A few recent purchases

Despite all of the excitement concerning the launch of Ominous Studios, this here #1 Bart Sears Fan doesn't have time to get too wrapped in it all, as there are still plenty of items to buy, list and organise.

I've actually had quite a healthy few weeks as far as Bart Sears work is concerned, managing to plug in some far too long vacant gaps in my collection, as well as discovering a few absolute gems along the way too.

I received a consignment of Bart Sears goodies from my old friends MyComicShop, not to mention a rather beautiful item from the old enemy, France. And just yesterday I re-visited that great little comic shop in Dublin, and came away with a few things.

As a bit of a change (for the better and the new system from now on), I'm going to list the items, not in the order they arrived, but chronological as to when they were published. There's no real special reason for this, I just think it is a nice way to do it. So let's get started, shall we...?

One of the cooler items I got from MCS this time around is this pretty little thing here-
This is an item that I've known the existence of for many, many years, but for some reason, I've never gotten my grubby little hands on it. There is a Deluxe Edition of this Graphic Album, with a nice hardback black cover, with simply the title 'Hero Alliance' showing. But this TPB is unique to the Deluxe Edition in that it has that painted cover on it. That cover was painted by a R. T. Schneider way back in 1986! Those of you that have an eye for Bart's art will perhaps look on this piece and note some resemblance to his style. Well, you'd be right. This painting was actually produced as a direct painted copy of the more traditional comic-style cover by Bart and Ron Lim, which is featured on the first page of the album.

But perhaps what I find most interesting about this book is the fact that Bart is listed not as penciller, artist or illustrator, but as 'Assisted by Bart Sears,' -this following directly after the illustrator credits. What nerve! The Graphic Album has 47 pages of comic art, 25 of which have art by Bart (including the first 11 and a half), and he's just an assistant to the illustrators? I think not! But I am very glad to finally have this book, as it is one of his earliest works. For those of you interested in it, it reprints the Hero Alliance: End of the Golden Age story, which can be found in comic form too, published by Innovation.

Next up we have this Quality Comics cover-
This was the final cover I required to retain all of Bart's QC covers again in my new laminated format. This particular issue, Scavengers #3, from February 1988, has proven rather difficult to find in good condition, but I finally got it from MCS, and for a reasonable price too.

So I thought I'd finally gotten all of the QC covers at last, then, only yesterday, I came across this one up in Dublin-
Yes, I know, it has the same artwork as the previous one, but if you look closer, you'll see that the issue number is listed as #15. So, my initial thought was that they used the same artwork for the cover of issue #15. But that is not the case, because on the back cover, QC often pictured the other titles published in that same month, and the issues on this particular comics back cover were the same as the ones published the same month that Scavengers #3 came out. Also, the title Scavengers only went up to #14! Naturally enough, I bought it, brought it home and checked the interior story, which is also exactly the same as Scavengers #3; which can bring me to only one conclusion- this is a misprinted cover! I have no idea how many of these were printed, but I can't imagine it was many. A great find, indeed.

And what would an order from MCS be without a Wizard issue? I don't know, I've never done it.
This shipment had Wizard #9 in it, the last of the early Wizard issues I needed, not least for the fantastic cover!
For those keeping track (probably just me), there are a total of 4 different Poof! mascots in Wizard #9, as well as the Venom cover poster insert, a subscription coupon, and a few other Bart related bits and bobs.
As I've mentioned in the past, this is supposedly the issue that saved Wizard from going under, and the cover has always been mentioned as having a lot to do with that. I even go as far as to think that Bart is the single reason that Wizard still exists today (for better or worse). I'm probably going too far, but it might not be too much of a stretch.
I have now checked every Wizard issue from issue #1 all the way through to #48, with many other issues checked as well. I have catalogued all mention of Bart in all forms they come in, be it a piece of artwork, an interview, an article, etc. If you're interested in getting a copy of this document, please let me know.

Next up is another pesky little item that I've only just been able to acquire again.

It's the Image Comics 'Image Scene 1994' preview book. It's quite a hefty 80-odd pages of promotional splashes and series details, and I owned it years ago, cut out the Bart Sears Violator page, laminated it, popped it in a folder. But now I have it again for re-lamination.

And here we have Shadows & Light #3, published in July, 1998 by Marvel. This is what's on the inside cover-
Of all of the images of Colossus down the years, I still fervently believe that they all bow before this one. I am generally quite biased toward Bart, but I think I'm on the money with this one. Many years ago, Mike Atiyeh coloured this piece, incredibly beautifully, I might add. But neither of us has the file anymore, unfortunately.
The series Shadows & Light only lasted to this issue, which is of course is a shame, because Bart was slated to do that Incredible story in a later issue. Bart just recently informed me that he actually wrote that story, though he is unsure if he still has a copy of the script.

I have also often wondered on the purpose of these pieces-
I've had copies of them for a long time now and was never sure if they were commissions, pin-ups or for something else entirely. Bart has now confirmed they were used as sort of preparation pieces for the 'Incredible' story, which was to feature these characters too. He also started on the Captain America and Vision studies too, but didn't get around to finishing them. Makes me feel all the more regretful that that story wasn't completed.

Perhaps the pick of this particular litter though, is this-
One of the times I was staying with Bart (I can't recall which), he showed my three books published by a French company that reprinted The Path from CrossGen Comics. It has taken me until just last week to get a copy of one of them for myself. The book that I got is the second of those three books, and reprints The Path #4-8. The company that produced the book is called Semic, based in Paris.
The great thing about the album is that it is laid out specifically for Bart's multiple two-page spreads, so each page has a two-page spread on it from the comics and it looks gorgeous. I'm definitely going to try and get the other two books, that's for sure. And, yes, they're all in French.

Next up is this comic-
As stated in another post, I had a good deal of luck with issue #2 of this series, so I had my hopes up for this one too. But this is what was presented to me in the form of the contribution Bart made to it-
If you squint your eyes and perhaps pull out a magnifying glass to aid you, you might just see that little box in the bottom-left corner. That tiny image of Mattie Franklin, taken from page 17 of Spider-Woman #12 is, in fact, the only thing of Bart's in the whole comic. Needless to say, it didn't quite live up to my expectations, but I ain't complaining... much.

Whilst in that comic shop in Dublin yesterday, I also picked up a cheap copy of the Batman: Going Sane TPB-
As you can see, the back cover features some of Bart's art, and his art is scattered throughout the book in various forms, be it the title page, etc. And of course his Legends of the Dark Knight #200 issue is also reprinted at the back of the book. I still have a few trades to get of Bart's, namely- The Scream, The Helm and the Indiana Jones one, which I'm sure I'll pick up somewhere down the line.

Finally, I also bought the Wolverine:Weapon X 100 Project TPB, which features both of Bart's awesome covers for the project.
I haven't decided whether or not I should cut Bart's page out of the book yet, but I'm leaning toward just doing it!

There you have it anyway. These couple of weeks worth of acquisitions have bitten off a sizable chunk of the Bart Sears items I still require, and I'm getting to the stage where the Action Figures Bart worked on are becoming the easier items to get. So I've no doubt you will be seeing some Toy Biz and C.O.P.S. toys featured here in the future.

Until next time...

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #10

Well, I finally got my scanner going again after a few weeks of it not working at all, and that can only mean one thing - I've got some catching up to do!
So, this installment of 'Guess what the Postman delivered today?' actually includes two shipments of Bart Sears comics that I've received over the past couple of weeks.

So pop the kettle on and settle in, because this is going to be a long one.

The first shipment of comics arrived on the 11th of September from my old friends at Mile High Comics. I'd been particularly looking forward to this shipment as I knew it would contain a few more of those issues that may or may not have Bart's work in them.

First off came copies of Chaos! Comics title 'Chaos Quarterly.' In retrospect it was probably a bit of a long shot, but I, at the time, hoped that Bart's cover to Cremator #1 might be previewed or some such in at least one of the issues; so I bought issues 1 & 2. But nope, nothing of Bart's in there.

Next came an issue of Amazing Heroes. I'd done some research into what each issue of the comic magazine contained, and decided on Amazing Heroes #160, mostly because the issue was supposed to be about foreign comics and American publishers of them. So I figured there had to be at least something on Quality Comics in there and maybe a picture or two of some of the covers Bart did for them. But nope, again, nothing like that in there. There was some mention of QC, but only in the upcoming comics section, where these issues were listed-

Of course Bart didn't actually do any of those covers...
On the following page was also an in depth review of Justice League Europe, printed in it's entirety below.

Yep, pretty disappointing really, especially considering the fact that Amazing Heroes #87 had an enormous 6 page article dedicated to Hero Alliance, resplendent with plenty of Bart Sears images.

Oh well.

Next out of the package were a few issues of Hero Illustrated, another comic magazine that had the misfortune of having to compete with Wizard in the early '90's. Its actually not a bad publication, certainly less fanboy-y as Wizard, but I believe it suffered from a weak layout, among other things. As a comic magazine, they didn't have much to say about Bart, but at the time Bart was pretty well known as a Wizard guy, so mention of him in Hero is pretty few and far between.

But I decided to take a leap anyway. Issues 7 and 23 both had interviews with Alan Moore, and both of them seemed Violator related. And wouldn't you know it, I turned a page of issue 7 and see this-

Not bad for a stab in the dark. Moore discusses a little bit about his work procedure and Bart is mentioned several times.

As for issue 23, this page is included-

Another result, regardless of how small. Bart isn't mentioned at all in the Moore interview this time, and only Bart's shot of the Clown is actually anything related to him, but its almost worth it for the Rob Liefeld interview, where the interviewer absolutely rips him to shreds.
I also got a few Wizard issues, and boy were they worth getting.

Firstly, issue 3 was another one of those shots in the dark. Bart may have an interview in issue 4, as well as the Wizard mascot being peppered throughout, but I had no idea if Bart was even mentioned in issue 3.

Well, he was.

Firstly, four different Wizard Mascots appear in it, including another one of those Subscription Coupons. But most importantly, this particular mascot appears-

As previously stated in my post dedicated to the Wizard Mascot , I was under the impression that this particular mascot image went unpublished; that is clearly not the case! Yeah, I was pretty happy with that find. Also mentioned in the magazine is the name of that very mascot, which is, though not entirely PC, 'POOF!' Apparently Gareb Shamus was unaware of the derogatory alternate meaning of the word at the time.

Issue 3 also features this advert on one of the last pages-

I have absolutely no idea if Bart's Batman cover image for issue 4 (assuming it was indeed that image) ever made it onto one of the T-Shirts, but I've certainly not come across any evidence of it's existence.

Next came issue 5, which I used to own when it first came out, but who knows what happened to it down through the years. I sure wish I had have held on to it because it has some great Bart Sears stuff in it, and at the top of the list is this piece-

Yet another Poof! image I was unaware of! And if you look closely, Bart has even signed the thing, in still another of his many signature variations.

There are a total of 5 Poof's! in the magazine, 2 of which are this one-

I know, I know, I had said that this particular Poof! went unpublished as well, but I was obviously wrong in that assumption. But now I, and you, know.

I also got Wizard #11 in the shipment, which has the usual mix of Poof's! scattered throughout, but it also has Bart's second Brute & Babe Tutorial, which just so happened to be the very last tutorial I needed to complete my set of newly laminated tutorials. That's just another thing I can cross off the old Want List, which has been steadily getting smaller and smaller. I now only require issues 9 and 56 of Wizard, both of which are proving tricky to find through my usual sources.

Next out was an actual comic, not a comic magazine. A fresh copy of Mutant X #21 in fact, featuring nine pages of some of the best work Bart has ever done for Marvel, in my opinion. I highly recommend it to those that don't already have it. Those pages have already been put through the laminator.

And finally, I got three issues of The First to replace the ones that I can't seem to find anymore. The issues in question are #'s 6, 12 and 15. If you know you're way around The First, you'll probably pick up that Bart didn't actually do the interior art for any of those issues, Andrea Di Vito did (which would probably explain why I can't find the original copies I had.)

Though Bart didn't do the interior art, he did do the images on the credit pages of issues 6 & 12, shown below-

These images, along with all of the other credit page images, first appeared on the CrossGen website even before the first 'First' issue was out, as a sort of 'get to know us' thing. I did print off the images from the website at the time, but the resolution is nowhere near these ones that appeared in the comics, so their good to have.

As for issue 15, I had one of the many letters I had published in The First in it, so I simply had to get it again.

It's no huge claim to fame, by any means, certainly not as big as the Pyrem image I had published in issue 5-

Feel free to laugh as I cringe at it.

For those interested (probably only me), I had a total of 5 letters (all of them praising Bart) and the Pyrem image published in pages of The First, which is probably because I was a pretty vocal fan of the comic at the time, and regularly posted on the CG message boards.

And that was all for the Mile High Comics shipment, which was pretty much par for the course in respect to the other shipments I've gotten recently - some big hits, some swings and misses, but a worthy venture at the end of the day.

My other new delivery arrived on the 22nd of September, and it was my first ever purchase from a place called MyComicShop, who are a pretty good seller, from what I've seen, and they package stuff expertly. I've pretty much exhausted Mile High Comics' inventory of all of the Bart stuff I need, but MyComicShop was thankfully able to fill in a good amount of the holes Mile High Comics couldn't, and at pretty good prices too.

So first off came a few QC issues I needed to relaminate.

Of all of the 30 covers Bart did for QC/Fleetway, I only require the Scavengers #3 cover to complete their relamination process.

I also got my hands on another Zoom Suit issue-

This is the regular Bart Sears cover to #3, but there is also a Sketch Edition of this, that I believe is on it's way to me as I write this. The cover is obviously an homage to that famous Superman cover, with a modern twist. I believe the 'Sears Tower' sign in the background was none of Bart's doing, that really isn't the sort of thing he would do (though he has been known to do things kinda similar to this, which will be the feature of another post at a later stage).

After that comes the final Blade cover I needed to complete the set-

This is the alternate cover to the regular one that Bart did, and is difficult enough to come across now, and is usually more expensive too. I love Mike Atiyeh's colours on this one.

I also polished off my collection of Hero Alliance covers in the new laminating format.

This cover is interesting in that the signatures suggest that the pencilling chores were shared by both Bart and Ron Lim. I'm not entirely sure which parts Ron Lim did, because to me, it looks to be all Bart.

For those completists out there, Bart did the covers to issues #1, 2, 6 & 9 of the regular Hero Alliance series.

Next up was Justice league Europe #29.

This is another interesting cover in that although it is definitely done by Bart, his signature is nowhere to be seen. He is listed as the cover penciller and inker on the back credits page though. It is also interesting because Bart is listed as the interior artist on the cover, of which he is in actual fact not, Darick Robertson does the pencilling on the interior.

This cover marks Bart's final work for the title that made him famous.

Those 6 previous items mark the end of the comics I knew Bart did in this shipment, but I had a few more comics to come that were questionable.

As regular readers may be aware, I've been searching for that pesky Caliban Handbook image for quite some time now, to absolutely no avail. But the next possible source arrived in this shipment.

This comic was released in April 2006, At least 10 years after the original image was drawn, but wouldn't you know...

I think I giggled a little bit when I saw that picture. I'm not entirely certain that this is the first place this image was shown, but I believe it is. So for now, unless I find it anywhere else, the search is over. Sigh.

The next piece still has a huge question mark over it. I'd read somewhere a while ago that Bart did this particular cover-

Obviously, they meant that Bart did the Solar hand on the right, not Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam.' After checking through the whole comic, credit pages and all, not only is Bart not listed anywhere, but nobody has been credited as the cover artist at all. I'm not so sure if Bart did it, to be honest, the hand certainly has a Bart Sears feel to it, but it also has a Michelangelo feel to it too, some of the outline is almost a mirror of Adam's outstretched arm. So Bart, let me know if you know anything about this and I'll update this section with whatever you can tell me.

NOTE: To quote Bart, "Nope had nada to do with that Solar cover..." Say no more.

Another item that I'd read/half guessed would have some Bart art in it is was this badboy-

As you can see, Bart is listed on the cover. The book is basically a pin-up gallery of The Dark images, in black and white, and on page 30 is this pin-up -

I swear, this image is the most reproduced image of Bart's I know. Let's list it's appearances shall we?

1. Bart's B&B Tutorial in Wizard #22 has it shown in b&w

2. The Dark Regular cover

3. The Dark Red chrome cover

4. The Dark Blue chrome cover

5. The Dark Convention book

6. The Dark Phonecard. Of which only 500 were made, and I have three!

Lastly, I got the obligatory couple of Wizard magazines, this time issues 54 & 100.

Wizard #54 starts off pretty nicely for a Bart Sears fan like myself.

It keeps on going from there because part of that same cover is reprinted on the contents page, Gareb Shamus talks about it on his Letter page, and then we come to the 'More Picks' section on page 117, which has a quick review of X-O Manowar #63-64, and has this image shown-

Sorry about the quality, its a small image. Anyway, this is listed as the cover for X-O #63, which turns out not to be the case. In fact, this image doesn't appear on any X-O cover as far as I know, and as far as I know, doesn't appear anywhere but right there!

Here are the pencils for the piece for those interested.

There is also a great picture of Bart and Andy Smith on the Creator Abbreviations page, that is worth putting up here I think.

Lastly, and I mean lastly, on the final page is this-

There is some good information on Bart's early life in it, which I elaborated on when I was running the Bart Sears Fan Club all those years ago.

Wizard #100 is not quite the anniversary issue I envisioned it would be, in fact, apart from the poster that came with the magazine when bagged (I got an unbagged copy), showing all 100 covers (I will be getting that hopefully soon), and a few bits here and there, it is barely indistinguishable from a normal issue. At the back, in the price guide section, there are some unused covers shown, and several of Bart's are shown, but the image sizes are tiny compared those shown in Wizard #29.

The only other places anything Bart related are mentioned are on the Top 100 ordered titles for October 1999, where Spider-Woman #6 came in at number 65.

There is also a page that lists prominent artists and writers and how much each one's signature is worth, Bart comes in at a whopping $3!

And finally, this tiny little article at the bottom of page 120 appeared.

I don't know how "long-standing" Greg Capullo's tutorials were, but Bart did a total of 31 tutorials between issues 1 and 100, and they started at issue 10!

And that's it! Well, nearly it. These two deliveries, and the previous Mile high Comics delivery, all had 1 item each that was incorrectly delivered. By that I mean, for instance, I ordered a particular comic, and a different but easily mistaken issue was delivered instead. The two Mile High corrected issues are on their way, and the MyComicShop one will be soon, so I'll put them up here when they arrive.

But for now, that's me finished in the way of deliveries, for the foreseeable future anyway. Which means that I can do some posts on things other than what arrived in the mail, and concentrate on some other aspects of Bart's work. I have a few ideas in mind, including a proper look at Bart's Action figure work, a statistical study of his career and a look at some of Bart's Kubert School work.

So come back soon!

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #7

After waiting what seemed like an eternity (but in reality was only three weeks), my latest delivery of comics arrived from Mile High Comics yesterday.

This was a bit of an unusual shipment as I wasn't entirely certain that Bart Sears had anything to do with some of the comics I ordered. As it turned out, Bart had something to with only a few of the comics I ordered.

But it isn't as bad as it sounds, because a lot of the comics I ordered were ordered for the sole purpose of establishing whether Bart had anything to do with them.

Take the below image for example.

Its a pin-up of Rob Liefeld's Prophet, a decidedly one-dimensional character, I'm sure you'll agree. Well, I've been looking everywhere on the internet for this image for many years now, and have never found out anything. I somehow already own a few issues of the comic, namely issues #1, 5, 6 & 7. Bart's pin-up obviously doesn't appear in those issues. But I still wasn't sure if that pin-up appeared in any of the other issues, so I went ahead and bought Prophet #2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10 and the Annual. And guess what? Yep, the pin-up doesn't appear in any of those issues either. BUT AT LEAST I KNOW NOW THAT IT DOESN'T!

And then there's this guy-

Bart produced two pin-ups for the company Dagger Entertainment back in 1994, whilst Sears Studios was taking in such jobs. One character was fantastically called Black Box, and Bart's pin-up of him appeared in all of the May 1994 titles from Dagger. But I've never been able to discover the whereabouts of the above pin-up, whose name is Nebular. So I bought some Dagger comics, namely Team Anarchy #5, 6 & 8 (#7 has the Black box pin-up in it). And guess what, the pin-up doesn't appear in any of those issues either. BUT AT LEAST I KNOW THAT IT DOESN'T! (sound familiar?) Why so interested in this guy? Well, I happen to own the original art of this pin-up, that's why.

Also, a warning, if you can avoid it, don't buy any Dagger Ent. comics, they are god-fricking-'I can do better than this crap'-'so could a 5 year old'-baaaaddd. It is kinda worth it for seeing an advert for a how-to book called 'Step by Step Drawing & Creating your very own Superheroes,' by acclaimed Dagger artist, Rick Leach. Never heard of him? That's because he flat out sucks. I mean, would you want a guy who draws like this to teach you how to draw?

I certainly wouldn't.

Next up was a bit of a shot in the dark. In 2007, as part of the 'Free Comic Book Day,' Wizard released a small comic reprinting some of their 'How To' Tutorials. I've never been able to get my hands on a copy of it, until now, that is. I had kinda hoped to open it up and see one of Bart's B&B tutorials in there, as it would be a pretty neat little addition to not only my collection, but the Bart Sears checklist. But guess what? ...you know the rest...

Next up was another shot in the dark, maybe not complete dark, but certainly difficult to see.

I often search Google for Bart Sears related stuff, and I often check comic databases for any additions. One day, whilst browsing one such database, I saw a listing for Bart as a contributor on a comic called 'Real Heroes #3' published by Marvel and released through Pizza Hut of all places, back in 1994. So I bought that comic too. But guess what? Well, this time I was close. Whilst it doesn't actually have any Bart Sears art in it, it does have a cool trading card drawn by my old pal, Andy Smith. The artwork from the card also appears on the inside of both the front and back covers. It's a cool piece, and I'm happy to add it to my Andy Smith card set.

So those are the comics that didn't have Bart Sears art in them. Now for the cool stuff that did!

First of all, I got a few comics to replace my old copies, to be re-laminated to fit with my new laminating method. They included -

The Ballad of Halo Jones #6. Which, despite what Bart thinks, I think is quite nice.

Blade: Strange Tales #2 & 3 (some of the better covers Bart has ever done, in my opinion).

And Spider-Woman #10, which, despite what the cover says, does not have interior art by Bart Sears (Erik Larsen made a brief return to Marvel to do this issue's pencils and a few other projects).

But I think the pick of this particular litter is this puppy -

I only discovered the existence of this 'comic' about a month ago. Essentially, it is a publication review for the titles that Image produced, month by month (several comic companies were doing this sort of thing at the time). This is issue 15, for May 1994, and obviously features Bart's promotional art for the Violator series, with another buddy of mine, Mark Pennington (and possible relative - Pennington+Penn!), inking it as if he were a god amongst tracers.

There is also a 3-page article on the series, and shows a few of the pages in inked form, as well as a nice rough of the first cover.

So there's the latest package. A mix of great finds, items to cross off the list, and a few replacements thrown in. A worthy wait, I think.