Hellspawn / Raven Spawn #8 pg 16 by Ashley Wood

FINALLY!!! I have been a huge fan of Ashley's work for decades now and back in the mid- to late-00s (ughh, I feel old) I had quite a number of his pieces from his work on Spawn and Hellspawn along with some others (a great Maxx and Kitty page I still miss -- see my Gone gallery). For various reasons I had to move all those pieces along to new homes. However, in recent years I've really wanted to re-add a piece from him. Unfortunately, trying to find the right piece at a price that was reasonable - hard given the market for him has increased steeply - has been a challenge. As fate would have it, I happened to be flipping through my collected Hellspawn edition a month or so ago and saw this page there. Thought, 'Wow, what a great page. That would be fun to own, but who knows where it is now" Low and behold, a few weeks later it pops up on HA for a short 1 week auction. A bit under the radar. I ended up telling myself this was the piece I was going to make a hard run at. Thankfully, for whatever reason, the piece went for far less than I expected it to go given what recent Ashley work on HA has sold for. This was great, because I don't think I could have afforded it otherwise.

Having it in person, you can really see the detail Ash put in here. Obviously you have the redesigned Raven Spawn here, a skull, some skeletons in caskets that are almost indiscernible n the background, and a rat. A ton of stuff happening, a layout I love with the negative space at the bottom of the piece, and a hole in the collection filled (well, at least until I pull the trigger on a painted Ash piece).