I had the very special honor of getting Phil Jiminez to sign my copy today at the Marvel Booth at NYCC 2010. Weird thing was both Stan Lee (yes, that Stan Lee) and Phil from alphaflight.net were both a few steps away from me at the time - Stan was on the Marvel stage signing autographs and Phil from alphaflight.net was a few people behind me on the line.

When I showed the comic to Phil Jiminez, he told me it was the first time he had seen it in print! I pointed out my favorite parts of the cover: notably the pointy ears on Northstar (though it's sad that one has to distinguish this minor issue from so many other depictions of Northstar with rounded ears), the green magical flames from Talisman as well as the snowy effects on the lower part of the cover. Phil Jiminez then sort of dropped into a bit of a pedagogical mode, telling me that the snow wasn't his, just the colorist and then started to really emphasize how a colorist can have a big effect on the finished artwork. He was like, 'No, no I really want to make a point here about the colorist...' I agreed with him of course, and we both agreed that the snowy effects were pretty cool. Then he admitted that he heard he got the maple leaf wrong on Guardian's costume. I tried to explain how it was supposed to look, but he insisted that he had copied the shape from a Byrne image, and owed the misshapennes of the maple leaf to the fact that Guardian's stance was not exactly straight on. I really think that he did make an attempt to draw the maple leaf element of the costume, but nevertheless it came out looking odd.

Well it sure was cool to meet the guy!

Love,
rplass