Hello! My name is Gary Sella. I'm a friend of Drew's and a while back I had offered to fill in if he needed a break from his weekly Blog. As fate would have it, Drew is off making the comic world a better place this week and needed a hand. I had a few ideas of what I would like to write about and Drew was open-minded. The fact of the matter is, I'm probably like many of you out there. I'm a fan of comic books and a collector or original comic art! And it's the later that I wanted to discuss today!

   The first page of original comic book artwork I ever collected was a classic panel page from Fantastic Four # 236 (page 42, I believe). I was a always a huge John Byrne fan and to have a page from this great issue was very exciting, -not to mention an awesome gift! But after that I didn't expand on my collection for quite a while.

   But several years later I just happened to be looking around eBay one day and came across a near splash page of Dr. Doom by Salvador Larocca from the Hero's Return story line. Doom has long been my favorite comic character, so it didn't take long for me to decide to bid on it. These days I'd like to think of myself as rather knowledgeable about collecting comic art, but back then I didn't know anything. Even eBay was new to me! So this is the piece that actually ignited my passion for collecting comic art, but in the long run I ended getting so much more out of this then just some cool piece of art.

   The seller of the artwork lives in Italy. After working out the details, we ended up keeping in touch, -trading emails and talking about comic art. Because I paid by international money order (this was before the days of PayPal) it was going to be weeks before the payment would arrive, -to say nothing of when I would receive the art itself.

   Just in passing I had mentioned to the seller that my birthday was coming up. Even though he would not get the money order for weeks yet, unbeknownst to me he went ahead and shipped out the artwork so I would receive it in time for my birthday! I was shocked when, on my very birthday I received a package from Italy with the art!

   Keep in mind, I live in New Jersey! I can't drive to the corner store without another car trying to run me off the road while flipping me off! So any unexpected act of kindness always shocks me! It's been about 7 or more years since then and my buddy Ivan in Italy and I trade emails almost every day. He even sent me an invitation to his wedding!

   Over these years as my collection has grown I've become friendly with a bunch of other collectors, dealers and comic book professionals. I still get an amazing thrill when I trade an email with Bob Layton or Mike Zeck or Lee Weeks. I'm lucky enough to have become a little friendly with Ron Frenz, but whenever I speak to him I really have to work hard to keep my inner geek in check. I totally understand how Drew felt when he talked to Steve Ditko on the phone! (On a side note, I too have a Steve Ditko story but it's verrrrrrrry different from Drew's!) Heck, I became friends with Drew because of a connection with the extremely kind Steve Epting. Some days it seems to me that I have more friends through my comic collecting that I do on my own. Now years later I have a pretty nice collection of comic book art but I ended up getting much more than that in the process.

   That isn't to say every experience I've had while collecting comic art has been positive. I've had a few really bad ebay horror stories, I've been screwed over by one major comic art dealer, and one legendary comic book artist (who shall remain nameless) owes me a commission for 5 years now! (Wish I didn't pay in advance.) But over all, it's been great!

   If you've looked through Drew's art gallery you've already seen a few pieces from my collection. Few things make me as happy or excited as finding a new great piece of comic or newspaper comic strip art. And if you make some good friends along the way, what could be better? I suspect more than a few of you feel the same way.

   If you liked my guest Blog, please let Drew know!

   (Gary Sella is a Graphic Artist who lives in New Jersey. When not up all night designing food related packaging, educational text books, and assorted material for the pharmaceutical industry, Gary can be found sleeping, salivating as he drives by Ihop, and complaining that he never gets to watch the DVDs he buys. He also possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of Simpsons related trivia that never fails to amaze his friends and scare off women.)