Lobo by Barry Kitson

A few weeks ago Anthony Snyder was having one of his art drop/wheeling and dealing shows, and one of the pieces he dropped was this Lobo by Barry Kitson! I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go for the piece or not, but then I took a closer look and noticed two very important things: the date, and a few key things about Lobo's appearance. 1989 is when Barry began pencilling the L.E.G.I.O.N. title, a book which featured Lobo from its fourth issue onwards. Keen observers will notice that this is Lobo's pre-Bisley-makeover design, which changed in 1991 with the Biz's iconic Lobo miniseries. I find it's very rare to see any unpublished/commission-style art featuring this early version of Lobo, and it's even more significant to me as a L.E.G.I.O.N. collector, since this is how he looked when he was first introduced in the book! I like to think this piece is a convention sketch requested by a fan of the L.E.G.I.O.N. title - which would only have been running for a few months - who loved Lobo's presence in the book. It's a neat bit of history associated with my favourite series, and I'm very happy to add this piece to my collection!

This definitely qualifies as early Barry Kitson art, and even at this stage in his career, his art is just fantastic. Every pencil line is so deliberate and clean. It really shows with Lobo's hair, which Barry shaded using individual lines that come across as strands of hair, instead of just pencilling the whole hair area in with a flat grey. I love that this early version of Lobo comes across as a fairly regular guy at first glance (contrasted against his Bisley revamp where you can tell at a glance that he's off his rocker), but Barry made sure to give him a pretty malicious smile so there's no doubt that you're looking at the Main Man, himself!