16 years ago, I was a 15 year old dork wandering the mind numbing halls of Chadstone shopping centre. I'd likely blown a wad of cash on Magic: The Gathering cards or Warhammer miniatures, or was hanging with friends after taking in some crap US comedy at the cinemas.
Back then there was a store called "Silver K Gallery". It's still around today, but out in Armadale (Melbournites who watch TV late at night have probably seen the owner, an older gent with Doc Brown hair spruiking their latest art show). They specialise in high-end collectibles and animation art and cels.
All these years ago I was big into "Batman: The Animated Series" (I KNOW...who'd have fucking guessed!?) and Silver K had begun stocking production art and some sericels from the series.
One of these I fell completely head-over-heels in love with. It was titled "The Villains of Gotham City", a landscape sericel of 9 of Batman's foes from B:TAS.
I wanted it, so very, very badly. But the hundreds of dollars on the price tag shunted it into the realm of dreams for this poor, broke teen.
Years went by, and the sericel sold from "Silver K". I'd occasionally check their Armadale store, but they never got their hands on another one.
Last month I was scouring eBay for production art and cels, running the usual parameters of "Wolverine", Superman", "X-men" what have you, with "Litho", "Cel", Sericel" adjectives.
Well would you believe, one of these damn sericels was there. For sale. At a paltry US$99.95. With three days left on it.
For three days I bit my nails, watching the price remain steady...not a single bid. Could I truly be this lucky!?
It was 6:30am when the auction ended, and someone DID end up putting a bid in. Me. I now owned this sericel. I paid...and I waited.
Today, that waiting ended.
So, yeah.
16 years of pining for this damn sericel has finally come to an end.
It was love at first sight, and it hasn't subsided one iota.
Now I just need to frame it and figure out where to put the damn thing!
