A Special Anniversary Post

Sorry I haven't posted here for a while, I've been busy trying to make my own foray into the field of comics! But I have been planning this particular post for a while, to be put up on this particluar day too.

You see, it was on this day, the 7th of November, back in 1999, that I first made contact with Bart Sears.

As most of you know, I've been a fan of Bart's since way back in 1991, and I pretty rapidly became an avid fan, chasing down every item of his I could, but I didn't think to try and contact him until years later. So, one day, I sent off a letter to Marvel Comics care of Bart in early November and received an email from Bart on the 7th.
I can tell you that I was rather excited to receive an email from him, and it is funny how Bart's first line to me still rings true today-
"Thank you for the letter you sent, it just arrived today. I'm overwhelmed, actually, I think you have a better idea of the work I've done than I do."

Since that first email, all of those years ago, Bart and I have gone on to be good friends, and there really hasn't been a time when we haven't been in contact. I've even visited him a few times. The first time, in 2004, was a week of pure magic for me. We hung around his apartment, him drawing Cap/Falcon, me organising his boxes and boxes of photocopies and original art. We'd have bad action movies on in the background, go out to dinner, go to movies.

I think I slept for maybe 20 hours during the whole week! I got to meet all of the gang as well- Andy Smith, Mike Atiyeh, Rob Hunter, Ron Marz, his brother Brett and his family.
Bart even gave me a private art lesson, and let me do a background on Cap/Falcon 3.

Around about that time, I ran the first and only Bart Sears Fan Club, which unfortunately only lasted a year (due to time constraints on my end). There were only a few dozen members in the club, but it was incredibly fun to interview Bart on a range of subjects, not to mention showing to those members of the fan club some of Bart's lesser known work.

I visited Bart for the second time a few years after the first trip, and it was another brilliant time. I got to meet more friends, including distant relative (of mine) Mark Pennington and his family. We had a crazy night out with Rob Hunter, fun around the house with Bart's own family, and plenty of drawing and yet more box organising. Bart was working on Warlord 10 at the time, work that never saw print, unfortunately, because Bart got me working on blacks and a bit of inking-

I haven't visited Bart in far too long now, but have plans in place to do so some time in the future.
But we regularly email each other, or IM as we've been doing lately. We don't really talk about our own history as friends, but I think about it a lot. Like the time Bart sent my wife and I a two-page spread of original art from The Path for our wedding gift, or that first care package he sent me back in late 2000. Or the countless emails back and forth, mostly work related, but the special ones being when we'd talk about the crap in our lives and just be able to let it all out. Or the email, dated 16 November, 2000, where Bart states, regarding me being his Official #1 fan -"I don't know who else could be Number 1."

I often think about my two visits to him, just chatting about Ominous Press and coming up with some incredible ideas (mostly Bart).
But mostly, I think about how thankful I am that Bart answered that first letter I sent him, and how generous a person he is for all that he has done for me since.

Here's to the 10 years, Bart, may many more follow!

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...