Ryan Stegman's Art and Stuff

Hey folks

If you pick up X-23 #9, you will notice something: I only did 14 pages.  Why?

Well, during the deadlines for my two issues of X-23, issues 8 and 9, I had a couple things crop up that I didn’t have much control over.  Namely, I had a surgery on my mouth, (I’m fine now) and my wife and I had a baby.  Which is great!  But man did it take up a lot of focus and time and energy. More than I could have ever imagined.

So, in the end we decided that the best thing to do would be to get some help from a talented artist named Matteo Buffagni.  It was either that, or throw the entire Collision storyline that runs between Daken and X-23 completely off the rails and make all the books ship late.  I thought that you guys would appreciate that much less.

I am SUPER proud of the work that Mikey, John and I did on the first 14 pages.  Like the most proud of any stuff I’ve done in my career to this point.  And I’ve seen what Matteo did on the rest and he did a great job finishing it out.

I’m really appreciative that I was able to get help from Marvel and Matteo during this trying time. It was a tough few months. But we’re on the other side of it now and my baby is chubby and happy and my teeth are all in order.

So please, accept my sincere apology that I couldn’t do the entire issue. But I assure you, the book is still something that you need to pick up.  The story by Marjorie Liu is great and I personally think the book looks great and the transition between artists is a smooth one!

And here’s hoping I can come back and do a nice long run on X-23 someday!  Love the character.  And keep your eyes peeled for my issue of Amazing Spider-Man, #665 and the three issue mini Hulk vs. Dracula that I have coming up!

Thanks for being awesome!

Ryan