Jungle Girls, Rulah & Sheena by Anna Hybsier

Anna Hybsier was one of the very first CAF friends I made when I joined the site over 25 years ago.  She was a frequent commentor on some of my earliest posts.  But aside from her friendship, Anna epitomized what this site is really about.  Yes, it’s a gathering place for collectors, industry pros, and art fans.  Yes, you can buy and sell art here.  Yes, it’s a great place to show off your latest collecting triumph.  But for me, it was all about connecting people.  It was about drawing a line (no pun intended) from one person to another that ignored geography.  I mean, one minute I’m posting a piece of original art and the next minute I have a new friend in Germany.  How cool is that?  And even though Anna and I have not communicated in a while, I know that line is always there.

I discovered pretty early on that Anna is a very talented artist.  In fact, this isn’t my first piece by her (I got that almost 15 years ago).  So when I saw this one pop up at auction, I recognized her work immediately.  I think most would agree that Anna has quite a distinctive style.  But what I really love about her is her sense of color.  When it comes to color choices and color palettes, my favorite color artist is probably Jill Thompson (especially on her Scary Godmother work).  Now, no one in this hobby would ever confuse Anna with Jill stylistically.  But whenever I look at Anna’s color work, I really think she has the same keen sense of color choices.  Her palette may vary a bit from Jill’s, but just as with Jill, I really love the color combinations she utilizes.  You and I might see two separate colors that would seem to contradict each other, but when Anna (or Jill) uses them side by side or together on a piece, they magically complement each other.  It really is a beautiful thing to see and so evident on this piece.

Now I would have been perfectly happy to just take this piece at face value.  I knew it was Anna’s work, I knew who the characters were, and I knew when it was done because of the date by her signature.  So I’m not really sure what prompted me to keep digging into the background of the piece.  Yes, I’ve been on this weird sleuthing kick lately.  But it’s not like I had some nagging curiosity about this piece like I did with the other three instances.  Still, off I went into the land of the world wide web.  A few key word searches and a few clicks later, I stumbled across a wonderful CFA-APA article by one of CAF’s very own esteemed super collectors, Jeff Singh.  Anyone who knows Jeff knows he has a thing for Jungle Girls.  I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as my hand fetish, but one look at his incredible (and extensive) Jungle Girl collection and you might start to worry a bit.  Haha!

Anyway, this piece was featured in that article so I reached out to Jeff and learned that this was indeed one of his former pieces that he had commissioned from Anna back in 2004.  He was kind enough to share more background on the piece and even included a nice photo of meeting Anna during a trip to Germany.  I guess it doesn’t really qualify as a full circle story, since it didn’t begin and end at the same point.  But it does go back to those connecting lines I mentioned at the top.  It started with the line connecting Jeff and Anna, then a line between Anna and I, and later a line between Jeff and myself.  So maybe it IS a circle.  One that connects all three of us.  And to those of you who were kind enough to stop by and see my new piece, whether you know it or not, you’re creating even more new connections AND enlarging our circle.  So thanks for that too.

Oh, by the way.  If you like what you see, make sure you pop on over to Anna‘s gallery and check out more of her work (and her personal art collection as well).  I’m guessing she still takes commissions.  But at least pop in and make a new connection.  Heh-heh!

(IMAGE NOTE)  The piece was too big to fit my scanner so I used the auction image.  For some reason, there are a few scratch marks at the top and lower right (by the guy’s neck) that are not on the original.  I guess the scanner was dirty or scratched.