One of the joys of commissioning art is finding a burgeoning new talent yet undiscovered by the masses.
When I first commissioned Khoi Pham, years ago he was largely unknown, very affordable, and I managed to get five or six awesome pieces drawn by him. Today Khoi has a fat exclusive contract with Marvel, had a high-profile gig on one of the AVENGERS titles, and has moved up pricewise for commissions -- and Odin bless 'em, cause he deserves it.
I got that same feeling when I "discovered" the unbelievably talented artist who penciled this commission. Ian Richardson is a UK artist who has done some work for Marvel UK and the Judge Dredd titles. I came across his page at the comicartcommissions.com website. Although there wasn't a lot of his work posted there, the few pages that were blew me away. I fired off an e-mail to him and got a price quote for a commission. The price quoted was such a bargain, I actually had to read it three times to make sure I was reading it correctly.
So we had two of the three elements I insist on when commissioning artists: Fantastic drawing ability and affordability. The only unanswered question was what kind of service he provided. I sealed the deal, and Ian kept me updated as to his progress throughout the process. Several months later, the final version appeared, and Mike Tyson himself at his peak, popping Prozac and still married to Robin Givens, couldn't have floored me any harder than this piece did.
When DC relaunched their JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA title, the first issue featured a Dale Eaglesham cover which was an updated version of the iconic cover to ALL-STAR SQUADRON #1. I liked the layout to the updated version and decided to use it as a template for the Brotherhood. I gave that info to Ian, and, as you can see, he totally knocked it out of the ballpark.
Who's who -- standing over the table are three stalwarts you should already know, whether you regularly visit this gallery or not. That's the Black Panther, Storm, and the Falcon. The pictures on the table are -- from left to right more or less -- Triathlon, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Blue Marvel, Dr. Voodoo (held by Storm), Cardiac, Hardware, Blade, Free Agent (under Falcon's thumb), Steel, Icon, Nubia, Monica Rambeau, Mr. Miracle, Luke Cage, and Azrael.
Want some of this Ian Richardson goodness for yourself?
I'll make it easy for you. You can contact him through:
His Comic Art Commissions page:
http://comicartcommissions.com/Richardson907.html
His DeviantArt site:
http://pencilsandstrings.deviantart.com/
His Comicspace page:
http://www.comicspace.com/ian_richardson/
Look, do not walk -- RUN to get a beautiful, affordable commission from this superb talent before he gets scooped up by one of the Big Two, gets a gig drawing AVENGERS, X-MEN, JUSTICE LEAGUE, or some other high profile title, and starts commanding Neal Adams-sized megabucks for a commission. You'll be wishing you had listened to me THEN.
Yeah, you will.
