Q&A with Chuck Arnold

Which piece in your gallery is your favorite and why?

This piece was my first major (>$1000) OA purchase it's always been one of my favorite Frank Quitely covers, and when it came up for auction, I was champing at the bit to get my hands on it. I looked at it on Comiclink every day like a lovesick teenager. Not spending major bucks on OA before, I wasn't sure where the auction would land. Thankfully, It ended up pretty reasonable for a Quitely cover.

Please tell us a little about yourself.

I'm a lifelong comics enthusiast, grew up an X-Men kid in the '80s, but really just loved and still love reading comics and comic book art. Lately, I've been reading the Fantagraphics EC reprints and really enjoying them, especially Johnny Craig and Harvey Kurtzman's stories.

How long have you been collecting comic art and what prompted you to start?

My first piece of original art was from Kevin Eastman at a convention when I was 12, I think I sat there all day and watched him draw bugging him, Chaykin, Paul Ryan, and Barry Crain. I collected sketches over the years until I started buying on eBay about 10 years ago. Just random pages that I thought were a good deal, I was trying to get something from every artist that I loved over the years. Then I bought an All-Star Superman page and that started my Quitely collection.

How do you display/store your collection at home?

I have a few pieces on the wall in my office and keep the rest in the closet.

What are your top five most wanted original pages or commissions?

Jonah Hex 1 cover painting, Absolute All-Star Superman cover, Bite Club 1 Cover Painting, All-Star Batman and Robin FQ alternate cover (issue 10), and I would like a Darwyn Cooke maybe cover, maybe a Parker page.