Hidden/surprise art 0

[Yo!Jimbo!]

Anybody ever discover hidden or surprise art?  I have one cool example.  I'ts not quite the same as removing the stats from a stat cover to reveal an actual hand drawn Kirby FF cover (which happened), but cool nevertheless.

I picked up this Starlin painting, the Infinity War promotional poster.  When I received it, it reaked of smoke, cigarettes and looked like this.  There was no way Starlin painted this piece with such a muted palette.  

Had it professionally cleaned (no varnishing) and voilà, it was like a completely different piece.  The dull colors were replaced by a deeply colored, vibrant painting.  A photo just doesn't do it justice.  Now one of my favorite pieces.

 

Edited January 19, 2019 by Yo!Jimbo!
Adding better pics

[Panelfan1]

Can you talk about the cleaning? Where was it done? Is it expensive and any other tips ?

[BCarter27]

I bought a Steve Rude Nexus page and found God on the back --

This was from Nexus: God Con and Yahweh was gettin' biblical on the next page... which Steve had drawn on DuoTone board. It must've made an impression during storage. Kind of like the Shroud of Turin!

[Lucky Baru]

I purchased a piece from Chris Samnee.  He threw in an extra head shot he'd sketched as a thank you.  It was a surprise to find in the package he sent.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Lucky Baru

[PhilipB2k17]

I bought a key DPS for a very recent modern book. The artist's technique is to do the layouts for the art on the back of the page, and then lightbox on the front. The layouts are drawn in mirror fashion, so they come out right on the front. The Double Page Splash included the first appearance of the main villain/antagonist in the comic. On the backside, in the layouts, this character was drawn a bit differently, and in a way that made their identity much more obvious. But, the final decision of the artist was to make the character's identity more ambiguous in the final version. I would show you the piece, but I want to keep it private for a while.

In any case, while some readers of the comic may have guessed the identity of this character, I know for certain who it is because of this subtle change in the way the character was first conceived by the artist in the layouts on the back of the published page.

I can show you something else, though. I am a fan of the 80’s Comic DNAgents. I found a nice DPS on eBay by the series co-creator, Will Meugniot. On the back of the two DPS pages was sone very nice bonus pin-up art featuring his female characters from the series.

Here’s the published side:

Here are the two pin ups/character studies on the back:

Edited December 19, 2018 by PhilipB2k17

[Hekla]

I bought a Lan Medina Dethlok page off ebay several years ago that had practically no description. I was surprised to find a panel redraw on the back with a draft layout of splash

 

 

[Timely]

Yes. I bought this Art Adams cover.  On the right side in blue line pencils are 4 front shot & profile shots of some additional characters.

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1499956

[hmendryk]

Some years ago I bought the cover art for Justice Traps the Guilty #38 (May 1952) by Marvin Stein. On the back he did a caricature of another artist from the Simon and Kirby studio, Mort Meskin.

[glendgold]

On 12/16/2018 at 11:28 AM, Yo!Jimbo! said:

Anybody ever discover hidden or surprise art?  I have one cool example.  I'ts not quite the same as removing the stats from a stat cover to reveal an actual hand drawn Kirby FF cover (which happened), but cool nevertheless.

 

 

 

 

Wait what?

[glendgold]

I've shown this off but it's been a while.  FF 15 page.  Two panels were glued on.  When unglued...

 

 

[vodou]

That FF is new to me, thank you for sharing again. Even without the cool hidden surprise...Thing in a tutu is everything that's right about it.

[Timely]

2 hours ago, glendgold said:

I've shown this off but it's been a while.  FF 15 page.  Two panels were glued on.  When unglued...

 

 

Neat!

[mtlevy1]

I have had this one posted on my CAF for years - actually I have a gallery dedicated to back of page finds but as an Everett fan-atic - this is the best one I can ever imagine finding.

Took my avatar from it (sans cigarette)

[zhamlau]

About 3 years ago I was on ebay, and I saw this guy selling two "conan drawings". I took a look and true enough it was Conan and as it happened was also by John Buscema and Ernie Chan. It was framed and a crappy far away photo, BIN like 300 bucks. But when i looked in the corner i saw these little small black lines that appeared to be like a stamp. In fact it looked like a marvel back stamp, so i i figured I would role the dice and hit BIN.

The piece came in, an inked conan with some pencil back grounds....and it was marvel stamped right at the bottom. I had no idea but i figured there was a decent chance there was something on the other side..

 

Turns out my hunch was right. I was not disappointed.

Edited December 21, 2018 by zhamlau

[mtlevy1]

9 hours ago, zhamlau said:

About 3 years ago I was on ebay, and I saw this guy selling two "conan drawings". I took a look and true enough it was Conan and as it happened was also by John Buscema and Ernie Chan. It was framed and a crappy far away photo, BIN like 300 bucks. But when i looked in the corner i saw these little small black lines that appeared to be like a stamp. In fact it looked like a marvel back stamp, so i i figured I would role the dice and hit BIN.

The piece came in, an inked conan with some pencil back grounds....and it was marvel stamped right at the bottom. I had no idea but i figured there was a decent chance there was something on the other side..

 

Turns out my hunch was right. I was not disappointed.

Wow - That is wild, nice pickup...what a seller!