Smith, Paul - X-Men 173 Pg 4

This is a big one for me. Paul Smith was one of the very first artists I ever latched onto as far as realizing that something was different about the comics that this particular artist worked on. And he is also directly responsible for my discovering the world of interviews and such (saw his cover to a strange magazine called "Amazing Heroes", hooked ever since). And having been an X-Men fan for quite a number of years (they always seemed to have a good creative team on them), it's nice to have a page from one of the best runs, IMHO. And it makes a terrific companion piece to my Smith Dr. Strange page, my other favorite run of Smitty's career (hence my beautiful commission from him with Colossus and Dr. Strange). I should also mention the beautiful inks by Bob Wiacek, who I feel is one of the best inkers for Smitty's style. Thanks to Gary Land for putting it up for sale, and letting me take a little bit of time to pay for it. And now that Gary put up a bunch more pages, and got me to go thru my Essential X-Men books to re-visit old friends, I see that despite the giant "5" at the top of the page, it's actually page 4...And as of October 2010, the image has been updated to reflect the recently acquired Chris Claremont signature I got at the New York Comic Con. Then, inker Bob Wiacek added his autograph to the page in October of 2012.