PIGLET by Mike Royer

Mike Royer is an Inkpot Award winning artist who was inducted into the Inkwell Hall of Fame earlier this year (2021). He is best-known in the Comic Book community for his longtime collaboration with Jack Kirby, most notably on his Fourth World titles at DC Comics and The Eternals at Marvel. In 1979, Royer began a 14-year staff position at The Walt Disney Company, helping to launch their Winnie the Pooh licensing program –eventually swapping to freelance on almost everything Pooh-related, while also working on Digimon at Fox and a host of other Fox Kids titles popular with the younger anime audience.

This adorable Piglet drawing from Mike’s Disney years shows the lovable A.A. Milne character strapping some racquets onto his feet to use as snow shoes –no doubt to forage for some acorns in the Hundred Acre Wood.

While Royer’s Winnie the Pooh and Tigger drawings are fairly common, his solo Piglet illustrations are legitimately more rare. He turned 80 this past June, and has been retired since 2019.