The Art Gallery: 2013 WonderCon 501st Tusken Invasion Darth Maul

This month’s Art Gallery display is from last year’s WonderCon, a comic convention held in Anaheim, California. This sketch card was done by the artist Mike Vasquez and it was a custom sketch for the 501^st Tusken Invasion. The 501^st Legion is a volunteer fan-group of cos-players who create accurate costumes (Imperial and “villain” characters only) from the Star Wars movies. They were created to promote an interest in Star Wars but have since become a non-profit organization who not only appear at comic conventions but also contribute to their local community too (going to children’s hospitals, gathering donations, fund raising, etc.).

I picked up this one because like Anakin Skywalker I have slipped from the light side of the force to the dark side. I now prefer the bad guys when it comes to collecting and Darth Maul is among my favorites (along with the Tusken Raiders). He was the only saving grace of the disaster called The Phantom Menace. If you haven’t seen it, you should take a look at How It Should Have Ended’s take on how Phantom Menace should have ended (Skip to 2:30 in the video).

Mike Vasquez has sketch cards in a ton of sets over the last three years and he has worked for Topps, Upper Deck, Cryptozic, Cult Stuff and Viceroy.



I would also like to thank all of the people who responded to my Friday post asking for input on favorite players. I got plenty of responses and this has given me a nice lead in to the next phase of my 5th Blogversary plan. If by chance you have not responded to the thread yet feel free to post at any time, I will continue to monitor new responses and update my list.