I recently saw this piece for sale at a very decent price and decided that I had to own it.

As you can see, that's page 9 of Booster Gold Volume 2 #33, with pencils by Chris Batista and inks by Rich Perotta and Prentis Rollins. Which of the two inked this page? Did one do foregrounds and the other backgrounds? I don't know.

What I do know is why I chose this page as my first ever piece of original comic book art. As Rip Hunter can tell you, it's all about the collar.

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Yes, that banner up there says "one page at a time," but today you're getting two!

In 1989, a three-part story written by Cary Bates in Captain Atom #26 , #27, and #28 that more-or-less resolved the messiest parts of the backstory of why Captain Atom lied to the Justice League about his personal history.

(Turns out the adventures of the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Captain Atom were just a government cover story to disguise how Atom was really blackmailed into participating in the weapons test that gave him his powers by a criminal conspiracy of Vietnam vets in a plot stolen directly from Lethal Weapon. Like I said, it's messy.)

Anyway, the point here is that Booster Gold was one of the three Leaguers who confronted the good Captain with evidence of his mounting lies. Since Booster played a significant role in only the first two chapters of this story, appearing only on the first page of the third, I figured I might as well present my favorite pages from those two issues at the same time.

First is Captain Atom #26. As my favorite page, I could have chosen a sequence earlier in the book in which Booster, Blue Beetle, and Mister Miracle clasp hands then go undercover... by wearing sunglasses. But for full-page goodness, I'm going with page 22, in which a thief from the future living under an assumed name unironically demands "no more secrets"!

Yeah, the posed figures are stiff, but I'm enamored by the layout. Note how the top of the page is a separate panel presenting an establishing shot of the city skyline, and the tail on Booster's speech balloon acts like a pointer showing where they are, as well as allowing Booster to speak first despite being in the center of the page. I assume the balloons were all created by letterer Carrie Spiegel on top of Pat Broderick's art. Well done.

In the very next issue, Captain Atom #27, my favorite page is also based mostly on what Booster has to say. Despite never having been seen wearing a deerstalker cap or skis, our hero is suddenly an amateur detective and an expert skier!

And he flies faster than the Blue Beetle's bug? Oh, Booster, is there anything you can't do?

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The Booster Gold/Blue Beetle team-up story you can't buy this week resides exclusively at Ross Pearsall's Super-Team Family Presents... blog at braveandboldlost.blogspot.com.

Blue and Gold seem a little out of their depth here, but when has that ever stopped them before? Keep up the good work, Ross.

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I've been teasing you this was coming for weeks, and now it's time:

A preview of Blue Beetle #7 is available online at AIPTComics.com, but I'm sure you don't need it.

Buy this comic and make Skeets happy.

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Cort Carpenter has dedicated himself to compiling the World's Best Booster Gold Sketchbook. And it just keeps getting better!

Take a gander at these seven newest additions:

Heather Antos

Russ Braun

Kerry Callen

Mike Choi

Travis Mercer

Rachel Ordway

Joshua "Sway" Swaby

By my count, that's 106 different commissions Cort has now shared with us over the years. I'm sure I speak for Booster boosters everywhere when I say we sure like looking at them.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: commissions cort carpenter fan art heather antos joshua sway swaby kerry callen mike choi rachel ordway russ braun travis mercer