Trying to find a specific old X-Men panel for a friend's tattoo design took me down a rabbit hole for two weeks

A buddy of mine wanted a tattoo based on a panel from the 'Dark Phoenix Saga' but he could only describe it as 'the one where Jean looks really sad but also powerful, with her hair blowing'. I mean, that's like half the book, right? I figured I could find it in an hour. I started with my own trade paperbacks, then hit up digital comics, and even went to the local shop to flip through back issues. The problem was he was mixing up two different scenes from separate issues, 134 and 137. After about six days of looking, I had to just sit down with him and go page by page through my copies. It turned out he was remembering the emotion from one scene and the actual pose from another. We finally nailed it down, but man, what I thought was a quick favor ate up a bunch of my free time. Has anyone else ever gotten stuck for ages trying to track down a comic moment from a vague memory?

1 comments

1 Comment

mason_flores2h ago

Always ask for the issue number first.