If you have followed me for a while you will have undoubtedly noticed my Prowler mask. Prowler is a character that first appeared in the “Amazing Spiderman #78” in 1969 and even though I was not born for another 17 years he has always been a favorite character of mine. I will not go heavily into his history as that is not the point of this post, you can check the above link for more info on the character if you would like, however, the point of this post is that in 1994 Marvel released a 4 issue spin off Prowler series and it was illustrated by the amazing Bill Reinhold. I remember reading them when I was young and I always related to the Prowler character. Fast forward to 2009 and a chance meeting at a New Balance Party in Japan and I was able to get my very own custom mask for Sekure D, the choice for me was an easy one, the character I chose was Prowler.
Fast forward again to the present day and I was recently able to acquire an original page of comic book art from issue 1 of Prowler on ebay. I didn’t expect to be able to find something this amazing 18 years after the books release but after it arrived I was determined to find more. I found the one and only Bill Reinhold also on ebay and we began communicating via email. I have to say, it’s refreshing to have someone whose work you look up to and have never met give you their time, have a conversation and even check out and then compliment you on your work. I asked Bill to check if he had any other pieces left in his collection and to my surprise he was able to find 3 more pages as well as the incredible original cover coloring by Linda Lessman. Bill and Linda are now married and met almost 8 years earlier working on a comic entitled ‘The Badger’.
(Above is 1 of the 3 new pages I now own, below is the original issue 1 coloring, this is an old school technique done with coding for the printers)
Well needless to say I purchased all the aforementioned artwork and Bill being the super nice dude he is sent me a present with my purchases. I have to say this is one of the best and most exciting surprises ever to grace me and my studio. Bill turned a photograph of me in my Prowler mask taken for an online interview into an incredible piece of original artwork. Needless to say the piece is amazing but more than that it just represents so much of what I work towards and try to achieve. To have someone like Bill Reinhold take the time to do this for me really keeps me motivated to work hard and keep pushing towards my goals. It might not be the biggest or brightest piece in my studio but it probably means the most, thank you Bill and hopefully I will catch you in Chicago soon!
Sekure D 