Q&A with Kin W

Which piece in your gallery is your favorite and why?

Hands down, the cover to Uncanny X-Men #335 by Joe Madureira and Tim Townsend. I loved Joe and Tim's work on X-Men when I first started reading comics, so being able to own a cover by them was like a dream come true; and it doesn't hurt that it's also a nice team shot that features Apocalypse looming in the background. On top of that, this was my first piece of comic artwork, so there's a ton of sentimental value in this piece.

As for the piece of art with the best backstory, it would be the Joe Madureira commission of Gambit and Rogue. That was the dream piece when I got into collecting (even going back to my earliest comic reading days), and it was unbelievable that I got to email Joe and work with him to create a new piece of art.

Please tell us a little about yourself.

Growing up, I was familiar with comic book characters from all the various movies, animated series, and video games (Batman and X-Men, especially); but it wasn't until I was 12 that I read my first comic book. My first comics were X-Men and Fantastic Four, and those remain my favorite characters to this day (and introduced me to many of my favorite artists). I don't read as many of their books now, but I do still read several current comics and love discovering new artists through them.

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

I discovered comic artwork in 2005 when I came across the Mothcomix website and the piles of Mike Wieringo Fantastic Four pages that were available for sale; but as a college student, I didn't really have the budget to splurge on any artwork (even at $50 a page). One year later, I was digging around ebay and found the cover to Uncanny X-Men #335 for sale. I almost didn't buy the cover (spending over $1,000 on anything was unimaginable at the time), but when I finally got the artwork in hand, I was amazed by the linework as well as by the realization that I now owned an actual piece of artwork that Joe and Tim worked on. The comic art bug has had a hold of me ever since then, though my interests and habits have changed over the years.

How do you display/store your collection at home?

Several of my favorite pieces are framed (with acid free mattes and UV glass) and hanging on the walls, and the rest is stored flat in mylar sleeves or Itoya portfolios.

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

If money were no object:
-X-Men #3 cover by Jim Lee/Scott Williams
-Dark Phoenix X-Men cover/interior page by John Byrne/Terry Austin
-Giant-Size X-Men page by Dave Cockrum
-Fables #81 cover by James Jean
-Catwoman cover/interior page by Darwyn Cooke