I was the first person to Risso's table on Friday, and spoke with him several times Driday and Saturday, but he kept putting the piece off. I left all of the storytelling completely up to him, but he wasn't real excited about that. Sometimes an artist wants complete freedom. Sometimes they want something less than that. I asked around artist alley for advice on what to ask him to draw. I got good advice from Jim Terry and Mike Norton. I wrote down their input and presented it to Risso. He grimaced. Fortunately, Brian Azzarello was at the table next to him. I asked him for help, and after I made a modest donation to the Hero Initiative, he gave me the suggestion you see on the page. He thought it would mirror Sprouse's panel on pg 1 nicely, and give the story a chance to breathe. I love it. Maybe my favorite panel? Anyway, writing credit to Azzarello on that one, with thanks to Jim and Mike.

I'd been chasing McGuinness for a while here, and had actually hoped to get him on the previous page. He was interested but the timing was always wrong. Finally, I had my opportunity at Motor City Con in 2017. I left the piece with him and he took it back to his studio to work on it. Pretty dang quick turnaround, too. Man, I love what he did. The little negative space tree kinda mirroring what Risso did? Dynamite!

I approached Larraz at C2E2 with nothing set up beforehand. I got to him with one spot left on his commission list. I wasn't sure what I was going to ask for, whether it would be a regular commission (of Rogue, since he draws her so well), or something on a jampiece. I showed him the last headsketch jampiece I had going, and he joked about being intimidated by the art already on the page. I then showed him the Wolverine vs Sabretooth piece, and he was into it immediately. I was doubly lucky because he did my piece first! It turned out great, and what a page this is all finished.

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