Mike Mignola HellBoy in Hell issue 1 page 13

This is my fourth piece of original comic art and is definitely the crowning jewel of my collection. I consider it a personal grail piece. I put it in such a high standard of art and frankly never thought I would be in the right position or have just enough money to afford a page like this.
The reason this page means so much to me is that it is in part how I even found out regular people could own the original pages from comics. During quarantine I had time to find things that brought happiness back into my workaholic lifestyle. It was then I rediscovered my love for comic art. Growing up with Dyslexia, comics where the only thing you could even remotely get me to read. But for the most part I still didn’t read anything on the page, I was there to drool over the art. Copying the drawings and even using those drawings as currency in school. But at some point in middle school I got out of comics for everything else a pubescent boy would find of interest.
Anyway, during quarantine I find the Artist Edition of HellBoy in Hell and was blown away. The art was next level and in the artist edition there where no words, bringing me directly back to childhood and not worrying about any words on the page. And as I keep looking through the artist edition I would stumble across a page made out to a random name or even a price in the corner. Wait, This stuff is for sale?! That was the beginning of going down a rabbit hole of wanting to own some original art.
So to own a page from HellBoy in Hell, let alone a battle page from the first issue is mind blowing! So much else is going on with this page too.
Mignolas style literally shines on this pages, so much it has a glow to it. By Mignola using such contrast in his work, when he leaves white on the page it looks bright. It plays tricks on your eyes. I even have Mignolas version of Kirby Krackle on this page! There is also some cool side marginalia of what will be in the word ballon’s. And one of the few time you will see Mignola draw feet, he usually finds a way to hide feet. You can see Mignola keep whittling down his simplified style as much as possible with white media over some krackle, lines, and even removing the face in bottom panel just leaving pure silhouette. There are no wasted lines in Mignolas work.
Also, this page tells a whole story in a single page. It is something I hope to get in any page I buy. Somehow the three panels showing the beginning, middle and end of this explosion feel like a splash page to me. And the composition that draws your eye in to the top left and leads your eye down to the lower right lends to feeling like a splash page too. Composition is king in Mignola’s work. All choices made to make the entire page as a whole flow and stand on its own as one page of art.
Sorry for the rant, thanks for looking!