Black Panther by Tim Sale (In Memoriam)

I met Tim Sale (and Jeph Loeb) in 2001 at a store signing in Brussels. He was already a superstar, having completed his Batman trilogy and beginning his colorful (pun intended) association with Marvel

And yet he was extremely generous with his time and art. This fantastic piece of art was both inked in inks and washes. And it was free.

Yes, free. I mean, you had to purchase a 15-20 book in order to qualify for a « sketch » as that is common practice in Franco-Belgian stores (even though that amount as been multiplied several times since then).

Those were simpler times as our hobby (and comics in general) hadn't become so monetized as it is nowadays. And yet commissions were already much practiced in the US (and that ultra-monetized approach would soon contaminate Europe, for better and/or worse).

Tim was a major get for the store and given the high attendance, he could have cranked head sketches after head sketches for everyone to satisfy the store's request. And everyone would have been very happy.

And yet, I believe he produced high quality pieces of this caliber for all. Truth be told, I probably got a better deal than some based on fact that I wasn't asking for his 13th Batman, Joker or DD that day but also due to the pleasant long conversation we had with Jeph and Tim about Toth, Steranko's Outland and storytelling in general, but you get my point.

Based on this great dynamic art, I certainly wouldn't have minded to see a Black Panther : Black (a bit on the nose, agreed) at some point but the character wasn't as popular as it was when Tim was producing comics regularly.

A fun bit, Tim misspelled my name when signing and even though I didn't mind at all, he crossed the misspell with his brush and rewrote it. He then added other horizontal black stripes above and under his signature box for what I assume were design considerations.

I have two regrets about this meeting. I was still a student and wasn't financially prepared to buy any of the art he had brought with him, including many pages and pinups from his great Deathblow run.

My second one is that this would be the only time I would ever meet Tim and I certainly would have loved to renew the experience.

Thank you for everything, sir, the gift, the conversation, the pages and the enjoyment they provided and will continnue to provide.

In Memoriam of Tim Sale, a fantastic highly stylized and uncompromising artist AND a superb storyteller. On top of that, he had the good taste to be a class act and a gentleman.