Susan Phillips, Walt Curtis, Beau Patrick Coulon, O. Winston Link, Murray Hammond, Brad Wescott, Marisa Evans, Roxy Gordon, and many, many others.

Official Book Purchase Link