Justice Society of America Jam - X-Men #1 Tribute

So happy to have this piece finished! Started in 2014 and completed in February of 2018. This piece was done almost entirely at conventions with the exception of the Alan Scott, Jay Garrick and backgrounds.

When I decided I wanted a Jam piece, I wanted something that represented my collection. I've been a fan of the Justice Society from my early days as a collector. They had to be the subject here. X-Men #1 by Jim Lee was the first Marvel comic I picked up and his art in that book changed my view of comic art at the time. It made sense then, as an art collector to blend these two together.

I decided I was going to go all out on this. To do it, I figured I wanted to go greytones across the entire piece. I also wanted to include artists that have had an impact on me personally in my collection or my love of comic art. The task was then to decide who would be included that had such an impact and could also achieve the greytone look I wanted. I have other artwork from most of the contributors here, with few exceptions this being their first piece in my collection. I am also humbled to say that over the years of collecting, some of these wonderful people I have come to call friend.

Lastly, the task was to select the characters. Ultra-Humanite was a given for a villan, though I did consider Per Degaton. I wanted to swap out the X-Men on a power for power type basis where possible - Cyclops for Green Lantern, Dr. Fate for Jean Grey, Colossus for Hourman, etc.

In the end, I couldn't be happier with how this came out. I plan on having this digitally colored at some point, though still deciding by whom.

Layouts by Anthony Castrillo
Dr. Fate by Adi Granov
Spectre by Ken Lashley
Starman by Kenneth Rocafort
Hawkman by Nick Bradshaw
Wildcat by Stephane Roux
Hourman by Marcus To
Black Canary by Emanuela Lupacchino
Sandman by Ed McGuinness
Dr. Mid-Nite by Francis Manapul
The Atom by Lee Weeks
Green Lantern by Andy Kubert
The Flash by Tom Grummett
Ultra-Humanite by Steve Epting

The background finishes were also completed by Tom Grummett

I was also pleased to be able to have Jim Lee see and sign this piece for me as the inspiration for the piece, at Fan Expo 2017. At that point, the piece was complete except for the Flash and the background finishing work. While my time with Jim was brief, it was so much fun seeing him take it in and have him ask a little about it.