Matt Busch's Indiana Jones Map
We’ve been doing some decluttering, and boy does the TV room need it. We collect a lot of stuff. But the one feature of that room that looks great is the shelf where we keep tiki mugs and other odd items from different nations. This is one spot where the clutter actually works. Why? Because the items are all congregated under this fantastic map of the Indiana Jones universe, created by artist Matt Busch.
Some back story is in order. My wife, author Denise Kiernan, often does speaking engagements to talk about the books she writes. On one of her travels, she spoke at Macomb Community College in Michigan. At the post-talk signing, one of the instructors there came up, introduced himself, and presented her with an awesome map of all the items Indiana Jones pursued in that character’s entire canon.
Mr. Busch, who is known as a great artist in the Star Wars and other fandoms, realized that Denise and I had written The Indiana Jones Handbook back in the day, and thought she would enjoy a copy of the map. As he explained it, he shared a copy of the map with George Lucas, who bestowed his Georgian blessing upon the fan project, so long as Mr. Busch did not profit from it. (This is common in fan universes, I gather.) Mr. Busch has since donated all map profits to veterans organizations.
I connected with Mr. Busch once when I was still on social media, just to thank him profusely for the gift. At the time he gave Denise the map, the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had been out in the world for some time so the map reflected that addition to the canon. I see from Mr. Busch’s website that the original limited edition of 255 copies has sold out. There is a hint that more will be made in the future, and if so, I wonder if he intends to update it with the Dial of Destiny. That’s a question for another day.
Which brings us back to the map, which is huge. We knew we wanted to have it professionally framed, but were initially concerned about the cost. Framing is always expensive. But when we remodeled the TV room in 2016 or so, a year after we bought the house we are living in, we knew we wanted something special to hang in that room, over the rustic shelf unit our handyman created.
We decided to go all in, and told the framing store that we wanted a frame that matched the old style of the map and the entire Indy franchise. We landed on this rustic-style wooden border.
It’s probably the best looking frame of any object in the house, including family photos. Every time I look at it, I think we made a good choice. And with the passage of time, as we added more weird artifacts from our Disney and world travels—Peruvian ceramic rabbit, anyone?—the map seemed to meld with the decor of the room.
I keep meaning to write Mr. Busch to show him what this looks like, nearly a decade after he gave Denise the map, but haven’t. I hope this post comes off as the love letter I intend it to be. In the words of the Big Lebowski, it really ties the room together.
Detail of the legend.
You can check out Mr. Busch’s work at his website and shop, and investigate his bona fides at this Wikipedia page here. Great artist, great human, great map.
Credit where credit is due!
And if you are wondering, The Indiana Jones Handbook that sparked this gift was a movie tie-in, work-for-hire book that we did when Quirk Books acquired a license to do such a book for a short time, to coincide with the arrival of Crystal Skull in movie theaters. Once they printed the book, that was it. No more copies were authorized. But you can still find decent-looking copies online. Frankly, I wish we had more for ourselves. For a few years there, when the book was still easily available in stores, we would buy them and gift them to the children of various friends and family members. And now, if I want any copies, I have to go dig through used book sites to source a presentable copy. What sucks about this arrangement is that I never know until the books arrive in the mail if they are nice enough to give as gifts.
I’ll continue this walk down memory lane in a day or so, because just dusting off and reordering that shelf has sent me looking for some photos that I want to share. Stay tuned.
Oh—one last coincidence, if I may. Denise once ghost-wrote a book for an actress, who told her that back in the 1970s, she hired a handyman-carpenter to build her bookshelves for her TV room. And of course, this being Hollywood, the carpenter was an aspiring actor. He came to the job site one day and sheepishly announced that he got a callback on an audition.
“It’s for some stupid space movie,” the carpenter told the actress, or words to that effect.
And for decades after, the actress bragged to her friends that Harrison Ford built her bookshelves just before he landed the part of Han Solo.
Sweet monkeys, what a great story.
Published in 2008, this title is long out of print, so if you find a new or used copy online, grab it! No ebook was ever released, making the title doubly scarce. In addition to Amazon, I recommend some excellent sites that sell used, new, and hard-to-find titles. And no, I don’t get a dime if you buy a copy.
BUY THE INDIANA JONES HANDBOOK
hardcover: Amazon | Biblio | Bookfinder | Alibris | Abebooks