Come on in and have a seat..My name is Wild Bill and in this photo I am sitting with my
mentors....Sailor Bill Killingsworth and Jack Armstrong and it was no easy feat getting
these two men together in the same room at the same time.
This photo was taken at the location of the First "Superior Skin Art" which by the way was
know as Jacks House of Tattoo's in the 70's and right next door was "Sailor Bill's Master
Tattooing"and both of these shop locations still have the scars and bullet holes that bare witness
to Old School Tattooing....

You are invited to get in and take a ride through the Superior Skin Art site and I hope you
enjoy the ride and come back often.. as I will be adding content on a regular basis. The
limo you see pictured here was used in an attempt to break up a racket that was deeply
entrenched within the Tattooing subculture of Columbus Georgia.In the early 70's Jack
Armstrong opened a Tattoo shop in Columbus and this started a Tattoo "war" over territory.
One of the methods employed at the time was to give the local cab drivers a "tip" for every
customer that they brought to the Tattoo shop.Now you need to realize that at this time the
majority of tattoo customer's were military personel who were stationed at Fort Benning the
largest training facility in the nation.The major mode of transportation for these new recruits
happen to be getting a "cab"and as you can imagine this could have a sizeable impact on whichever
shop could direct the most traffic to their location.
Now in the 70's a "tip" of a dollar or two per customer didn't seem all that bad but Tattooer's
being like they are this was not to last long.One shop would raise the "tip" and in response
the other shop would raise it again and this continued for many years.In the early 90's I
opened "Superior Skin Art" and I wanted to bring Tattooing in Columbus out of the dark ages and
one of the first problems I was to face was this system of "tipping out the cab drivers". I
never liked the idea in the first place and by now it was no longer a "tip"....it had turned
into a form of extortion and if you refused to "pay up" the cab drivers would do anything to
divert customers from your shop.Well I refused to "pay anyone" to bring me customers and
I believed that if I was to provide the customers with a better service and a top notch
staff of talented artists we could end this "extortion racket"and the limo was one of the
tools that I used to combat this system.So we would provide any military personel a free ride
to the Tattoo shop and then return them to wherever they wanted to go.There were times that I
thought that the Limo would break in half due to all of the soilders that were packed into
it and the limo became a big hit with the G.I.s who also loved to have their picture taken with it.
Well I guess your wondering if I was able to break up the "extortion racket" and the answer
is yes and no.What happen was I changed it around...we do not pay anyone to bring us customers
and we have still been able to become the major force behind Tattooing in Columbus while on
the other hand if some of the other shops in town did not pay to have recruits brought to
their shop they would no longer be in business and I can live with that if they can.

This is a picture of Sailor Bill's shop that was taken in the 70's and also the present
location of Superior Skin Art.I worked for Sailor Bill at this location in the early 70's
and this is where I was to meet and work with some of the most colorfull characters in Tattooing.
As you can see the carny influence was very strong at Sailor's shop and this was due to the fact
that Sailor Bill used to Tattoo on the carnival circuit and at one time had a vary strong presence
there.Sailor Bill was always a carney at heart and he introduced to this life style and forever
changed my opinion of it.I still have fond memories of when I first became a full fledged member
of the "International Independent Association of Showmen" and the journey that was to follow.
A few of you may well remember how it used to be but most of you were never exposed to this
world and the subculture connected with it.Sailor always liked to see my reaction whenever he put
me into a different situation...like when he brought out his collection of "pickeled punks" and
set them on the table while we were eating.What is a "pickeled punk" you say...well they were
babies that were born deformed and died.At the time it was a common pratice of Sailors as well as
others to travel around and buy them to put into large glass jars in a special clear solution
which they used to put on display in a "10 in 1" side show.I remember the "2 headed baby" and the
"frog child" from Mexico used to have me sitting for hours looking at them..were they real or were
they a hoax we will never know because they were all confinscated during the 80's due to the
uproar created by the right to life movement and all of them were to be provided with a proper
burial whatever that is.

Well this is a picture of the "japanese worm dragon" that was on the side of the shop for
a brief period of time.One man almost died over this painting...Sailor was so mad when he
saw what the airbrush artist had painted that he wanted to shoot him.Once Sailor was
reminded that he and the airbrush artist had been friends for over 20 years his remark was " he
needs to stop smoking that shit".......

Continue the Tour  >>>>> HERE