Robbi Rodriguez Is Awesome!

By | Friday, March 05, 2010 3 comments
A few weeks ago, Tek Jansen and Maintenance artist Robbi Rodriquez announced he was having a fire sale to get rid of the pile of art under his desk. For twenty bucks, he'll send you two piece of original art, somewhat randomly chosen.

I thought to myself, "Two pieces of original comic art for $20? That's only ten bucks a piece! Awesome!" I scrounged together the twenty bucks and fired it off with a note that said, only half-jokingly, that I wouldn't be too disappointed if one or both of the pieces of art happened to be from Maintenance as I particularly enjoyed that series.

Today, I found a flat package waiting on my doorstep...
A sketch from his Frankie Get Your Gun which, I believe, he's still working on. (Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong and it's actually out there somewhere.)

And then, I carefully opened the package up to find...
Two excellent pieces of original art from Maintenance featuring the two lead characters, as well as a highly detailed layout sketch also from the series.

See, you know what's great here? It's not so much that it was inexpensive -- though that was cool -- it's that he threw in a couple of other unique freebies just to say 'thanks for the support'. I mean, clearly, the quick sketch on the back of a cardboard package isn't going hang in a museum wall and I'd be hard pressed to justify framing it, but it's a very nice, personal touch that adds a lot to the transaction. It's like the occasional waitress or clerk who says 'thank you' with such sincerity that you can't help but feel they genuinely enjoyed dealing with you.

Did Rodriguez HAVE to make sure he sent over Maintenance artwork? No. By the rules he set up, he made it very clear it was going to be a crap shoot. But he pulled out those couple of pages (seemingly) deliberately, and provided an extra sketch which no one but me, him and the postman have seen. That's just cool, in a very classy way.

Man, that is some great stuff! Thank you much, Robbi! I highly suggest folks heading over to pick up on any of the great deals he might have left!
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is awesome.
Awhile back, Matthew Clark had posted a Speedball illo on his blog, as one of his daily warmups. Being a Speedball fanatic, I hunted down his email and offered to buy the piece, at his usual page rate. Turns out, he too is a Speedball fanatic, and following a really fun email exchange, he sent me the piece, free of charge (and colored!).
I love when artists do stuff like this.

Matt K said...

Yes, this kind of stuff is very cool. Madison Clell thoughtfully personalized my copy of "Cuckoo," and Alessio Leonardi added a custom drawing to my copy of "From the Cow to the Typewriter."

Im just glad the damn thing didnt get bent. Glad you enjoyed the art.