barneythecantankerous

A few years ago (whilst I was learning PHP) I wrote my own little scraper for myself (which was garbage!) and noticed the terms about not allowing scraping. So it's not that they have CAT blacklisted they forbid ANY scraping... My best guess is it's some incredibly outdated policy which they probably just haven't bothered to ever revisit, as there's absolutely no downsides for allowing it IMO. But yes, it's a weird strategy!

The site is absolutely outdated and needs a revamp, but then again HA is also not that great, I mean you need to contact customer service for a lot of minor things - the whole point of having a website is to remove friction and give your users autonomy, it's also why I dislike a lot of dealer and rep sites. But one thing they can change at zero cost is allowing website scraping. It's 2024 and they've got a ton of business, so their servers should be capable of handling it (if that's the excuse) and it would get WAY MORE traction IMO, as right now the process is - "oh a CLink auction, let me go take a look", seeing that not every piece has been listed and the auction is a few weeks/months away, then remembering to head back and take a look when the pieces are there, then remembering 30 days from the auction starting that you want to bid. Allowing sites like Comic Art Tracker to scrape would mean we could be made aware about auctions much sooner and with less friction.

I would raise a PayPal claim then contact Cadence and give them like a week to respond. If they get back to you DO NOT close the claim until you have the art in hand. If they don't get back to you or are messing you around then I would escalate it and maybe even ring PayPal afterwards to explain the situation, as I had a weird case once (unrelated to comic art) and customer service instantly resolved the case for me rather than making me wait or potentially side with the scummy seller.

Andrew is out as well. I don't know the ins and outs, but having spoken with a couple of the artists I'm friendly with it appears the owner (Paolo) has done something which is likely going to cost him his reputation and company. According to them it's almost certain that Cadence is dead. It seems like the artists are tying up loose ends with commissions and what not, but if you want art or are expecting something you should probably be at them.

I'm friendly with Andrew who works full time at Cadence (I have no idea about any other employees or whoever is handling emails), I can tell you he really does try to help out collectors (not just buyers) and the artists they work with and he does indeed attend a LOT of conventions. Not an excuse but I can empathise, after attending cons it wipes me out and if you're selling pages in person and with as many artists as they have and spread all over the world, unless you're good at keeping records I imagine it can be a challenge occasionally to track a piece down for shipping. But I also empathise with collectors because bad communication is still bad communication, whether it's a $50 or $5k piece, so I'm not excusing that. Andrew is active in the community, on Facebook, etc. so if you drop him a line directly I'm 100% sure he will get you sorted. FWIW because of how many conventions they do attend it might be worth mentioning whether collection in person is possible if you're going to one when ordering?

Yes I have to agree, the market has been inundated with Sandman pages the last few months, that personalisation right across the art of a fantastic page hurts it and with the economy in the crapper I can't see this breaking $100k. Especially on CLink.

Looking to raise some funds for a big purchase, so I've temporarily made most of my galleries available: https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=117354 Once I hit my goal I'm done. It's extremely tedious and time consuming going through every piece on CAF, so I'm mostly taking offers. If something does have a price I'm happy to work with you on that if you have a budget. All the necessary shipping info is detailed in my Offers & Trades gallery, but here goes: Shipping within the UK is free over £200. Below that is £5-10 (it really depends on the pieces) and outside of the UK is £25-100, again it very much depends on the piece(s), the insurance required, etc. But rest assured I'll do my best to find the most affordable and reliable services. Everything will include a little surprise bonus! I will be attending Thought Bubble this year so we can also arrange collection, to save shipping, and if we do so I'll provide some extra special surprises!

FWIW Travis originally sold this for $3-3.5k back in 2019 and it's been for sale ever since. As it originally sold to Albert, along with a bunch of other covers, which I think he's had a hard time shifting at 3x, as it seems a lot of them are either still for sale or went to other dealers (as this one did).

I'm pretty sure privately a few years ago pages from that issue with Swampy were around $20k and if memory serves it's been a long time since a #21 page was offered publicly. Even during the COVID price craze I can't recall seeing a page come up. That particular issue also marked a big turning point for the character so I think it's unsurprising it went at that price.

Lots, but how I've handled it depends on the piece. Some have just grown on me with time. Others I'm aware they were a unique opportunity, so I'll make do. But the rest are in my junk pile portfolio of stuff that's ready to go to auction. Unless you're in need of that money back I would hold onto it for a bit, as you might feel differently in a couple of months.

Agreed, and it's just the same recycled points made over and over again

I swear people who have published artwork they didn't contribute to the creation of being personalised need to have their collections taken away from them!

I agree with most of your points and interestingly yes I used to write big upfront messages, have them drafted for a few days, refine them and then eventually hit send. But I would never hear back, get a dry response or be treated as transactional. So over time I've lost interest in doing that (which is on me), especially over the last couple of years where commissions really are treated transactional, prices are crazy and the effort put into most of them is low. But yes I take your point and I think next time it's someone I really want something from I need to put in a bit more legwork. Thanks for the words of encouragement and thoughtfulness of your response as well, much appreciated!

I'm grateful at least one person understood my messages! But it's interesting so many also read into it wrongly, like the artist. But to anyone didn't understand, yes, the "next best thing" was a commission, not him as an artist.

As a UK collector let me sound ignorant for a moment about US taxes... But aren't most of these dealers high earners, meaning they pay higher taxes and as a result when they're getting these pieces they're paying auction house fees, sales/state tax(?) and then some kind of income tax? Meaning they need to charge these at often times overinflated/awkward prices to make it worth their while?

You're doing absolutely fantastic work Nico and it still blows my mind you're not charging for it given the quality and effort you put into it! Congrats!

After a month of missing out on pieces and lists at shows/online; an artist dragging their feet for 2 years on a commission, missing their own appointed deadline and me cancelling it in the end (as I was tired of having funds set aside, delaying it constantly and they literally doubled the budget we initially agreed on), as well as listing other pieces they agreed to sell me; and now a very awkward commission request I wanted to get some opinions as to whether I'm just an oddball that needs to give up and move on in this hobby. Seriously, brutally honest opinions welcome. I've blurred out the artist and request, because whilst I'm great at digging my own grave deeper all of the context needed is already there.

Yes! Think I also saw you going back to a table (around Peach) on Sunday having done the same thing 😂! I also saw you got a picture with the 2 guys from Singapore - really nice guys, I was feeling a bit down early Sunday but having chatted with them in the line before entering really turned my mood around, which I'm grateful for. I carry a giant backpack with a 13x19 portfolio and I can still mislay the damn thing! I also do the same thing of keeping it between my legs.

Ahh, I think I recognise your face, are you the chap who left pretty much all of his belongings at Gary Frank's table?!

Yes there's been a lot of hate for the commission auction which I honestly don't get. I don't think the convention has made money (ever), so it's another useful way to keep the con going, it's totally optional and you can still get a commission, it just means you have peace of mind for maybe that white whale you've been after.

So this one was just a display piece but if memory serves I'm pretty sure Dave's wife mentioned this and the original Arkham Asylum cover will both be in a Christie's auction at some point this year. There was another Hellblazer cover he brought along, for issue #6, which was absolutely incredible but unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. Hopefully the collector shares the piece somewhere as it's phenomenal - Dave used a piece of roof slate which he painted onto, smashed and stuck to the surface of the art.

I went back to see who ended at €25 I could only see Liam Sharp and Ryan Ottley, who were both taking commissions the whole weekend. Was this a different artist?

I'm a little sceptical about this so-called upping of prices, as literally every table I stopped at the dealers and artists mentioned how quiet it was Sunday. Some even desperate for sales. Nor did I personally observe this practice. Is there a reason you cannot be more specific? Here's a collection of my incredibly bad pictures from Dave's booth, a couple covers I got and some of Como: https://imgur.com/a/0FNIEHb --- Overall there is definitely "Como pricing", where artists and reps bump their prices compared to other shows. The counter point one of you is ready to respond with is "yes but some travelled international", yes, sure - but they don't normally bump prices to this extreme. In fact it's usually the case, at least from my experience in the UK, that prices are less than at US shows for international guests. There's definitely an overwhelming presence of reps compared to 2019, I wonder if that and the overall impression the convention has in the community has created this false expectation with vendors that all the attendees are piggy banks.

2 days for the convention, 1 day for a reception on Friday, which also gets you earlier access on the weekend. What kind of update would you like? I will say Dave McKean brought the heat IMO - a couple of Sandman related covers; an Arkham Asylum cover; Hellblazer stuff; etc. Just absolutely all incredible stuff. I'll try to get some pictures. Most other artists just took commissions such as Gary Frank and Lee Bermejo, who didn't bring any published work. The Bill Sienkiewicz stall was hilarious - dude dressed up like a slimy salesman trying to sell unpublished work for $10k+ (absolutely nothing had prices on either), when 2 tables down a dealer had published stuff for €700-1,200.

I think the way CLink runs their auctions is also a factor, I forever see comments when their auctions come up that people forgot about them. So they preview stuff like a month before the auction then the auction can last a month and there's no way to save/watch pieces on their super outdated site. It's an ineffective way to run IMO, as that length of time is way too long, especially with the amount of art that comes to market today.