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...Or technically, 2015 Bel Juz Space City Comic Con Commission inked by Walden Wong after the pencils were laid down the previous year at a different convention. For the record, Paul Gulacy is one of my top five all time favorite comic book artists, and one of the rare few that can still get me to buy a book I otherwise wouldn't solely because I want to see them draw it. I do really, really miss the zip tones though, which Gulacy was more a master of than that Shang-Chi kid with the kung-fu. If I recall correctly, I attended my first comic convention in 1994, and one of the dealers was telling me he was trying to get Gulacy to come down the following year to promote a
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents revival that never happened (aside from dumping the already produced material into the last issue of
Omni Comix.) Twenty years is a long wait to meet an idol, so it was nice to final close that particular life loop.
Gulacy ended up doing two pieces for me, a smaller one as part of a jam with another of my all-timers (two at one show!) and this one with my favorite Alien Atlas femme fatale,
Bel Juz. Unfortunately, this one was only pencils, and I could not get the thing to reproduce when I tried to scan it (as you can see above.) I considered getting it inked, but I'd already spent a lot more money than I should have on my hobby in 2014, so it had to wait until the following year.
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Several choice inkers came to Houston in 2015, but when I've talked to embellishers in the past, they either were doing exclusively their own original art, lacked the time for a full piece, or were cost prohibitive.
X-Men, Deadpool &
JLA inker Walden Wong was the first instance where everything lined up just right to get a redux done, and I think he did an excellent job of retaining the Gulacy while instilling his own personality into the piece, plus it must have been a real pain to do all those crossed spirals in the shadows! Wong often inks Carlo Barbieri, who had done Martian Manhunter for the
J'Onzz Family jam, and offered to erase the Gulacy nipples I specifically asked not to be inked, but I waved him off to keep them for posterity. Um, anterity? Look, I didn't order the nipples, but if Paul Gulacy wanted nipples in his pencils, I'll keep them so long as I don't have to wave them around on the internet.
Paul Gulacy
Walden Wong
