I was thinking where the cloak is wrapping the dudes. Strappy lines around squared-off round things is pretty much signature JrJr.

One general thing I've noticed is that original pages come in a wide variety of sizes. 17 inches tall by 11 inches wide is the default size. But they vary:

Colleen Doran: A Distant Soil is 14x11

Jim Sherman and Josef Rubinstein: Uncanny X-Men #151 is 15.75x10.625

Milo Manara: Jolanda de Almaviva is 13.75x9.75, not surprising for a foreign comic printed at a different size to have a different sized original art page.

John Van Fleet's painted work on Hellraiser #4 is a huge 20x14 on very thick, stiff paper board.

Adam Hughes and Rick Magyar, Maze Agency #4 is surprisingly large for pencil and ink, 18.5x14.

Makes storage tricky! Not to mention the Esposito recreation of Amazing Spider-Man #39, which is 20.25x14.5

Furthermore, the Hellraiser page and the Claremont/Marshall page from Bizarre Adventures came with onion skin tracing paper overlays with the lettering. You can't see the page well through the onion skin, but how to protect the onion skin other than lying it atop the page... to which it is attached with a two inch strip of tape at the top edge? Hmm... Time to hit the art collecting fora.

Now for something ridiculous and cute: Art Baltazar sketches of Tiny Titans characters, acquired from two different sellers.

And now, one in the category of "childhood favorite acquired."



This is from New Mutants #10, in which the kids have found a colony of ancient Rome surviving in the jungles of Brazil, which I supposed makes it a 'sword and sandal" variant of the Lost World trope. Instead of dinosaurs, this lost world has intrigue between two ruling houses, both of which are eager to enlist the powerful teens to help tip the balance of power.

In researching the world of original comic book art, I've learned that "talking pages" and "pages with small panels" and "pages with main characters out of costume" are all valued less highly than splash pages of costumed heroes in action, which are in effect published pin-ups. Be that as it may, I like this expository page a lot. Inker Tom Mandrake does a great job softening and humanizing Sal Buscema's often blocky pencils while still taking advantage of Buscema's experience with clear layouts. 

This page features all four main characters and shows their personalities. Young Rahne clings to her mother-figure Dani. Roberto sits slightly apart, closer to the center of power and danger. Sam does the kids' talking and realizes that the Roman politician, lounging in casual power, is not to be trusted. The dialogue is just an info-dump, but the art says more.

What's better than one New Mutants page? Two New Mutants pages! This one is from later in the same issue:



When I listed factors the boost the price of an original art page yesterday, I left an important one out: female skin. Not surpising in a hobby historically targetting adolescent males. This page cost twice what the other one did. At this point in the "lost Roman colony" story, Danielle Moonstar has once again been separated from her friends and captured, and once again been dressed in a sexy outfit by her captors while she slept. Last time (just a few issues prior) the culprit was Viper. This time it's Selene, in her debut appearance. She's a witch (because sword and sandals) but also a mutant (because X-Men). And she knows not to sacrifice virgins to the volcano unless they are wearing bikinis.

In panel five, Dani uses her illusion powers to create a frightening hallucination. On the original page above, it's rendered on a separate piece of paper glued atop the main board. That second paper is darker now; I wonder whether it was originally. An instruction in the page's right margin (cropped off of the image above) instructs the printer to render that art as blue on yellow, as seen below.



I liked Dani's tactical thinking, wishing she could strike Selene from range rather than tussle an adult woman (evidently with hypnosis powers) at close range.

Next up, a trio of consecutive Swamp Thing pages by Rick Veitch and Alfredo Alcala!



This is from issue #71 (1988). Swamp Thing is trying to have a child, that is, a sprout. He can't find the right human soul to imbue it with life. Constantine knows of an upcoming airplane crash which will contain a victim named Gary Holland. Seems like a good name for a future Swamp Thing. Constantine boards the plane to tell Holland about his impending doom.

Yes, to the point where some modern pages look quite sparse without the color, just as they would have looked sparse without inks in a previous generation.

Here's the next page of the Swamp Thing story.



And the color version.