Thinking about it, my first page of original art could have been this one from JLA 94:

Got it at JB's table at his last convention appearance; MOC 2004.  Wanted it because of the Robotman reveal.  The only thing it doesn't have, unfortunately, are the word balloons.  It's always been my intention to put it in the middle of a frame with the scan above on the left side and the finished page from the comic on the right.  Haven't gotten around to doing that, but hope to soon. 

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Edited by Brian Peck on 14 January 2011 at 12:22pm

I met JB and bought my first piece of original art in the same day! 

1998: Jim Warden introduced me to John at a Orlando comic con. Before I could lift my jaw off the floor, John opened the satchel he was holding and said, "Oh! I have something for you..." and pulled out the original art from this cover...

...one of my favorite memories EVER!

A collector once offered me 4 thousand dollars for the art. No way. I am NEVER parting with that piece!

For one thing, I was blown away by the smooth confidence of the single brush stroke with which he delineated Rock's nose in the fourth panel profile.

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Yes, that fourth panel is what grabbed my attention.

I haven't bought any original art yet, but this thread has got me thinking maybe I should start!

Lars: I do not collect much art, since a comic book is better the way it is meant to be, rather than a black and white version where some unwanted stuff can be seen. I want to point out that (apart from JB who uses a professional drawing board and well sepected pens) many artists use very inexpenisive stuff, much toy equipment that I can buy everywhere, pencil, bic pens so learning something from the paper by examining it I don't believe in. And there are also many different sizes used, from actual comic book size (!) and up so it's no magic standard size or "I this is the REAL size" of a comic book page either, so they joy of that is also lost. The more I have tried to learn from original art, the less I know. Anyway, I collect some comics that I was working on that I will never write about here, that is not allowed, and also some storyboards also, and I collect whatever inexpensive stuff that I find at flea markets. I dislike convent stuff and also they way some artists are treated, the artists are forced, they should draw this and that and the fans get pissed off and I watched a movie, where I wonder why Stan Lee should watch his own stuff made in the sixties and get pawned several times and Lee said tha the had more art in the basement and nobody got happier by that comment at least not on this forum, since that would mean that the art that people have will be worth a lot less. And I'm sorry JB, that's in my opinion when art collecting has lost its appeal.

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I don't live in a beautiful, gigantic, Beverly Hills mansion because it would be too hard to clean.

First original art page : one page from Alpha Flight #20 (first appearance of Gilded Lily in the last panel). Still have it. I only sold 4 or 5 pages since I started collecting, and that was a deal to get a page from a Marvel Team-Up issue by JB. I still have all my JB pages I bought over the years.