Comment posted on 8/18/2006
This one is a winner. JK Snyder is an excellent stand in for Los Bros Pander, as they sprint off into their new multimedia venture. Oh, how I wish the cover to Grendel #7 hung on my wall.

10 years later, while not yet on the wall, the piece resides in my collection.

This cover is huge, measuring 28" x 20". All Pen and Ink, including every single one of the repeating figures.

I have been looking for this cover since 2000. I began collecting original art in 1997, bought a few pieces, 2 of which are still in my collection, but really didn't get the bug until I discovered OA on ebay. Yes, I should have bought much more art. But after purchasing the Grendel title page by Mireault off ebay, I began making my want list. The cover to Grendel #7 was on my list, so I contacted the Pander Brothers directly as a means to start the process.

I was told, way back then, that but for the cover to #1, ALL of the cover art was stolen, but they provided me with a list of interior pages they had. So that was that. Believing I would never own a cover, I stroked it off my list and began looking for interior pages.

I picked up a few Grendel pages by the Pander Brothers via ebay over the years. I still own all of them. I even have a page from issue 7, which was to tide me over. I probably bought my last Pander Grendel page in 2005, they were really rare for a long, long time.

At some point the Art of Matt Wagner comes out, and included is the cover to Grendel #5. Not all the covers were stolen. This was gifted to Diana Schutz by the brothers. The plot thickens.

Fast forward to 2015, and I get to meet and have a few drinks with Jacob and Arnold Pander at the ComicsPro meeting in Portland, OR. Dark Horse brought in a bunch of the local talent for a mixer, and GirlFiend was just about to launch. I take my opportunity to go fan-boy on the brothers, something I rarely do. We talked for a while (too long, in all likelihood, there were drinks involved and I was fan-boying) about their careers, from Comico to today.

We talk about how Dave Stevens introduced them to inking with a brush, rather than pen, and how they practiced for months. With issue 7 they were allowed to ink their own pages resulting in a huge leap forward in the quality of the artwork. This issue also served as an odd break in the story as the villain Tijuro was dispatched but not defeated (and wouldn't be seen again until centuries later during the Snyder run).

The point of all this: The Panders have a bunch of originals they are selling. Some cache of work was uncovered, I don't recall the details, and perhaps it was never shared, but a number of covers and interior pages surfaced/were found.

"I'll take the cover to #7!"

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