Brainiac 5 Sketch Card by Fred Hembeck

Behold, the first Fred Hembeck sketch card I ever purchased!

Even though I'm a huge fan of Hembeck's work now, I admit I didn't really see the appeal of his style when I first discovered it. But, over time, the more I saw his Legion sketch cards pop up on eBay, the more I came to appreciate his work, until I was actively checking his listings every day, waiting for the perfect card to start my Hembeck collection. It just goes to show how your taste as an art collector can evolve, if you give it the chance to. And I'm sure glad I did, because this adorable little Brainiac 5 card became the first of many Hembeck pieces I've added to my collection since. These days, my end goal is to have a Hembeck card of every Legionnaire from every incarnation of the Legion, and the only thing stopping me is the enormous (and deserved) spike in popularity Hembeck's work has been experiencing.

And as for this Brainiac 5, I think it was the perfect card to kick off my Hembeck collection. It features all the aspects of Hembeck's work that I love most: it's colourful, it's surprisingly detailed for being such a small card in such a cartoony style, and it's an impressively seamless mesh of Hembeck's style with the comic design for a result that's as recognizable as it is adorable.