Discoveries...

I seem to say this at the beginning of each new post these days, but- Wow! It's been too long since I've put up anything new here.

There are several reasons for this though. First and foremost, I've been on holiday for the better part of the last month, visiting my family in Australia, including a new addition to the Penn family- my youngest brother's daughter Isabella.
Secondly, well, I haven't had anything by Bart Sears through the mailbox in a very long time! I've certainly been looking, but the small stack of items I still require are either tough to find or going for more than I'm willing to pay.
But saying all that, a strange thing happened to me a few days before we went on holiday. My wife and I were up in Dublin to see a band, and I took some time out to visit some of the comic shops that Dublin has to offer. There are several stores to choose from, namely a Forbidden Planet, Sub City and one veritable diamond in the rough, called... yeah, I can't actually remember what it's called...
But it's one of those stores that when you walk in, you just know you're going to come away with something good. The place was crammed full of literally dozens and dozens of stacked long boxes full of back issues of all shapes and sizes. I tell you, it was bliss!
So I browsed around for a little while, with my trusty and steadily shrinking Bart Sears Want List in hand. A few things jumped out at me along the way, including a couple of boxes of comics that were going for something like 15 for €5. There were some nice trade paperbacks at pretty decent prices too.
But then I came across the motherload! Boxes and boxes of UK Marvel comics, and wouldn't you know it, these babies were in there-

I've mentioned these items in a previous post, but after some pretty extensive searching, I'd pretty much given up finding them. So I was rather chuffed to finally get my hands on them, I can tell you. It feels as though many years have passed since I have actually walked into a comic shop and found some old Bart Sears item I haven't been able to locate elsewhere, even on the internet.
So anyway, to break it down, here's what each issue contains pertaining to Bart.

Astonishing Spider-Man #94 Published 1/1/2003.
Cover reprinted from Peter Parker: Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #4. (Credits list Mark Pennington hilariously as 'Ian Pennington')
Peter Parker: Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #4 reprinted inside.

Astonishing Spider-Man #95 Published 29/1/2003.
Cover by John Byrne.
Peter Parker: Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #5 (minus the cover) reprinted inside.

Astonishing Spider-Man #97 Published 26/3/2003.
Cover reprinted from Spider-Woman #1.
Spider-Woman #1 & 2 reprinted inside.

The Mighty World of Marvel #47 Published 4/10/2006.
Cover reprinted from Blade: Strange Tales #3.
Nothing else.

In other news, Bart is working hard for Heatwave Interactive still, and there should hopefully be some wonderfully large announcements coming soon, of which I'll naturally pass along here. I can say that Bart has been producing some tremendous work for the company lately, he's even been branching out to digital painting, with startlingly good results.

Also, for those that missed it, Bart's two 'Wolverine: Weapon X 100 Project' covers presumably feature in the Trade of the same name, which came out on December 2nd last year. I've yet to get my hands on a copy just yet, but when I do I'll confirm whether both covers did indeed make it in. Bart has confirmed that both covers ARE indeed in the book. Thanks Bart.

Be sure to check in here soon, as Bart and his wife Michelle are planning some big things in the hopefully near future and I'll be adding my services wherever required, and informing you all about it here. So stay tuned, Searsians!

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...

Lost & found #1

Seeing as I'm on a role with the whole starting up a new ongoing subject thingy, why not introduce another, I say.

With 'Lost & found,' I'll let you folks know whenever I either come across something I have no idea where it is from, or when I find where something is from as well as any other discoveries.

So first up, here are a few items that I photocopied off Bart but have no idea where they are published, if at all.

Here we have the mighty Caliban, which Bart drew some time in the middle '90's, my guess would be 1996. At the top of the page, Bart has written 'Handbook' which would obviously suggest the 'Marvel Handbook.' There are Handbooks out at about that time, but I've yet to get my hands on any copies. The righthand picture is from some website I discovered last year (can't remember which site). So the picture has obviously been inked and coloured. I'll let you know when I found out more about this.

This shot of Captain Universe is from about the same time, and also says 'Handbook' at the top, so I assume it's in the same boat as the Caliban one. Again, I'll find out more and let you all know.

Next is this Prophet pin-up, from 1994, which I imagine was produced to generate some cash for Ominous Press. I have no idea which issue of Prophet it is in, if it was printed at all. As soon as I get my hands on the right issue, I'll let you know.

This super-cool Klingon pin-up/cover was produced somewhere between '94-'96 by my estimations. I've done a bit of research into what happened to it, but to no avail, I'm afraid. Note: Bart has since informed me that this piece was created for Valiant/Acclaim Comics during Bart's Birthquake run on X-O Manowar. Valiant/Acclaim had put together a proposal to try and get the rights to the Star Trek comics and Bart was tapped to do this image for the proposal.

If anybody knows where any of these pieces are printed, please let me know, and you'll get a thankful mention here.

Now, things I've recently found.

Here are few things I found just the other day, which was rather exciting for me. I just love finding new stuff. This items are from the UK, and are normally sold in news agents and the likes. They normally reprint 2 or 3 issues of previous comics. #94 reprints Peter Parker: Spider-Man #4, whilst #97 reprints Spider-Woman #1 & 2.

This one is also from the UK. Bart only did the cover for this, which brings the amount of places this image has appeared up to 4!

So there you have it. I have a few other Lost & found items to show, but I'll leave it for next time.