Brainiac 5 (And Koko..?) by Jeff Moy

Some collectors love the thrill of winning big from an auction house, some prefer the rush of being the first to snap something up from a dealer's art drop... but I can confidently say that after three years of collecting, my favourite way to add new art to my collection is still through having a sudden new match for one of my eBay searches! Considering the hundreds of new comic art listings added to eBay every day, finally coming across a piece that fits my collection feels very much like finding a golden needle in a haystack.

Take this piece, for example! I got home from a long shift at work and was making my regular eBay rounds, and just like that, there it was! It was one of a group of four Moy pencil pieces that had just been listed. For a bit of context, I love Jeff's work in all its forms, but aside from his published Legionnaires art, my favourite pieces from him are these beautiful pencil pinups that he does. In particular, I like pieces from the '90s, because he was working on Legionnaires at the time, and so each pinup looks like it could have been taken right from the pages of the published book.

All that to say, I probably set some kind of record for fastest eBay checkout. I bought three of the four pieces, and unsurprisingly, this is the one I was most excited about. As uncommon as it is to find people selling these beautiful pencil pieces, it's even more uncommon to find ones featuring Brainiac 5, my favourite character (since most commissioners request lady Legionnaires from Jeff).

First off, I love how Jeff drew Koko, Brainy's pet monkey, just barely peeping out from behind him. Brainy's expression is hard to place, but I like to think it's something between fondness for Koko and weary exasperation from his antics, in a "you see what kind of nonsense I have to deal with??" kind of way. Considering most of my pieces from Jeff are done in marker or inked over, I like pieces like these for the chance to see the techniques he uses for his finished pencils. You can see he uses different directions of pencil strokes to keep things visually distinct from each other, even without any different colours or values to differentiate things. And the precise way he shades everything, leaving just the right amount of highlight in the just the right places, is always impressive.