OA 12: Spawn 350 cover prelim

Original pencils purchased from Brett Booth as a "Sketch Saturday" Spawn sketch back in December 2018. Brett solicited suggestions for what he should sketch and I suggested: SPAWN! I was then lucky to win this piece once he finished it and tweeted first to email got it.

After getting the pencils from Brett, I then commissioned Adelso Corona to ink over a blueline scan of Brett's pencils. Then I commissioned Andrew Dalhouse to color Adelso's finished inks. Brett, Adelso and Andrew all absolutely crushed each phase of this creation!

So much so that when they all started working on Gunslinger Spawn for Todd McFarlane Productions in 2021: Brett and Adelso were asked by TMP to reach out to get my permission for this cover-quality "sketch" to possibly be used for a future Spawn cover! (that is the holy grail of any OA collector: buy a "sketch" that becomes a published cover).

Alas, this piece will apparently not be used as a published cover BUT the layout and colors certainly were used as the basis for what is the HUGE Spawn 350 milestone cover! I've included a photoshopped demonstration for how the Spawn 350 cover, to be published in early 2024, is an homage to this original 2018 "Sketch Saturday" Spawn piece.

Cool/interesting related sidebar:

While completing the transaction via email on 2018.12.16, Brett and I had this memorable-to-me exchange (and the rest is history, since Brett and Adelso went on to work on Gunslinger Spawn for Todd McFarlane Productions not long after! And they have just been announced as the regular penciler/inker duo for the main Spawn book starting with Spawn 350!):

Mike:

Would love to see you draw Spawn for an extended run!

Brett:

Spawn might be fun, I don’t know Todd though.

Mike:

Do you know Greg Capullo through DC at all? He and Todd are tight.

Brett:

I do know Greg.

I never pinned Brett down on how he was approached by Todd McFarlane to work on Gunslinger Spawn but I'd like to think I had a small part in it all coming together, LOL! (From the wayback machine, here is the deleted tweet I referenced from the tweet I just linked to.. not sure why I deleted that tweet, but a screenshot of it is also include at end of this piece's gallery)