The Walking Dead #154, pg 08 - 1st Appearance of Beta (with Negan) 3/4 Splash (Image, 2016)

Image Comics. May, 2016.

I was looking at this page for sale for years. I was heavily considering buying it when looking for a primo Negan page but the price was a little steep. The description was "Negan meets Beta", but one day it occurred to me that it wasn't just the first time Negan meets Beta - it's literally the first time we the readers meet Beta! The 1st appearance of Beta just happens to be a kick-ass Negan page, too. While there were plenty of antagonists in the series, Beta was the final "official" villain and the tallest; towering over Negan. Oh, and also wearing a HUMAN SKIN HELMET! Issue 115-192 TWD interior pgs have pencils and inked bluelines on separate boards. The nice caveat is they are on larger 11x17" boards unlike the smaller 8.5"x14" boards Adlard used from issues 36-114. Gaudiano also enlarged his inked pages closer to the page edges making his inked blueline pages the largest of the interior TWD art available.

There are no full splash pages from the issue making this one of two by default. The layout of the top panel appears to be a homage to the original cover A of issue 100 that first introduced Negan, as if he and the reader are being introduced to the new big baddie. Negan pages need his dialogue- that's what makes him such an endearing character. So I created an overlay to display the word balloons for the inked page that is framed on my wall while the penciled page is tucked away in a portfolio.