Jerry Bingham - Black Panther and Klaw

This piece was created in 1979 by Jerry Bingham - right around the time he was working on T'achalla's solo book for a few issues and a couple of years before he drew the legendary Iron Man Annual 5. That book, which heavily features Black Panther, served as the basis of a lot of the MCU Black Panther film.

More personally, it seriously imprinted on me. I'm not sure why, maybe because up to that point, I had always seen Black Panther as a secondary player in the Avengers and here he was given a more central role. But it definitely had to do with Jerry's mastery of the character, his power, and his fluidity.

All of which are on display in this sketch. I'm also a big Klaw fan.

I bought this through an September Heritage Auction. It was sold as a "One Minute Later" commission. I'm not sure if it was bought that way or just fit really well with the theme. I decided to separate the sketch from the OML trade dress that was included on an overlay.