Something happened recently regarding a piece I had illustrated more than ten years ago. In order to give you some perspective on it and why it made my day, I'm going to take you back a bit.

Long before Benedict Cumberbatch was known for his most iconic role...Doctor Strange, he had a small series in the UK called Sherlock. Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. Just kidding. It was quite popular for a long time and beyond just the amazing work of Cumberbatch and his Watson, Martin Freeman, the series excelled under the guidance of its creators, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

At the same time, Moffat was also wowing audiences with Doctor Who. Having taken over the long-running series with the introduction of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor in series five, Moffat was running on all cylinders.

Enter: Josh Adams.

Between Sherlock and Doctor Who, I became a big fan of Moffat's writing and I think, at the time, he became a trendsetter for a lot of film and television projects. But I was hooked. I drew a lot of inspiration from those shows and, as a visual artist, I jumped into doing fan art. I wasn't going at it like it was a profession, but I was legitimately inspired. This is what led me to eventually end up working on the Doctor Who comics for IDW Publishing.

I did a series of illustrations inspired by Sherlock. This was back in 2012 so it was before I was working digitally. All of these were done by hand with a brush so they took a lot of precision and skill to execute. I posted some of them online and was really happy to connect with other fans who all seemed to express a feeling that there just wasn't much Sherlock content out there aside from the show itself. A fact that is worth noting because not long after I posted my pieces online something happened.

Do you see it? There in the lower right corner of that incredibly old Twitter profile format. Steven Moffat himself had retweeted an article that featured my Sherlock piece. Now, that's not the craziest thing in the world. As an artist, you do pieces that get noticed. But I was pretty excited about it and it did set off a series of events that bring us to the present.

In the years following, my Sherlock pieces made the rounds quite a bit. I would be shown photos from fans of prints of my Sherlock pieces being signed by Benedict Cumberbatch or Martin Freeman. I cultivated a really pleasant relationship with people from the BBC and BBC America. They really embraced the idea of the community making fan art. At one point someone from the BBC I had met at a con had gotten one of my pieces to Steven Moffat himself. It was a pretty awesome thing to hear.

I ended up meeting the man himself in San Diego. I was exhibiting at Comic Con International and my table was down the aisle from the BBC's mega-booth. Mr. Moffat had seen my table in passing and recognized my work. I did my very best not to geek out, but I really did. I couldn't help myself. He reiterated his appreciation for the Sherlock piece I had done years ago and we took a photo together. Don't expect to see it here. I was so flustered that my eyes couldn't even find the lens of the camera and I look like I'm completely dazed.

Which brings us to present day. Riding shotgun on a long trip home, my phone started going off quite a bit with notifications. It turns out that a video had been posted on Twitter featuring Steven Moffat giving a tour of his office and something about it had to do with me. Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't some crazy reveal and I wasn't mentioned by name, but in the video he shows off a wall with about five framed pieces of art and/or photos and right there on the wall is the same Sherlock piece I did that he liked all those years ago.

How cool is that? There isn't much else to say but it made my day. Below is a close up of the piece. It's still one of my personal favorites, aside from the story attached to it, because I felt like I was being pretty clever with the design. Hope you like it too.

Thanks for reading. Would love to hear if you've had any cool interactions with creators of books, shows, or films that you love. Until next time!

- Josh Adams