What Art Do I Look For?

I got my first piece of original comic book art a little over a quarter century ago. I had just had several good online interactions with Salvador Larocca, and I bought a page to commemorate the discussion. At the time, preview material wasn't nearly as common and I was able to reserve a splash page before Larocca's art agent was even aware of it! I've since collected a few dozen pages from various artists and, while I have snagged a few just because a good opportunity presented itself, most were pretty deliberate and considered choices.

The piece I have pictured here is one I just acquired; it's from Fantastic Four #309, page 4 by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott. I got it for two reasons. First, it's by John Buscema, whose work had a pretty sizeable impact on what I like in comic book art. I've long wanted a John Buscema page just to see how he 'built' his pages out, relative to what's depicted in How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Secondly, it's from the Fantastic Four, which has long been a favorite series of mine. Granted, the page isn't exactly action packed and of the two FF members it depicts, one of them is a replacement member. But, compared to most John Buscema pages I've seen over the years, this was positively dirt cheap!

Many of the pages I have are FF related pages by artists that I've really liked over the years. I've got ones by Sal Buscema, John Romita Jr., Stuart Immonen, Mike Wieringo, Mark Bagley, and Paul Ryan among others. I've also got several pages of artists that I really like, but either didn't work on the Fantastic Four or whose FF pages are just waaaaaay above my pay grade. John Severin, John Byrne, Ramona Fradon, Ron Frenz, Humberto Ramos...

Then I have a few pages that are kind of odd grail pieces for me. Pages that, for one reason or another, absolutely burned into my brain when I first read them. I didn't actively go hunting for these, but when I did come across them for sale, it was a "here take my money" kind of situation. A Jimmy Olsen page by Kurt Schaffenberger. A page by Tom Morgan from one of the backup stories in an FF Annual. An obscure piece from Monsters Unlimited by Win Mortimer. A Bob the Squirrel strip by Frank Page. A Scott Kolins page for Freakshow. Most of these pages are relatively unremarkable among each artist's body of work but, as I said, something about them -- something in the craft of the page -- really struck me.

With the addition of this new John Buscema piece, I don't have much left I'd be actively looking for. A Curt Swan page from one of his Superman comics I read as a kid. A Ron Lim Silver Surfer. An actual FF page by John Byrne. A Jack Kirby page if I'm beng pie-in-the-sky optimistic. And that's about it. I mean, it'd be great to have a Neal Adams Green Arrow or a Winsor McCay Little Nemo. And I'm generally happy to buy new art directly from comic artists to help support them. But I have more of an artistic interest in original art than I do with just comics, so there needs to be a deeper connection there for me. And, sure, part of that is because I have to justify spending a LOT more money on a page of original art than just a regular, monthly comic book. But part of it, too, is legitmately being able to study the craft directly. To see how the artist moved their pencil across the page, what they had trouble with and had to repeatedly erase, what notes they left for other creators further down the process line...

It's a fascinating hobby somewhat tangential to comics themselves, but the added costs almost necessitate that you need to be more critical and judicial with your purchases, and you really have to put a decent amount of conscious thought into what you're looking for before you crack open a retailer's portfolios!

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