I've frequently been asked why I chose who I chose for the book. My decisions largely were based on the original outline I laid out for the book. No way in under a couple hundred pages was I going to be able to completely cover all of comic book art, and comic book art collecting. So I decided to focus on some of the key areas of collecting, primarily 70's art and Marvel superhero - after all, this would help sell the book to a publisher, versus creating a great think piece that would end up on my shelf. I wanted also to include non-superhero art since any collector into the hobby realizes that it extends beyond just muscles and superpowers, as well as some of the overlooked indy comic art. I didn't want this book to go further than the 90's, since it's hard to do a retrospective on something that is ongoing, as well as some feelings I have about some of the current art/artists, and their sometimes over pandering to the art collecting community.

With an outline lain out, I looked for collections that somewhat reflected the original art covered along each of the bullet points. I got a collector who has a wonderful collection of Buscema art, and since I'd planned on doing a tribute to JB, this collector was (actually 'these collectors were') an appropriate choice. For the indy artists, I chose the Hernandez brothers, and was lucky enough to find a collector who had a prodigious collection of Hernandez art. I wanted the book to expand beyond just superhero art as I stated, and included a couple of collectors whose collections included non-superhero art - including some of Joe Maneely's great art which I so admire.. And on and on.

Clarification time: when I say 'find', I recruited collectors from numerous venues. Some were friends. Some were people I'd sold to on eBay. Some came from CAF. Some were volunteers who'd heard about the books from a friend of a friend and told me what their collections were comprised of. I turned down some people, did some interviews and found some less than enlightening for my outline, but through some careful weeding got essentially what I wanted.

As to the choice of scans in the book, well, I submitted every scan that was sent to me. Scans were pulled at the editor/book designers whim to keep the book to a certain number of pages. Some of my favorite scans didn't make the book - I actually have only 3 scans of art from my own collection that appeared in the book!

I recently did a book signing at a comic book shop here in Chicago, and several collectors brought in their collections. One young collector said he personally wanted to curse me out, because having read the book now he, a collector only of current artists, had developed an appreciation for art pre-dating his niche. That's the kind of thing I wanted to do with the book.

As to this being the definitive tome on the subject, no, it won't be. I don't think there could be one. But if I can if I can help people to realize that 'Grailpages' with an 's' is actually correct, that there is no one unified Arthurian grail that we can all find and hold up and say this is above all others, then great. We can each go after our own individual grail.

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