Congrats!  Was wondering where this went.  This series was some of Pacheco's (and Merino's) finest work.  I remember scrambling to get artwork from those books and it just kept getting snatched up left and right.  Great, great, splash.  Again, congrats bud.

Was thinking about you yesterday as I was looking at a nice Grell cover.  So of course, what do I see when I get up this morning?  A nice new Grell page in your wonderful collection.  Gotta love that teddy bear panel.  Congrats buddy!  Keep that Grell train rolling.

I'm usually not one for nostalgia, but as I grow older, I've found it to be more and more unavoidable.  Like you, I started with The Turtles pretty early.  I jumped on with issue #2.  I scrambled to track down the first issue, but by then it had already become a comic unicorn and first printings were not easy to find, much less afford (so I think I have a 2nd or 3rd printing around here somewhere).  And when Mirage became a full blown studio with all the Turtles spinoffs, I had to have them too.  While I love the early more innocent days of studio, by the time they became a "franchise" and a "property", I had already begun to get a little disillusioned.  Anyway, thanks for taking me back with this wonderful early page.  I would say that it's been a fun trip down memory lane but the crick in my back says otherwise.

Awesome spread by The Man!

Thanks Robert.  I would say he is well worth at least looking into.  If there was one knock on him, I would say it was inconsistency.  Some pieces do come off as rushed, or just plain uninspired.  But when he gets it right, the art is delightful and fun (and it's hard to beat the price for what you get).

Forget 70's and 80's.  This is one of the greatest Marvel sagas of all time.  Usually I got a bit annoyed at stories that would end in one title and make me have to buy a different title to continue.  But this was probably the first time I didn't care.  I just had to read the whole thing and so glad I did.  Congrats on having one of those epic covers.  Wow!

FF #112 is probably one of my top 5 comic covers of all time.  In fact, I'm looking at a huge reproduction of it on my wall as I type this.  No homage with ever outshine the original, but just because it's so darned iconic, one can't help but pay homage to the homage.  Great job by Ron.  Congrats!

I see what you did there.  Bonus points for the clever wordplay.  Thanks for the comment my friend.

Before people get the wrong idea, I think it might be important to differentiate between “style” and “version.”  For me, style relates more to the artist, and version relates more to the character.  This distinction matters because, unlike what may be implied from my description (singling out Bolland and Perez), I am actually a huge Adam Hughes fan.  I loved his iconic cover run on WW.  But while I may love all three artists’ STYLES, I probably prefer Brian’s and George’s VERSION of the character.  Again, this is all having to do with that warrior woman aspect.  Adam draws some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.  And if you want a hottie in a Wonder Woman costume, I can’t think of anyone better to do that.  But if you want hard and tough (not necessarily masculine mind you), I think George and Brian were better at playing down the barbie doll and playing up the warrior.  Anyway, that’s all I was saying.   Appreciate the comment buddy.

Love Thing front and center leading the charge here.

Ah, you must be SOLD.  Saw this on Kirk's CAF yesterday.  Love Carlo's Hulk.  Bet it's even better in person.

Masterful work by Bermejo.  I should have picked up more pages from Mick when I had the chance.  

Oh, this is a fantastic rendering.

The only thing better than a Spidey splash is a Spidey double splash.  Congrats buddy!

Not being the comics encyclopedia that Fred is, I can't honestly say I am at all familiar with this character.  But that's part of the fun with Fred.  Digging the outfit though.

This is why I love watercolors.  

Love Kevin's Batgirl.  Great action piece, complete with sound effect.

Kwan is the man!  Hey, is that Dunbier in the next booth?

Hey, it's Andy!  Wonder what he's got under his arm?

Where's my buddy Vinh?

This looks great.  Do I sense a full set of Turtles coming?

Ashamed to admit that I have not read this.  I loved the show, so at some point I should probably read the books.  Congrats on scoring a page.

Black & white, light & darkness, Cloak & Dagger.  Perfect.

Is that Kwan way down there at the end?  Anyway.........

The fixture that is Albert Moy returns for yet another year.  I miss seeing this and all the other great art booths.  Not sure I'll ever make it back to the show, but I hope everyone has a great time and comes home with some great artwork and lots of fun memories.  Thanks for all the great pics Marcus.  Although you need to work on the glare in a few of them.

Love the webbing up top.  Really looks like the real deal.  That stuff you see all over the place when you're cleaning your attic (or basement).

This is something I would pull out to make me laugh on a bad day.

This is really lovely.  The linework is fantastic!

Still love this one.

Perfect b&w contrast and love her facial expression.

God I wish those two had been able to play together longer.  Such a huge impact for such a short collaboration.  Randy had a huge impact on Ozzy's life and career.  In many ways, I think he revitalized both.  Just trying to imagine how big that band would have gotten if they had been able to put out 3-4 more records.

By the way, thanks a lot for that "7th grade" crack.  At least you spared me another year by not using Blizzard of Ozz as your age reference.  I loved Diary, but have to confess that Blizzard got the heavier rotation in my record collection.

Even though I have their entire library on vinyl (and CD), sadly, I never got to see Ozzy front Sabbath.  The only time I saw them, Ronnie James Dio was on the mike.  But I am forever grateful that I did get to see Ozzy with Randy Rhodes before he was killed.  So awesome that you got to see them so much.  And yes, I'm really glad I was able to find a photo with the knuckle tattoos.  Thanks for the comment buddy.

Cool to see this old school Charest.  It's a fun way to gauge the phenomenal growth from this period.  Almost doesn't even seem like the same guy.  But I admit to having a soft spot for this stuff as well.

Very nice work.  I think the color takes away a lot of the impact from the image.  Love all the work on the debris.  But the way it's colored almost washes out all that great detail.

With my hand fetish, of course you know I'm going crazy right now.  But I also love how that giant hand dictates the perspective.  Beautiful and brilliant.

Was just leafing through some old HA catalogs and came across this page, which of course compelled me to go to your gallery and revisit the piece.  Such a spectacular splash, and what an epic auction that was.  Just so much great art.  Probably one of the most loaded Heritage auctions I've seen.  I read your description again too, and had a good chuckle from your story.  I've lost count of how many times I underestimated an auction.  But so glad you got a second shot at this phenomenal piece.  Anyway, now that you have the Holy Grail of IM pages, maybe you might think about giving me back the splash we traded for.  Haha!  Seriously though, congrats again.

A perfect character for Jon's style.  Love the red lips, and that tongue is creepy as hell.

Doom is one of the Top 5 (if not Top 3) greatest Marvel villains of all time.  Just a great character design.  His impact and visual appeal never gets old.  Fantastic piece!  Bring on the bad guys indeed.

Ah, all is right with the world (and the weekend) when we have a Hembeck Friday.

Great Chaykin cover.  But you can see Terry's signature all over this one, figuratively and literally.

Such beautiful clean linework.  Not counting the intended splatter of course.  The perfect page for a Punisher fan.  Congrats Chris!

You're killing me DJ.  The first one you got was a gift, so I'll let that slide.  But now you're just showing off.  Anyway, congrats on having much better luck with Jeff Smith than I have.  I have one measly sketch that I won at auction which was then damaged in shipping.

Insanely cool and fun.

Okay, I'm ordering the movie from Amazon right now.  If it's half as good as this drawing, I'll be happy.

Even though I'm only about 90 minutes away, in 40 years, I think I've only been to the Sac show once.  When I found out Alan was going to be there, I really wanted to go.  Anyway, great sketch.  I love how expressive it is.  After Excalibur, Clan Destine, and Uncanny, I wish Alan had done a nice long run on NM as well.

Oh man!  This really makes me want to see Arthur draw an entire rogue's gallery of Spidey's classic villains.  Wow!

Even just landing a page from the epic Asgardian Wars saga is hard enough.  But Asgardian Storm's birth page?  Are you freaking kidding me right now?  Epic congrats for an epic acquisition!

The perfect Hembeck for old school Spidey fans.  I've always said that my favorite Spidey villains are from the first 100 issues.  I could probably even narrow that down to the first 20 issues.  In my most humble opinion, these are (and always will be) Spidey's best villains.  I was a bit annoyed that you skipped Fred Friday yesterday, but after seeing this winner, I guess I can give you a pass.

There are pretty much only two ways an artist uses a double spread.  He/she can draw a huge image of a particular character (or characters) that’s sure to get the reader’s attention.  Or (in a much better use I believe), he/she can try to include a truly dramatic and show-stopping scene (action or not).  Of course not every comic/story has or needs a DPS.  But since it’s the only format in the book that allows for that much space, the artist needs to make it count.  Or it’s just a missed opportunity and a waste of story space (and I think we’ve all seen our fair share of those).  This “fantastic” spread by Humberto is a great example of the latter.  It’s an amazing scene full of depth, detail, and energy (I would heed Paul’s advice to enlarge the image).  But while there’s certainly more than enough for the eyes to devour, I have to say that I’m a little surprised that Humberto didn’t include at least a few random spectators in those building windows.  That said, this is still a brilliant lesson on how to effectively execute a comic book double page spread.  Nice pickup Paul.

Can't see Usagi for the trees.  Damn!  Why didn't I think of that?  It would have been the perfect line to kick off my description.  Heck, I still might revise it, as long as you don't mind if I steal your line.  Thanks for the comment buddy!

Honestly, I've been waiting all week to see how you were going to follow up that BWS.  Because let's face it, unless you put up a Wrightson Frankenstein or a fricking Frazetta, it was bound to be a letdown.  But God bless you (and Tim Truman) for trying.  If it was me, I would've skipped a Friday or two (or three, or four).  Haha!  Oh, great set of Starslayer pages by the way.