(Not at All) Recent Comic Art Acquisitions

One thing I love almost as much as trading cards is comic books. Recently I've been feeling bad that I stopped reading my comics, and I've made an effort to remedy that. I'd accumulated a several-year backlog that felt insurmountable, as I subscribe to around 30 titles a month and had fallen off the reading wagon several years ago. I was never going to get around to reading all those books, so I picked a monthly shipment a few months ago and started reading from there. Reading a few books a night gets me through my pile in about a week, and I don't have to feel guilty anymore about buying books and not reading them. Will I go back someday and organize and read all the stuff I missed? Maybe. Probably around the time I go back and sort all the trading cards in my collection shed. It might be easier when/if some of my kids move out in a few years and I can claim a room of my own for sorting.

One thing I really enjoy is collecting artwork of favorite characters of mine. Sometimes I seek out commissions, and sometimes I buy artwork that's already been done. Reaching into the wayback machine (this post was originally created in September of 2018), I'll try to recall some of the particulars of the artwork shown here.

This first one was definitely a commission, a Power Girl sketch cover from artist Alessandro Micelli. I forget most of the details, but he was offering commissions at some point and I was able to get on his list. When commissioning Power Girl artwork I generally ask artists to focus on her strength rather than cheesecake poses. I think he delivered on this one, done in his signature style. You can check out his work on Instagram.

I believe this She-Hulk illustration was also a commissioned piece, from artist Kate Carleton, who now apparently is Kate Dykstra. I like her art style and have purchased several pieces from her over the years, although not recently. My purchasing of artwork has slowed down over the years, and it's pretty rare for me to add something to my collection these days. She can also be found on Instagram, and is also taking commissions in her webstore at the moment.

These next two are sketch covers I picked from a group of pre-done artwork. The artist is Doug Riggsby, who appears to have dropped off the face of the earth at some point in 2019. If I recall correctly, I purchased the covers through his daughter, Emily Riggsby, who is/was also an artist. Her Facebook page has been taken down, so I'm not sure where you might locate either of them to get artwork. Some stuff is still available on eBay from various sellers.

The cover on the left features Vampirella of comic book fame and Count Chocula, the cereal mascot, with a joke alluding to the Count's sugary origin. The cover on the right shows She-Hulk mistaking Tigra for Tony the Tiger, and Tigra retorting with a Jolly Green Giant barb.

The final piece of artwork in this post is a dynamic illustration of barbarian Red Sonja, who has a long history in comic books. The artist is Scott Dalrymple, and I believe I purchased it directly from the artist's eBay store. I don't have a link to the eBay store, as the purchase was made several years ago and I lack the ambition to research it tonight. He can be found on Instagram, though. I particularly like the word perspective on this one.

Not a lot of commentary to go along with the artwork in this post, as I can't recall most of the details anyway and it's getting a bit late in the day as I write this. The kids are hoping for a snow day tomorrow, but it seems unlikely given the weather report. We'll probably get just enough snow to make the commute miserable. I do enjoy getting my art portfolios out from time to time to look at the artwork I've accumulated. It's not a huge collection, but it's good enough for me.

Doug Riggsby Red Sonja Artist Proof

I like a little silliness from time to time, so I will occasionally buy a sketch that strikes me as funny. Doug Riggsby is an artist known for his cartoony art style and his jokes, some more off-color than others.

I got this Red Sonja Artist Proof from Riggsby's eBay shop. It's from the Women of Dynamite set that was released by Breygent a few years back. I swear I've seen that guard/soldier somewhere before, but I have no idea where. Anytime I see a, "That's what she said," joke, it reminds me of The Office. I like Doug Riggsby's work a lot. I think I've also got a couple of sketch comic covers done by him that I haven't shown off here yet. I'll have to dig them out one of these days.

Dynamite Comics are the folks who own the license for Red Sonja comics, and they just recently completed a Kickstarter for a premium card product celebrating the 45th Anniversary of Red Sonja. Each pack of the cards has two sketches in it, and I supported the Kickstarter for two packs, so I've got four sketches coming to me at some point. The artist list has some pretty big names on it, so I am hoping to get some good stuff.

Sketch Card Week: Red Sonja by Danny Silva

Today artist Danny Silva gets featured for the second time during Sketch Card Week, this time with a nice sketch of famed barbarian(ess?) Red Sonja holding what appears to be an orc or goblin's severed head. Gory stuff, I suppose, but fighting goblinoids isn't clean work. This set came out a couple of years ago, but Silva recently posted a video of him working on this sketch card to his blog.

That's pretty cool stuff. It's neat to see the progression of the art from pencil to inks to colors. I'm glad I was able to find the video. This card came from Breygent's Women of Dynamite card set, which is based on the various female characters whose rights are owned by comic book publisher Dynamite Entertainment. It was a small set released in sketch card packs that were only available at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con (and later from resellers). Each pack had two sketches, 6 base cards (from an 18-card base set), and a promo card (from a 6-card promo set). I bought a pack of the cards once, but I never blogged about it here. One of the sketches was a little on the risque side and I wound up selling it on eBay for a couple hundred dollars to a person who PC's the artist. If I recall correctly I paid about $35 for that pack, so it was a pretty good deal for me.

This sketch joins my small Red Sonja PC and I'll definitely be looking for more work by Danny Silva in the future.

Red Sonja Sketch Card by Jason Keith Phillips

Here is another sketch card I picked up recently featuring the other famous barbarian, Red Sonja. Just like my last Red Sonja sketch, I selected a sketch that is a little more cartoon-inspired than the usual fare. The artist who created this one is Jason Keith Phillips, who seems to be a fairly prolific sketch card artist. The card comes from Breygent's 2012 Red Sonja set, which I was packed out in box set form, with each box set a base set, 9 insert cards, one sketch, and one additional hit which could be another sketch, an autograph, or a line art card.

His personal art tends to focus on horror and zombie themes, but he also has touched on most of the major pop culture themes like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel and DC Comic Characters, Adventure Time, and various television shows. Most of his work seems to use similar coloring, with strong red, blue, and a kind of sickly white cast to it. I like a lot of his stuff, although the horror and zombie art turns my stomach a bit. I guess if I have a hard time looking at it, then he's doing his job and making it scary/gory enough.

Anyhow, I like this sketch and I think it's a pretty good addition to my small collection of sketch cards. I especially like all of the blending of the colors and the reflective highlights that make the shield and 'armor' look shiny. In the miniature wargaming hobby using blues, whites, and greys to make painted miniature figure look metallic is called Non-Metallic Metal (NMM). It's a more advanced technique than I ever mastered, but when done right it is very cool.

This Dwarf's weapon, shield, helmet, and fist all show NMM techniques. At first glance it looks like metal, but it's actually all carefully-applied colors to make it look like metal. It's pretty cool, and you can find examples where various colors are used to paint gold or even more extreme things like purple and green metals. It's a cool concept based on looking at an object and trying to imagine where the light and shadows would fall on it if it were really made of metal.

And now you know about that. Sorry to go off on a miniature-painting tangent in the middle of a trading card blog. I've been looking a little bit at my wargaming figures on the shelf and thinking about getting back into painting a little once I get done with school. So that stuff has been on my mind, and the colors on the sketch card got me to thinking about it.

What eBay Hath Wrought 112: Breygent Red Sonja Sketch Card by Jason Crosby

If you like swords and sorcery in your comic books, there are two big names out there. The main guy is Conan the Barbarian, and the main woman is Red Sonja. There have been other attempts at barbarian comics, but those are the only two that have really stood the test of time. I wanted a Red Sonja sketch card, but I had a few criteria that made it somewhat difficult to find the right one. I wanted one that was clearly identifiable as Red Sonja, which meant one that showed off her trademark red hair and chainmail bikini. I wanted one that was well-drawn, which is a pretty subjective thing, I suppose. And I wanted a sketch card that emphasized her warlike nature over just being some cheesecake model who happens to be wearing chainmail.

Eventually I settled on this sketch by Jason Crosby from Breygent's Women of Dynamite set. This one checks all of my blocks, and I would imagine that if there were a real Red Sonja out there in the world she would look a lot like this. Actually, she would probably have the sense to wear a few more clothes, but if a loincloth is good enough for Conan I guess the chainmail is good enough for her. I like the colors on this one and really couldn't be happier with it. A lot of the sketches in the set are very short on color, and to be honest a lot of the sketches in the set are just butt-awful. This one met all of my criteria and is well-drawn. It's cartoony without being overly simplistic.

I looked around at some of Crosby's other work. It looks like when it comes to sketch cards he sticks mostly to horror topics. He's got a lot of Mars Attacks! sketches out there, some Cthulhu stuff, and his recent Marvel and DC comic book sketches made my mind explode. You can see a lot of it on this thread in the Blowout Cards forum dedicated to his art. Looking up all of his sketches while researching this post makes me want to go out and get all of it. But that would be crazy. He had a Rocket Raccoon and Groot card that sold for $305.00 recently. That's about 20,000 leagues out of my league. But I am pretty happy to have this Red Sonja sketch, and hopefully I can pull more of his work from DC or Marvel packs down the road.