A Happy Accident - Mystery Solved About Art I've Owned For 3+ Years! 0

[fmaz]

Ok, so... 3 years ago, I bought a wonderful piece of Mark Bagley art, inked by Scott Hanna... which was, I was told, a page from the 4th in a series of BBDO Marvel charity books.  There was an Ultimate Spidey/X-Men book which is published, but there's art floating around from an Ulimates book, a Hulk book and one other... I forget (Iron Man, I think).  But mine looked to be either the cover or the first page splash of the Spidey/Ultimates book.  The fact that it seemed to be unpublished didn't really bother me, as INKED Bagley pages this awesome, are hard to find, especially with this many characters!  Although I guess if it's unpublished, does that make it more equivalent to a commission? I don't know.... anyway... here's the page.

 

As you can see, it says "BBDO #4, page 1" right on it, and it has been framed and on my wall for three years... and I've enjoyed it every day for the last three years.

Now... cut to a few days ago, with the announcement about Phase 4 / 5 of the MCU plans.  For those who haven't heard, it seems like they might be considering going down the road of the "Ultimatum" storyline.  If you haven't read it, it's a really great story, and one they can't really tell until they have the FF and the X-Men on board, but that's obviously the long term plan.  But the great part is Dr. Doom is the big bad behind the whole thing.

Why am I mentioning this?  Because hearing that news made me think "Oh I should go back and reread that".  Which I did.  It's a 5-part mini-series, lots of character deaths...well done as I remembered.

One thing I'd forgotten, though, was at the end there was a "mystery" as to whether or not Ultimate Spider-Man was killed or not, so it led to a 2-part Ultimatum: Spider-Man Requiem mini-series.  In that, JJJ comes to realize that Spider-Man had been a hero all along, and laments how he'd treated him, and reviews old files of stories the Bugle didn't run, and he eventually writes an article about the heroism of Spider-Man, meant to be his obituary.  It's a really cool book, especially if you're a Spidey fan.  I'd forgotten about it.

CLEARLY, I'd forgotten about it... because when reading it, I turned to page 30 and saw this:

So all along this WAS a published page, in an awesome book, no-less.  I do feel somewhat guilty in that I'm sure I paid far less than I should have considering... but regardless of value (which doesn't really matter as I'm not selling it), I find it so strange that a piece of art I've been looking at every day for three years... just today, out of the blue, has morphed into something else all together, when I wasn't in any way looking for info on it.  I was content with the info I had.

Maybe others have personally had stories like this, but it's a first for me!  Thought I'd share as I thought it might be something amusing for those passing the time during this zombie apocalypse. 

Stay safe everyone!

Frank

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by fmaz

[fmaz]

FYI, on further thought... the published BBDO book was in 2009, the same year as the Ultimatum books.  So it seems reasonable that the page WAS originally intended for the unpublished BBDO book, but when that book was scrapped, because it’s so awesome it was integrated into the Requiem book (which does have a few fantastic splashes) towards the back during JJJ’s “essay.”  That would explain the notations on the top, I guess.

Anyway,  that’s all I’ve got! 

[grapeape]

You were happy before but I think this adds a meaningful extra layer of joy from the discovery.

[fmaz]

33 minutes ago, grapeape said:

You were happy before but I think this adds a meaningful extra layer of joy from the discovery.

100%.  The strangest part was stumbling upon a page I owned.   That’s what was such an odd feeling.  Hard to describe!  In the beginning, I was trying to suss out if it was a published page or not, so I posted here, I did research, etc.  So if I’d found it then, it would have been satisfying.  But this isn’t that. This was surprising in a ... delightful way.  

[exitmusicblue]

This must feel super fun.  The closest I've gotten is seeing OA I own in literature about an artist.  But your case is a bit more needle-in-haystack level!

[grapeape]

33 minutes ago, fmaz said:

100%.  The strangest part was stumbling upon a page I owned.   That’s what was such an odd feeling.  Hard to describe!  In the beginning, I was trying to suss out if it was a published page or not, so I posted here, I did research, etc.  So if I’d found it then, it would have been satisfying.  But this isn’t that. This was surprising in a ... delightful way.  

I get it 👍

Enjoy

[alxjhnsn]

Quite the story! Thanks for sharing it.

[fmaz]

44 minutes ago, exitmusicblue said:

This must feel super fun.  The closest I've gotten is seeing OA I own in literature about an artist.  But your case is a bit more needle-in-haystack level!

Oh that's actually VERY cool in a whole different kind of way! Must be some kind of page! Congrats!

[Rick2you2]

I once had something similar. Many years ago, I bought what I thought was a Jim Aparo sketch. After owing it for about 25 years or so, I found out that it was the cover of a fanzine.

 

[joefixit2]

very cool discovery!