The JustCallMeAric Center for Valiant Noobs

[JustCallMeAric]

As a kid I loved reading comic books. In fact thats how I learned to read. My dad would read me the first half of a comic and then help me read the second half. As I grew up the comic industry suffered a setback and the local shops around me all closed. I pretty much forgot about comic books.

Last summer, my junior year of college, a couple of my friends invited me to go to a comic shop with them. I remembered how much fun comics were when I was a kid and eagerly went along. However, I was suprised to see that my favorite comics, Valiant were no longer in print. I began reading Green Lantern and searching for Valiant comics on the internet. I typed in ValiantComics.com which brought me here and the rest is history.

To all you noobs, hello. I am still a noob myself. I still over pay for books I like and don't always know where to find what I'm looking for but I'm learning. Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to check out my gallery. Its not much but its a start.

That being said, I hope you enjoy my Gallery

[JustCallMeAric]

As a kid my Dad's favorite comic book was Solar: Man of the Atom. When I re-discovered Valiant I started reading and it rubbed off on me.

One day I decided to email Jim Shooter. I didn't know if he would respond but I wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed his storytelling. He wrote back and even agreed to sign a few books. I thought wow so I pushed the envelope and wound up with this beauty.

Bob Layton is someone I admire a lot. Not only is he a very gifted artist but is also a cornerstone of the Valiant Story. However, as a poor law student I didn't think I would have the chance to own a piece of his work for a while. Luckily, I got this piece of art from Knightt. I really like Layton's use of shading in this piece. It is hanging next to my X-O Manowar piece over my desk.




I made an attempt to buy several Solar pieces before I bought this 2 page spread from Solar #54 on Ebay, from Tom Grindberg. I think its pretty awesome.

Here's a copy of the pencils Grindberg sent me with the inks (by Giordano).

Welcome back to the Center, today we are going to talk about Solar: Man of the Atom #41. I always thought Solar #41 had an interesting cover. I remember seeing it as a kid and wondering how Solar's identity got out. When Andrew Wendell was selling pages a couple of weeks ago I spotted Solar #41 page 11. It's a key scene from the story with Harada threatening to expose Solar's identity if he doesn't help him. If you look closely at the image of Solar talking you can see that they pasted a new drawing on the board. Guess they didn't like the positioning. Also, there is some pencil prelim art on the back. I posted it along with the inks of the finished section.




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As a kid I always liked X-O Manowar. The armor was just amazing to me.
Here are the pencils and finished inks to a commission he just completed for me. Can't to get it in the mail. His work is very afforable so you should get one if you're interested.

When I first got back into collecting I bought these pages off of Ebay, from Ron Hillman. This is the first original art i ever bought. It's Sal Velluto's preliminary art to X-O #2 page 1. Both original concepts for the page and have them framed in my office.
If you ever come accross the final inks please let me know.
Version A (I like it the best, its very engaging)

Here is the piece framed

I was pretty excited to receive this XO sketch from my Secret Santa. Its on the back of a Jim Calafiore sketch book (limited to 500). Pretty cool.

I start my 1st year of law school in 2 weeks and wanted a piece that reflects my interest in law and comics. I really lucked out and bought this piece from Catskills Comics (Shadowman#42 page 3). Oddly enough, I have yet to read this issue of Shadowman.

[JustCallMeAric]

Early this year a LCS announced that Jim Lee was going to be there signing books. I thought it would be cool to have him sign HARD Corps #1. My friends and I got there 2 hours before Lee was supposed to arrive, thinking we would be early. HAHAHAHA we were 40th. What made matters worse was that the store had a seperate line for subscribers and people who purchased Absolute Hush. However, I saw him doing sketches and was cool with waiting.

3 hours later I finally got to the front of the line. The organizers screwed things up. Lee sketched for the people in the subscribers line but nobody else. He also signed over 100 books for the first guy in the general line. Which was very nice but kind of ridiculous. When I got my turn he apologized for the wait and said he could only sign 2 books. My wife and I got him to sign HARD Corps #1, Deathblow #1, and the Deathmate Prologue. I submitted the the HARD Corps to CGC and it turned out great, it was my first CGC submission. Its the ONLY Signature Series Hard Corps #1 so eat your heart out you completists


My Favorite CGC Book (and Valiant cover)

An update of my CGC Collection. Slowly but surely completing my XO and Solar pre-unity runs.

[JustCallMeAric]

For some reason I have stumbled accross a lot of pre-Unity Solar in the year that I have been collecting. Ironically, I came accross more of these in the beginning but didn't buy them because I didn't see the point. I don't know why but I just keep on finding them so now I buy all the copies I come accross.
I guess these books would be my horde

[JustCallMeAric]

As a kid I loved this book, yes its the Chromium. It was the first Valiant I ever owned. Here is a CGC Gold, one of my signed copies (top right), and 2 regulars. I always thought that the cover to #1 was pretty cheesy.

[JustCallMeAric]

After many months of waiting I finally got my signed A&A: First Impressions hard cover. You can see the Velluto signature on Armstrong's jacket (suprisingly no COA from VEI). I won it for picking Max Theriot to play Archer and Robert Downey Jr. to play Armstrong in an A&A movie.

[JustCallMeAric]

I think this is one of the best looking covers of the 90s. It was also one of the hardest books for me to track down. I think everyone secretly hoardes these.

When my wife and I came up to look at FSU (I'm going to the law school) I drug around some shops with me. I found these NEWSTAND SALES variants in a dollar bin in Tallahassee, Florida. The shop owner was a pretty cool guy and I'll check his shop out again now that I live here.
My wife is great she found one of the Bloodshot books and a Shadowman V3 painted variant in a dollar bin.

[JustCallMeAric]

This was one of the 2 XO books I had as a kid. When Joe Quesada came to town for Megacon I had to have him sign it. Now since I was new to comics I didn't know how big of a deal Joe Q is. I went to a panel with him and was blown away by the number of people in the room. As I left I told myself there is no way I am waiting in another giant line, like I did for Jim Lee. However, I really lucked out and happened to be walking by Quesada's table as they were setting it up. I waited in line for abotu 30 minutes, because he was in another panel. but it was worth it. Palmiotti was there too. Both guys were class acts, especially Quesada.

The guy in front of me for Joe Q had him sign 20 Batman prints. He asked the guy what he was going to do with all of them and the guy didn't answer.



When I heard David Lapham joined the site and was doing free sketches an idea came to me. Why not have him do the sketch on the cover of Harby #1? I always thought that Harada was missing from the scene. Needless to say this is now the prize of my collection.A big thanks to DL for taking the time to do this sketch.
On another note I asked David about the reason for the cover change on Harbinger #1. I know the original cover is somewhere on the site. Hope you guys find this info as interesting as I did.

The first cover was drawn for promotion before I started at Valiant. When I was the artist of the book. I drew mine from the same layout. Also the cover probably appears in different colored versions. I think the promo version was inked by Layton over Shooters pencils, but don't quote me.

I just got this back in the mail from Jim Shooter. Now I just need the colorist's signature.

[JustCallMeAric]

A big thanks to Svair for this one. The script is ridiculously detailed. After reading it I have a greater appreciation for the amount of detail that Shooter puts into a script.

[JustCallMeAric]

When I got back into comics I did a few sketches of some of my favoriate Valiant covers. I'm out of practice. I used a sharpie to ink the Solar picture (bad idea).





This is a sketch that Stu and I worked on. I posted a pencil version and he reworked it. It was first time I really talked to someone on the board and it made feel like a part of the community.

[JustCallMeAric]