Captain Nemo's "Nautilus" Crew Battles a Giant Squid

ARTIST: William Louis ("Bill") McDonald

TIME: Circa 20 DECEMBER 1975

AGE: I was age thirteen and already SCUBA diving during the Christmas Holidays of my Seventh-grade school year in California. I attended Capistrano Valley Christian Schools in San Juan Capistrano, California that year.

MEDIA: Bic ballpoint pens, Pentel felt-tip colors, scrounged colored ink markers of every sort, water colored paints, quill-point inks from the Dixi Hall Art Store in Laguna Beach, California.

SUBJECT: The movie version of the Disney-Goff Electric Submarine Boat "Nautilus" fighting the giant squid during a typhoon storm. The squid was most likely a record sized and length Architeuthis Dux or princepts. Jules Verne called it "Poulps" or Cuttlefsh.

NOTE: I was thirteen when I made this pen&ink drawing of the submarine created by Jules Verne and conceptualized by Harper Goff.

LOCATION: This drawing was completed at the kitchen table in Monarch Bay Terrace the morning after I first saw Walt Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" movie starring James Mason, Kirk Douglas, and Harper Goff's famous iron-riveted submarine model.

INSPIRATION & PURPOSE: Colonel Pitchford, John Joseph, Jr. (Jack), who was a USAF "Wild Weasel" pilot shot down and held as a Prisoner-of-War at the "Hanoi Hilton," returned home by helicopter to the gorgeous, mid-morning, then-Laguna Niguel sea cliffs which became the future Ritz Carlton Hotel property on the bluff.

As the Colonel's wife and family cried with joy and the local newspaper flashbulbs popped, I gave my "Nautilus Submarine's Squid Fight" as a gift to honor his sacrifice and valor. The event was newsworthy and I made the papers that day much to the chagrin of my fellow seventh-grade students and teachers at the Christian School.

The year before, I made the papers for the Orange County Fair's Best-of-Show ribbon in the Arts & Crafts Division for my miniature, scratch built, 1/48th scale "Falconhurst" tree house from "The Swiss Family Robinson," which had been built into a large and very perfect manzanita branch found up in the mountains near Pine Cove and Idyllwild in Riverside County.