WildCats issue 21 page 11

In the early to mid-90s I was working 40+ hrs a week in a poorly funded research lab while also going to university full-time. I was perpetually broke and didn’t have much time or money for comics, so I kinda missed Charest’s start in comics. I only really became aware of him in the late 90s through his Wildcats/X-Men book and the second Wildcats series. Once I’d caught a glimpse of his work though it was hard not to be in awe.

Aside from the quality of his draftsmanship, what I really like about that era of Charest’s work was that he somehow managed to pack in a ton of detail without it ever feeling too busy or noisy. That’s something I always found a bit off-putting in a lot of his contemporaries. Charest got the measure just right, giving you tons of intricate flourishes to marvel at (his hair was always awesome, for example) while also giving your eyes a rest with more open space or softer gradients.

While this page is from books I’m less familiar with it still fits in a really nice pocket between nostalgia for the Artist & era and my “just because I love the Art” category of my collection. Just as he got the measure just right in his Art, this page gets the measure just right in its appeal to me.

The page itself is from the first issue of Alan Moore’s run on the series and features the introduction and origin of Maxine Manchester, aka Ladytron. I’ve added the published pages before and after this one to give more narrative context. While Maxine is shown on the previous page and only appears properly as Ladytron on page 18, this is the page showing her *becoming* Ladytron.

Apparently the page/issue had sentimental value to Charest, possibly because it marked the birth of a cool character he’d co-created with Alan Moore. He had kept it since 1995 and only let it go in 2017 (hence the 2017 dated signature at the bottom right) to the collector who soon passed it on to CAF member Dave Kopecki... who was gracious enough to let me buy from him during the May 2022 Comic Art Live. Thanks again to Dave for that and for providing details of provenance. I couldn’t be happier.