What If? 87 page 20 feat Sabretooth by Frank Teran

This particular issue of What if volume 2 made a very strong impression on me when it was released in 96. Both because of the great writing and art. A great desperate cat & mouse story between Jubilee and Sabretooth written by Dan Abnett.

Extremely violent, that aspect of the story was strongly enhanced by Frank Teran ultra gritty and messy art. His portraying of Sabretooth was so vicious and feral! He had never been drawn this way up to that date. He had of course always been the violent killer but never pictured as a crazy hunter from a slasher movie. Frank told me he drew a lot of influence from Carpenter’s movies for that story. It shows.

Much to my delight, Frank Teran recently began selling the remaining pages he still possessed from that book. When I saw the offerings, I was super excited and knew I had to get as many as I could.

Sadly for me, my enthusiasm soon toned down as Frank used a lot of collage in those days, pasting xeroxes on the board to reach the effect he was going for or simply correct some wrongs. I have never been a fan of the “this is he published page” argument and need some pencil and inks on a board. I will always go for the pure pencil in this day and age of bluelined inks and usually could not care less for those (unless you are a true genius inker with an artistic signature of your own-but I digress).

So after reviewing the pages that featured nice shots of Creed and offered actual pencils and inks where it counts on the board, the choices were quite trimmed down for me.

Here we have a half splash of Creed and probably one of the best (if not THE) page from the book that features an actual pen & ink rendition of Sabretooth. Many of the other pages offered great renditions of Creed that were paste ups sadly. The top panel with Creed coming on top of poor Jubilee is truly spectacular and intense.

The art is artistically messy as hell. Blue pencils, inks, whiteout, a few pasted pieces (panel 3) and inked tape. It is of course mastered and serves the tone and intensity of the story perfectly. The crouching Creed in the last panel is a paste up but there is some similar art underneath which be seen through transparency.

Teran’s art is pretty scarce (to say the least) so I’m delighted (as you can tell) to add a page from one of his signature book to my collection. Thanks, Frank!