P. Craig Russell

Craig is a fantastic comic book artist who is sadly neglected by today's fans.  Nowadays, the only work of his that most comic book readers would encounter are the sporadic inking jobs he does for various companies (the latest was inking over Paul Gulacy for a Star Wars series from Dark Horse Comics).  However, if you delve into his work, you can see that he's honed his own art to perfection over the years.  Having said that, Craig has always turned in beautiful work spanning from his stint on Killraven all the way through to his opera adaptations in comic book form.  His work is visually stunning and there's more to come since he's currently at the top of his form.

• Dr. Strange Annual #1 p.14:  Dr. Strange Annual #1 is a fabulous piece of art that took Craig four years to finish from start to completion.  The story that he plotted is a terrific piece of fantasy and a taste of what was to come from his imagination.  One of my collecting goals to reunite all the pages from this annual and complete the book for my colleciton.  This is a great Dr. Strange page -- I especially love the otherworldly landscape in the top panel.  (Inks: P. Craig Russell)
• Dr. Strange Annual #1 p.37:  Since the work on this annual spanned four years, you can often see that some pages were drawn earlier chronologically than others.  This annual is like a time-lapse film of Craig's development over those years.  This page is particularly interesting since the left panel was completed earlier and the panels to the right were completed years later and pasted on to the page.  (Inks: P. Craig Russell)
• Dr. Strange Annual #1 p.18:  Another page from the annual with some nice Ditkoesque psychedelic designs.  (Inks: P. Craig Russell)
• Dr. Strange Annual #1 unpublished page:  Here is an unpublished page from the annual.  Most of this page is rendered in graphite pencil except for the panel in the the very most bottom left which has been laid out in non-reproducible blue pencil.  This was a very rare find for me which I was very happy to chance upon.