Isabel

RIP to one of the best collectors I've met in my short time in the hobby. The piece Dan homaged is no longer in my collection but Dan's tribute remains. Original description below the line:

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An OAX 2025 gift.

By this time we've all seen Dan (Bootlegging is a Habit)'s depictions of various CAF personalities. Dan is truly the Drew Friedman of our hobby when it comes to depicting CAF's scenesters, clown princes, and head honchos. His keen, unflinching eye and deft hand convey a range of heightened emotional states associated with original comic art collecting: the rage, the "quiet desperation," the hunger and, of course, the monomania.

I was delighted to hear from Dan that he was taking a detour from his CAF portraits to draw a sketch for me based on a piece in my collection: the Jaime Hernandez cover to the collection of one of Jaime's best stories, Flies on the Ceiling (see additional image). The original cover is a study in contrasts which highlights the interior state of one of Jaime's Locas characters, Isabel "Izzy" Ortiz.

For his sketch, Dan focuses on a small section of the original piece. Like Jaime, Dan is fascinated by the interplay of light and dark on the page and pushes the original image to a point of abstraction. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the drawing is how he builds depth and texture in the black areas, something Jaime does as well when he lays down black on the page. I encourage you to look at the technique Dan shows in this regard.

I was thrilled to pick this up at OAX (thanks ML for the delivery). Dan is a great collector and gentleman with a cultivated taste for the best in mainstream and independent art. Through his art and enthusiasm for the medium he gives back to the hobby in ways that we should all admire and emulate.