The past few weeks have been pretty good in terms of picking up some neat Fantastic Four items. I addition to some actual merchandise, I've acquired some original art from both the comic book and two of the cartoon series. And what good is a blog if not to show off your stuff? Here's some of that stuff:
Every year at the New York Comic Con, you can find a massive display of original art for sale near the entrance to artist alley. The art ranges from fairly cheap to sell-your-house expensive, and I tend to browse the lower end of the scale. But I've been able to find some deals on nice pieces over the last few conventions, and this year brought in two pages. The first is from Fantastic Four #505, where the FF invade Latveria to set up another epic Reed/Doom showdown. At the end of this storyline, the Thing literally goes to Heaven.
This page features some nice images of the Thing and the Human Torch as they break up some Doombots.
The art is by Howard Porter, with inks from Norm Rapmund. Porter was filling in for Mike Wieringo during his run with writer Mark Waid.
At some point in this story, Dr. Doom takes possession of the Thing's body and uses it to do what we'd all do in that situation, beat a lot of stuff up.
The ol' belt buckle communicator. I don't think the Thing needs the "4" symbol on his costume, but at least it was functional here.
The next page I grabbed (and paid for) is from the more recent Hickman/Eaglesham run, featuring the Council of Reeds, which included, you know, a whole lot of alternate reality Reed Richardses.
I'm a little surprised at how tight Dale Eaglesham's pencils are on this page. I'm not certain if he had an inker on the issues he drew or not.
This page has all four characters together, which is not always easy to find in original artwork. Here we see the Invisible Woman turning invisible for no apparent reason (but I appreciate the effort, Sue). Eaglesham tends to draw a bulky Thing with a smaller head. I'm just glad that we get to see all of those rocks and he doesn't cover them up with a giant costume. Draw 'im how Kirby intended!
This Reed Richards had the power to grow a huge beard (maybe).
My next group includes some production drawings from the 1967 and 1994 Fantastic Four cartoon!
I've been looking for artwork from the very early 1967 show for a while - it turns out that they've been on eBay under a different name (sneak eBay sellers). They had a number of production drawings, but I (of course) stuck with the Thing for now. It's such a weird design - different from really any other version of the character. It's very strange and pretty ugly. But I love it for those reasons.
Each of these three drawings came from the "MoleMan" episode. They're in great shape for being nearly 50 years old.
And I couldn't resist picking up another from the 1994 series as well.
Lastly, I finally managed to add a copy of Fantastic Four #50 to my collection, the final part of the Galactus trilogy. I've now got all three parts! This copy is in decent shape and looks nice next to issues 48 and 49.
That's it for now! I'll be sure to force you all to see more Fantastic Four items soon.
EDIT: This is my 700th post. You're welcome.
700!
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