Here's a really tasty Christmas treat: An Al Parker illustration from 1962! By 1961 Parker had mostly packed up his brushes and moved to California, so post-'61 Parkers are rare indeed.Just as the candies in your Christmas stocking were a jumble of shapes and flavours, these candy ads I'm running to conclude the Countdown to Christmas come in a variety of styles and are here for a variety of reasons... The Clark bar ad is here just because its so darn cute. But I had an ulterior motive for running the Dubble Bubble ads. Those little pink bricks with the comicstrip in the wrapper have a long history and were a constant source of much-needed sugar for generations of North American kids, myself included. And subsequently, Dubble Bubble's mascot, "Pud", has been a constant companion and source of lame kid-humour for generations as well. That's why I'm so proud to be the most recent illustrator to redesign Dubble Bubble's Pud for the current generation of gum-chewing kids! Over the holidays I'll be posting the story of how this Canadian kid got the job of updating "America's Original" Pud over on my other blog, Leifdrawing101. It's been quite some time since I posted anything there and I hope to rectify that situation in the new year. For now, Today's Inspiration is going on Christmas vacation. I've already got some fantastic classic illustration topics in the works for the New Year so we'll see you back here in January 2007. And if you're not a fan of candy, Santa says, "PeelaBanana!"