Leonardi, Rick

Rick Leonardi is one of my absolute favorite artists. It's also terrific for me that most of his stuff is available for relatively little $, hence the large quantity of his pages I have. The bad part about that is its most likely because he seems underappreciated. I'm a huge fan of his figure work, perfect for lithe, athletic, super-hero types, as well as his backgrounds, in particular his architecture. I love his NYC-scapes that were very prominent in his Cloak & Dagger work of the mid-80's, which would probably be the work he would be most identified with. He also did a number of excellent fill-ins on the X-Men and New Mutants from the mid 80's to early 90's, and produced a few wonderful posters for Marvel featuring some of their biggest stars in artistic layouts that greatly played to his strengths. Finally got to meet him in Seattle in April of 2006, and if you ever get the chance, talk to him, get on his sketch list, and flip thru the pages he's brought with him that are very reasonably priced. Great guy, and I still enjoy his work today.