Steve Rude, Nexus Legends issue 5 cover (First 1989)

Ok, here is the big purchase at OAX 2026 - from the Dude, the painted cover to Nexus Legends issue 5. Nexus Legends was a series that reprinted at First Comics the initial 9 Capital Comics Nexus issues in more standard comic size and style to make them available after Capital ceased publishing.

The cover image and text is a parody, a nod to the image of Judah in the cover to Nexus issue 5 yelling "I'm bored!" His boredom convinced he and Nexus to go on a drinking tour, which is rudely (intended) interrupted by their ship being sucked into a black hole and sent to the bowl-shaped world.

Getting this piece to and from OAX turned into something of a struggle. When I heard that Steve would be coming to OAX 2026, I reached out to his amazing wife Jaynelle to talk about what they might be bringing to sell. It is increasingly apparent that OAX truly is an unique experience for artists as well as original art collectors - I had to convince Steve's team that really, this was a fair all about the art and they probably should substitute a hefty portion of the heavy and low margin books they would normally bring (to sign and sketch) for light and high margin original art of Nexus and other Rude projects.

Jaynelle confirmed to me that they would be bringing this cover to OAX and that it is the last vintage cover of Steve's they still had. I bought it and picked it up during the Friday VIP preview session. (I also was able to sit with Steve for a while and get a number of early pages signed. We talked about how quickly his style progressed in those early Nexus issues and how the use of duo tone really opened up a lot of new avenues for him. Steve told me I had some "really good ones" among the pages to be signed. He wasn't super interested in chatting right then. I think he was still getting used to OAX and people just coming up to speak to him while he was trying to paint his large Superman painting.)

Before Friday dinner I took the piece back to my room and immediately discovered I had a problem. The glorious painting, which measures a bit bigger than 22" x 30", was much too large for my suitcase. I asked one or two people if they would be willing to drive it back to NY, but ultimately realized it was my problem to solve. During the day on Saturday I changed my ticket from Sunday night to early Sunday morning due to the impending snow storm (I ended up being on the last flight permitted to leave Orlando for NYC around 11 am Sunday), which meant I had only a few hours to figure out what to do.

Fortunately there is a Staples not far from the OAX hotel, and I found some semi-hard poster board and non (too) sticky packing tape that let me comfortably wrap the cover without increasing the depth of the package too much, because of course it had to fit in the overhead luggage compartment. I measured every way I could imagine to see if the wrapped package would fit, and it seemed to but it would be close.

In the end I boarded the plane relatively early and was able to place the wrapped piece overhead without any other suitcase on top of it. It arrived at the airport and then my apartment without incident, where I kept it wrapped for a day and put heavy books on top to try and straighten any creases in the edges (there weren't any).

OAX is an amazing conference. I kind of wish it were two times a year rather than the one, though more OAX might take away from its current specialness. The conference continues to get better each year - thanks to Bill, Kasra and the amazing OAX team. My only complaint is the confusing layout of the hotel, fair and events, where I never seemed to know where to be to enter or exit at certain times. I do believe I am cursed at OAX however, as I have never made it to conference end without incident.

OAX 2024 - father in law passed away
OAX 2025 - work shortened the trip
OAX 2026 - snowstorm ...

Here's hoping for 2027!

CODA - I forgot to thank the two intrepid Nexus collectors who stepped up to purchase two of my pages to help offset the price of the cover. There has probably not been such a collection of Nexus aficionados in one place in decades.