Hulk vs. Thing by Rich Woodall

DC's Power Girl and Star Wars' Leia are the main characters in my art collection, but I do try to grab up art featuring other characters from time to time. One group of characters I like to keep an eye out for is the four heroes my kids are named after, Thing, Hulk, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler.

This sketch card from Rittenhouse's Marvel Bronze Age set has two of the four characters on it, and they are fighting something out, just like my Ben and Bruce do all the time. The two characters have a long-standing rivalry in the comics, and their battles are usually pretty fun due to the strength they each possess. The artist on this sketch card is Rich Woodall, who has a Facebook page and an online shop along with various other online presences. I haven't interacted with him directly, as this sketch was an eBay purchase. It's a pretty neat piece of art, and I would definitely be interested in picking up more of his work some day.

Hulk and Thing Sketch Cards

My sketch card collection tends to be pretty focused on a couple of characters, but I have to switch it up from time to time when something jumps out at me. That was the case with these sketches that I purchased from an eBay seller a while ago.

Based on the 'Fantastic Four' logo, I thought these might be from one of the Marvel trading card sets put out by Rittenhouse, but when they arrived I found that this was just a logo and some design printed on relatively thin personal stock. I probably could have figured that out if I'd done any research, as the cards from the Rittenhouse product were in the vertical format and had the word 'Archives' printed after the Fantastic Four title. Anyway, I don't have much information on these sketches, not even an artist's name. It looks like the artist's initials are 'LS' and the sketches are dated '08.'

This first sketch features a close-up of the Hulk's face, and he is looking might angry. I really like this sketch, and I wish I knew who the artist was.

The second sketch features the Fantastic Four's ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing, again from an up-close perspective. It appears that he is about to announce that it's clobberin' time.

These sketches feature the characters that two of my sons are named after. If I knew who the artist was, I'd consider trying to commission sketches of my other two boys, although in my recollection Nightcrawler doesn't have much connection to the Fantastic Four. Thing is an original member of the team, while Hulk and Wolverine were members of The New Fantastic Four in the early 90's. Hulk and Thing also have a long-standing rivalry, as Thing is one of the few heroes who can go toe-to-toe with Hulk when he is rampaging uncontrollably.

Sketch Card Week Bonus Round: Sketches from Emerald City Comic Con 2012

These aren't sketch cards, but I haven't ever posted the sketches I got at the 2012 Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC). My other blog has a post about the sketches we got at the 2006 ECCC, if you want to check those out. My wife and I went to one previous ECCC while we were dating (maybe 2004? I don't think we knew each other in early 2003 and I was in Iraq on the 2005 dates), but we didn't get any sketches at that one. I don't remember a lot about the interactions we had with each artist for this post, but oddly enough I have a map in my head for approximately where in the convention hall each artist's table was located. I'll try to remember as much as I can.

One thing I definitely remember is that the show got a lot bigger between 2006 and 2012. The hall was super-crowded, and we had our twins who were just over a year old in a huge double stroller that we were trying to push around, as well as a second stroller for our three year-old boy. I have grown in patience over the years, but about halfway through the first day I was ready to leave and go straight home because the crowd was getting me frustrated. My wife talked me down from acting rashly, and we made a better plan for getting around and seeing all the stuff.

I don't know if artists like this or hate it, but I take a list of characters I like and ask them to sketch any character on my list that they feel would be cool. Sometimes I have a list of artists I am looking for, but I will also stop at any booth where I like the art on display and there isn't much of a line. If I recall correctly, Randy Emberlin was set up near to some huge megastar-type guy like Adam Hughes or something, and his booth was kind of overshadowed by the line for the other booth. I wasn't familiar with Emberlin's previous work on Spider-Man, but I liked what he had on display and he did this awesome old-school Punisher for me. 

I am having some difficulty remembering if Jon Morris drew this for us on request or if he had it already on display. I have a vague memory of having to figure out how to transport the piece while the paint used for Mr. Freeze's gun dried, though. That could be a false memory, though. Either way, he's got a pretty cool art style and I like his stuff. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that he chose Mr. Freeze from my list and drew him right there in front of us.

I am having a similarly difficult time remembering how we got this Cookie Monster sketch from Adam Watson. I think he was set up near Jon Morris, though, and they might even have been sharing a booth. I noticed that Adam Watson recently reblogged something that Jon Morris posted, so they know each other well enough for that. I don't know. He also appears to be interested in entomology, which makes him all right in my book. I was an Entomology minor for a while during my first attempt at a college education.

I don't remember a lot about Dean Trippe. He had some cool prints and I think I knew his name from seeing some of them online. At that time I was looking at a lot of comic book fan art, probably in preparation for this convention. He did this nice Spider-Man sketch for us, complete with tingling Spider-Sense.

Chris Burnham did this She-Hulk sketch for us. He drew it on a really big piece of paper, which is cool, but it was hard to carry around. Most of the other artists used paper from the sketch pad I was carrying around in my backpack or smaller paper of their own. So I had to figure out a way to carry this large paper without it getting destroyed. It's a pretty cool sketch, though.

Colleen Coover was really cool, and we chatted with her and her husband, Paul Tobin, for a little while. I think we chose this Wonder Woman sketch from her portfolio, and then she personalized it for us.

We barely caught Laurie B! as the convention was closing down. I think she was pretty burnt out after a long weekend and she apologized that she couldn't do a free sketch. We weren't expecting a free sketch anyway, and she did this Power Girl sketch for a very reasonable price. Getting a sketch from her was probably one of the highlights of the convention for me. I love her work, and I was glad that she made time for us even though she was ready to get out of there. You might be wondering why I would wait until the very end of the convention to get a sketch of a favorite character from a favorite artist. I don't know. Things just worked out that way.

I think I was drawn to Michael Cho's booth because I liked the prints he had on display, but I may have gone looking for him specifically. He's got some cool stuff out there. I'd probably seen some of it online prior to the convention. He did this Captain America sketch for us. 

The only sketches I commissioned before the convention were a group of three sketches featuring the characters my kids are named after by artist Jeremy Dale. Because they were pre-commissioned, they are a lot more detailed than most convention sketches and they cost me a little more. But it was totally worth it. This is some good art. First up is Hulk.

Jeremy and his wife, Kelly, were very friendly and we talked to them for a while when we went to pick up the sketches at his table. They were nice people, and they seemed like the kind of people we might have hung out with in real life 1) if we lived near each other and 2) if we were the sort of people who hung out with other people. Anyway, they were cool and friendly. This one is Wolverine. My scanner and my phone camera both have a hard time with the colored paper that these are done on, so the colors are a bit off.

Sadly, in November of 2014 I saw that Jeremy had died very suddenly, and it later came out that he had an autoimmune disorder triggered by a case of the flu. Obviously I only knew him from a short conversation at a convention, but it's one of those events that sticks with me for some reason. This third sketch features Thing from The Fantastic Four.

I don't remember much about meeting Leigh Kellogg, but this Rogue that he did for us is super cool. In trying to search out more information on him, I discovered that he worked on several video games I enjoyed, like Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far and MechCommander 2 from a while back, and more recently the Facebook/Mobile game Marvel: Avengers Alliance. Unfortunately, Disney very recently decided to shut down Avengers Alliance, a game that I played quite a bit over the last couple of years.

We got a lot of good sketches at ECCC 2012 and we've been trying to get to another convention, but it seems like the dates and finances never quite match up. Maybe 2017 will be our year to go to one of the conventions in Portland, Seattle, or Salt Lake City.

A Star Wars Sketch Card and Decorating the Walls of My Office

I'm going to keep the sketch card theme rolling with a Star Wars sketch by artist John Soukup, whose work has been featured a lot on this blog. 

This card illustrates the briefing room scene in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope prior to the Battle of Yavin, which led to the destruction of the first Death Star. The sketch comes from the 2013 Topps Star Wars Galactic Files: Series 2 set.

I recognized the scene right away when I saw the card, but here is a screencap from the film. This is the part where they talk about a weak point they've found in the Death Star's defenses, a thermal exhaust port that is vulnerable to a torpedo attack that could lead to a chain reaction that would destroy the base.

I am a pretty big fan of Soukup's work, and I recently also acquired a full-size painting of his for my new office at work. It's a pretty big painting, and I've had plenty of compliments on it from my coworkers. This cell phone picture sucks some of the color out of the painting, which is unfortunate. I have it hanging in front of my desk so I can look at it when I need to zone out for a second. That flame in the middle of the painting glows in the dark.

I also finally hung up some prints we bought from artist Mike Maydak at the Emerald City Comic Con in 2012. They depict the three characters my kids are named after. I don't know what I'll do if we ever have another kid. I guess I'll have to track him down and see if he's got a print of whatever character's name we come up with. He's got some cool stuff. It would be really neat to snag one of his original paintings, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

The Art Collector

I've shown off quite a few pieces of art done by John Soukup aka Kettle over the last year or so, including several sketch cards, a sticker sketch, and a Ken Griffey Jr.-themed painted baseball. Several times I have expressed the desire to own a larger piece of his work, but I wasn't ever sure if I would be able to make it happen.

Earlier this year he posted one of his paintings on eBay, a piece featuring Marvel comic book characters Thing and Man-Thing having some tea. I was in a position to bid on it at the time, probably because it was around tax return time, and when the dust cleared I was the winner.

I'm not 100% sure that I 'get' this painting, but I know a Carfax report shows information for used cars, like accidents, ownership history, repairs, and maintenance records. I would imagine that it would be useful to get a similar report for someone's heart, so you can know what kind of stuff to watch out for before you begin a new relationship. That might take some of the fun and mystery out of things, though.

I was really excited to see the next painting he posted a little while later. I had actually seen it on his DeviantArt page in late 2015, and I liked it so much that I even left a comment on the gallery page. And I mentioned it in a blog post in January. I'm not sure why, but I could stare at this thing for hours. I went back and looked at it quite a bit online over the first couple months of 2016, and when Kettle posted it on eBay I knew I had to have it for myself. 

He e-mailed me around the same time to show me some other work and I had to ask him the story behind this painting. The short version of his response is that he goes to a lot of comic conventions and there are always women there cosplaying (dressing up as characters from comics/TV shows/movies) and when they walk by everyone is looking at them and thinking about them. He wondered what the cosplayers were thinking about while everyone was thinking about them and decided that they were probably disconnected from all the attention and instead were thinking about what their cat was doing at home. So this is a Wonder Woman cosplayer focused on her cat while everyone else is focusing on her.

I was able to win this painting, too, and unfortunately as soon as it arrived my wife stole it from me. We share the room that we use as an office, so I still get to look over at her wall and see the painting, but it's not the same as if it were actually mine. I will have to steal it back some day. These are some decent-sized paintings, with the 'Carfax' one being 20" x 20" and the Wonder Woman one (titled 'Left Iowa Saturday Afternoon' on DeviantArt) being 18" x 24".

I am pretty excited that timing and fate matched up in a way that allowed me to obtain both of these paintings for my collection. While these weren't small purchases for me, I feel good every time I look at them and that's more than I can say about a lot of the stuff I buy. While I don't 'get' everything that Soukup / Kettle produces, he does a whole lot of stuff that speaks to me, like there is stuff in the art that tells me he's been to some of the same places mentally as I have. The Star Wars and comic book references are an important part of that, but I think there is more to it than just recognizing the characters or pop culture references. It has more to do with which characters he uses, how they look, and how they interact with each other and their environments. I don't know if any of that made sense. I'm not that great at talking about art and I'm probably even less good at talking about feelings.

Rittenhouse Archives Greatest Heroes Thing / Human Torch Sketch Card

I've noticed my number of page views per post has gone up a little bit, so I am running several non-sports posts in a row to see if I can get those viewership numbers back down into the single digits. If this doesn't work I may have to follow this up with a NASCAR post or two, just to make sure it's dead. I picked up this sketch card from Rittenhouse's Marvel Greatest Heroes set after selling another sketch card I pulled that was worth a lot more to someone else than it was to me.

The sketch is by Jake Sumbing, who is a fairly prolific guy on the sketch card circuit. Like most sketch card artists, he's got some pretty good stuff out there and some stuff that looks a little mailed-in. This card is a little of both. I really like the way the Human Torch was done. I am less enthusiastic about the Thing, who seems to be a difficult character to draw well. Overall I like the card well enough. I didn't have any sketch cards of these characters yet, which is kind of a travesty since the Fantastic Four are my favorite superhero team (my oldest son is even named after the Thing). That leaves me needing sketches of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman to finish out the team.

Here is the back of the card, because I scanned it and that means it has to be posted. I like that on some of the newer sketch cards the card companies have left spaces for the artist to write their name so it is easier to figure out who drew your card. Unfortunately, many of the artists have stylized signatures or scribbles for signatures, so it still can be difficult to decipher names. Mr. Sumbing is nice enough to sign his cards with a printed last name, so it is relatively easy to identify his work.