Bart Sears Trading Cards #2

Back in September of 2009, I did a little post on some of Bart's Trading Cards. And since I recently scanned in all of the cards that feature Bart's artwork, I thought it might be fun to share with you some more of them right here and now.
So let's do it!
I'll try and be less wordy this time around, and just let the cool artwork speak for itself.

So, I thought I'd start of with the three cards Bart created for the Creator's Universe set back in 1993.

As you can see, they all feature characters from Ominous Press, and all are inked by Bart too. I've put in the original art for these cards as well, just to show the complete images, minus the rather butcher-like cropping that goes on in the final cards.

Next are some cards from one of my favourite sets featuring Bart's art, Monumental Overpower!


And here's both the original art and final card for Starro, from the series 'DC Cosmic Cards '93.'

And finally, here is both the front and back of the 'Winter' card from Wildstorm Set 1.

And there you have it, I kept my mouth closed as promised. There are still plenty of cards to show you, and I promise I won't make you wait another 15 months for the next batch!

Bart Sears Trading Cards #1

One section of the vast Bart Sears collectible library that I feel warrants a much needed closer look on this blog is Trading Cards featuring the art of Bart Sears.

By my reckoning, there are a total of 68 Trading cards featuring Bart's art, most of which are from the early to mid-90's, back when it seemed every man and his dog had a card set out. This may not be the actual total amount of cards featuring his work, I still have a few to track down, including that pesky 'The Mask' card, which I still to this day do not know for sure if it exists.

While Bart never managed to get around to having his own card set (oh, what a dream!), he did contribute to a fairly diverse range of card sets. Many of the cards featuring his art actually take previous artwork from other places, be they the Conan 2 cards that reprint Bart's first portfolio, to the most recent cards, for Zoom Suit, which reprint Bart's cover for the comic of the same title.

So join me as we take a stroll through the Bart Sears Trading Card Gallery.
Many of the images I put up on this Blog are done so with the express intent of showing all of you that look here some of Bart's lesser known work. Sure, it looks like I'm showing off, but it really is a case of me wanting to share with you all some of the great, if not well known, art Bart has produced over the years.
And this first set of cards is no exception.

I got my hands on the 'Marvel Premium X-Men Timelines '97' set of cards on the 19th of January, 2000. One of the first things I noticed was that none of the cards had the artists responsible credited anywhere on the cards that I could see. This is going against the grain somewhat, as all other cards of the same ilk always used this practice. The only other noticeable one not to being the Marvel Overpower cards. So anyway, usually this would not be a problem, as I can normally spot an authentic Bart Sears piece a mile away. And this was certainly the case with the 5 cards that were indeed created by Bart. But I initially had something like 8 cards picked out as possibly being done by Bart. There were a few cards that I just didn't know if Bart did, all of them being part of the Techno-Wonders sub-set that the cards I definitely knew Bart did were part of.

As it turned, those extra couple of cards were not done by Bart, as confirmed by him later, and the number of cards actually done by him for this set is 5, the 5 I knew for sure he did initially.

And here they are-

I know, I know, they don't quite look like Bart's work. Some of the colouring is a bit funky in places, but rest assured, they are definitely by Bart. Well, the pencils are anyway-

If you look closely at the pencils in relation to the final cards, you may spot a few 'alterations.' Most obviously is the Rama-Tut card, where the final card has the figure much enlarged. But perhaps more interestingly is the Black Knight card, where the final artwork has removed the sword from his right hand and put it in his left.

Another cool card set, that is rather tough to track down these days, is the DC Stars set sold exclusively through Walmart back in 1994. Basically, these cards were taken directly from the DC 1992 Series 1 card set, with the images resized and that unapologetically early '90's border added.

Although Bart produced artwork for 7 cards from the original set, only these three characters from those 7 were reprinted in the Walmart set, which was only a set of 44 cards, 1 checklist and some promo and chase cards, whilst the original set was much larger.

The final card I'll share with you today is Bart's only card for the 'Dark Horse: Comics Greatest World' set.

Here it is-

I mentioned that it is Bart's only card from the set because, interestingly enough, this card image made it onto one of the packaging wrappers for the cards. This is interesting because this is the only time Bart's art has appeared on a card wrapper.

This is just the first step into the Bart Sears Trading Card Gallery, there are plenty of nooks and crannies to discover yet. So check back soon for more Bart Sears Trading Cards and insight into them.

See you all soon.

A Mixed Bag of Bart Sears Goodness

Going along with the theme of the last post, or the lack thereof, I thought I might, this time around, show some Bart Sears art that really doesn't fall into any particular category I've established here. There is some unpublished work, some early work, some commissioned work; yet all have one thing in common - they're all freaking good!
So let's take a dip into the gigantic bag that is my Bart Sears collection and have a look-see what comes out.

First out is a fantastic piece from way back in 1986!

This is one of the many pieces I came across whilst rifling through Bart's boxes while staying with him and the family on my second trip, in 2006. I don't believe it was for anything in particular (Bart?), and I've never seen it published anywhere. Which is a great shame, because I think it is one of Bart's better early pieces, surpassing many of his QC QC covers from a few years later, in my opinion. It is also one of Bart's few forays into pure Science Fiction. And the sword thing is just nifty looking.

Let's see, what else have we got in here? Oh, ever seen this before?

Whilst staying with Bart that time in 2006, Bart was working on Warlord #10. Bart asked me if I'd like to help with the inking of it. I swear I nearly pooped myself when he said that, half out of fear of messing up the inking, the other out of excitement at getting the oppurtunity to do the inking.
I ended up helping out on about half a dozen pages, filling in blacks here and there, sometimes a little more. The pinnacle was probably this page though, where I did most of the detail in the background. Bart first gave me a photocopy of the page to have a go at it first. He gave me a few notes after I'd done that, and then handed me the real page, and this is the result.
I was pretty excited to see our work on the printed paper, but unfortunately, DC pulled Bart's rendition of Warlord #10 and replaced it with another story, so none of the work we did ever made it to the printer.
I'm still mad at DC about that.

But anyway, on to the next item.

Here's another of my favourite pieces of work by Bart. And it's another unpublished item.

Cool huh? Actually, this is probably one of the best things Bart has ever done, in my opinion.
These three pages were originally intended for Marvel Comics' 1997-98 title 'Shadows & Light,' but Bart's work never got past the third page, I don't know why (Bart?). Bart did, however, produce a fantastic Colossus pin-up for issue #3, dated July 1998 which is worth checking out (I'll post it here when I've got it scanned in).

Here is another very early piece, and is probably one of the most unrecognisable pieces of Bart Sears art ever.

I'm sure you'll have noticed that the credited artist is somebody called 'MILO,' but this comic strip is, in fact, an early collaboration of both Bart and Michael J Morrissey. I unfortunately don't know much more about it apart from the fact that there were perhaps four or five more strips completed, and they were published in a local Syracuse newspaper. I'm kinda hoping that as soon as Bart reads this, he'll fill me in with some more details, which I'll obviously post here if forthcoming.

Finally, some of you may know that whilst Sears Studios was open for business back in 1993-94, Bart was commissioned to design the vast majority of Marvel & Toy Biz's X-Men and X-Force lines for those years (he also designed several Fantastic Four figures and some packaging art too). Whilst there is an interesting story to go along with these designs and that deal, I'll leave that for another post, but give you a taste of the sort of designs he was producing for them.


The first piece is a character called Quark, often associated with Mojo and Longshot. He's a lesser character (Toy Biz produced quite a few lesser characters for these series'), but its a cool design image.


Next is packaging art for the Spider-Man 'Web of Steel' series of figures. Unfortunately, the final artwork looks to have been slightly altered from this art, but I still consider it a Bart Sears item, in spite of this.

On a different note, those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook will know that I recently purchased an item that I hoped would contain some new Bart Sears artwork for me. Well, true to form, it didn't have any new Bart in it. The item in question is the 'Essential Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition Volume 1 (is it just me or is that just stupidly long for a title?).

This Handbook reprints entries from the (take a deep breath) Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition series from 1990-93. It has entries for both Captain Universe and Caliban, and I, perhaps a bit optimistically, hoped that it would have these images for those entries.




But alas, it wasn't to be. But fear not, I am on the trail of another possible location for these images, and I'll bring any news to you as soon as I have any.

And finally, I just came across this cool T-Shirt, which takes the art from Bart's 'Contract #1 Solo Missions: Panzer' cover for A First Salvo.


I'm back at work tomorrow after a blissful week off, but I'll try and do another post next weekend.
Until then...

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #5

Isn't she a beauty!

Way back when I was visiting him a few years ago, Bart had a folder with photocopies of all of the LOTDK #200 pages inserted into it. Bart rather casually handed me the folder and told me to pick a page from it and the original art would be mine, as soon as he got it back from DC.

Well, I scanned through the pages, noting a few that took my eye. There were plenty of cool Batman pages in there, and some nice action scenes, but then I saw this page, and knew it was the one for me.

I love the fact that it is a self contained page, it tells a story all on it's own. And it isn't like your typical splash, it really shows to me Bart's storytelling ability. Look at the curved shadows from the skylight, they're as warped as is the Joker's mind. And I love Bart's Joker, it ticks all of the boxes in my mind. He's mad, childlike, dangerous as hell and playful at once.

I'd like to thank Darrin Wiltshire for sending this on to me. If you don't know, Darrin handles the majority of Bart's original art sales, sold through this website - http://bartsearsart.com/.

Check it out for some great art at some great prices.

Batman: Going Sane TPB update

I finally managed to get my hands on a copy of the new Batman: Going Sane TPB, and I'm happy to say that, yes, it does reprint Bart's work from LOTDK #200, and not #100, as stated in the DC promotional text.
Your welcome.