In the summer I visit Virginia Beach everyday and always make it a point to check out the Boardwalk Art Show and Festival held for 4 days every summer. In 2011 I discovered an artist who had I never seen there before, G.P. from Florida, who specialized in carving illustrations in acrylic. I was impressed by his command of intricate detail and bold use of eye catching color. All of his work on display depicted wildlife like birds and fish in their natural settings. I had no interest in wildlife but I knew instantly G.P. had the talent to create something I was interested in, 3-dimensional sculptures of some of my favorite Marvel comic characters, starting with the Watcher.

One of my favorite Marvel story lines was in Tales To Astonish #72 and #73 where the Incredible Hulk’s nemesis, the Leader, sends the Hulk to the Watcher’s home planet to steal the Watcher’s Ultimate Machine. I already had a poster of the cover of Tales To Astonish #73 nicely framed up and also a page of original art from that issue showing the Hulk walking among the Watcher’s collection of artifacts on his home planet. Now with my discovery of the artist G.P., I wanted a final piece of art to consummate my affection for the Watcher and Tales To Astonish #72 and #73.

Although G.P. had never worked on comic book or science fiction subjects before, I persuaded him to take on this ambitious project for me. I sent him photos of the Watcher’s artifacts and machines taken from Marvel comic books that I wanted included and we agreed on a rough sketch of the finished piece. G.P. usually only worked in 1 or at most 2 layers of acrylic. The complexity of the job I wanted would require 3 layers of acrylic. He told me he had only done 1 piece for a client that used 3 layers but I didn’t want to cut any corners and told him to proceed with using all 3 layers.

I wasn’t there to supervise G.P.’s work and spent the next few months thinking of all the things that could go wrong on an unusual, complicated project like this on subject matter the artist wasn’t familiar with. Finally, on 8 November 2011 G.P. delivered the finished piece to me while making a trip to another art show. I was extremely pleased and thrilled at the final result. G.P. had created a beautiful piece of 3-dimensional acrylic sculpture with all his customary fine detail and exotic color. I’m sure that later when money permits I will be commissioning him to do some more Marvel characters for me; the Leader and Kang the Conqueror.