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alxjhnsn

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Posts posted by alxjhnsn

  1. 40 minutes ago, gumbydarnit said:

    That’s a wonderful collection... it does need the Cockrum X-Men edition to round it out.  
     

    I’m a bit saddened that there’s no John Byrne, but it makes sense based on the other ones you bought. The one that seems a bit out of place with all of the classic artists is the Jim Lee.

    I would ask why the doubles, but I’m a comic collector so I don’t have to ask.. sometimes books just multiply.

    The only double is the one that Kathy and I each got at the IDW Simonson dinner in 2017. The Kirby Kamandi looks like a duplicate, but it's really two different volumes.

    The Jim Lee was really an excuse to donate money to the CBLDF. They were selling a signed Jim Lee Artifact edition for a reasonable sum as a fundraiser so I bought it. I like Jim's work, but I probably wouldn't have bought the book otherwise. There is only one Jim Lee book that I specifically sought out beyond my normal pull list - ICONS which featured an LSH story. :)

    John Byrne's work on X-Men I enjoyed - especially Days of Future Past from 141/142, but I'm not a huge fan of his art overall. I enjoy it and own a lot of comics with it, but I don't seek him out.

    I'll buy the Cockrum book, but I'd really prefer a Legion one. :)

     

  2. On 12/29/2019 at 8:49 AM, Roy David said:

    Hey all, 

     

    Newly signed up as I'm looking for experts to explain best place to price a piece of comic art I've had for years. TBH I'd forgotten I had it as it has been in a cupboard for years. Just found it during a clear out. 

     

    Any help or thoughts much appreciated. 

     

    Roy

    Re: Pictures
    There are apps for your smartphone that would allow you to take good pictures, e.g., CamScanner and Microsoft Lens.

    Re: Pricing Comic Art
    What follows is my standard answer. If you'd like it as an email, PM me with your email address and I'll send it along. It's in a spoiler tag because it is long and lots of people have seen it many times. :)

     

    Spoiler

    You might want to explore the following resources

    • The website Comic Art Tracker can help you find art and look at current asking prices for similar pieces.
    • The OA auction archive at Heritage Auctions – This archive presents the results from all of their OA auctions.. Once you sign-up and get an id, you can search for pieces by your artist and see what they have sold for.
    • The CAF Market Data - More auction results (more than 1,000,000) are available if you join the Comic Art Fans site, pay for Market Data access, and access eBay and other auction sites as well as Heritage.
    • The Comic Art Database. It contains transaction records entered by the owners of Comic OA.
    • Dealer sites. Dealers, generally, post their art with fixed prices though there are exceptions. There is a list of dealers on CGC OA board and the Dragonberry site has a list as well. The CAF site will search the inventories of several dealers for you. [Of course, Comic Art Tracker is better.]
    • Blouin Art Info which tracks sales at major art auctions. It can turn up some Comic OA as well. Look for the “Art Prices” item on the top right of the screen
    • Jerry Weist's Comic Art Price Guide - Heritage published a third edition of it. In my opinion, it's a good history book and might be useful for comparison work, but it was out of date a year before it was printed.
    • A topic  on the CGC OA boards, A-level panel page valuations by artist/run - thoughts/additions/changes?, holds a discussion that relates to your question. It provides some "generally agreed upon" ranges for popular runs by popular artists on popular characters.
    • The Biggest OA Prices thread tracked some of the largest sales in the OA space. While that particular thread has stopped; it's probably worth reading for the discussions. Meanwhile , the information is still being updated - just with a different mechanism.
    • Dealer quotations are valuable. To get one, you approach a dealer with the art (in person) or image (by email) and ask what they would offer for it. If they make an offer, remember that they need significant margin especially if they feel that the piece will not sell immediately. You might double their offer to reach a retail price. Of course, this is a very hard to manage approach. An excellent list of dealers can be found on Comic Art Tracker here. Check a few and use those that seem to carry art like you are trying to sell - some dealers do specialize.
    New buyers and sellers often find that OA is too hard to price. I agree that it is difficult. However, I think that there is a valid reason. Each piece is unique. Uniqueness make art sales generally and OA specifically non-linear.

     Examples of how pieces can differ in ways that impact pricing include:

    • Content: Consecutive pages could and do sell for radically different amounts based on their content. 
    • Page Layout: In general, you might say:

                Covers > 1st Page Splash > Other Splash > 1/2 splash > panel page

    However, that's not always true either. The right panel page can be much more compelling than a bland splash.

    • Penciler vs. character: There are "A-list" artists, but not all of their books/characters have the same value. Kirby FF pages generally go for more than JIM/Thor pages which go for more than Cap pages (2nd run) which go for more than ...
    • Pencilers/inkers combinations - Kirby/Sinnott FF pages rank above Kirby and anyone else on FF, but a Kirby/InkerX FF page might be more or less than a Kirby/Stone Thor page. Hard to tell.
     

    Finally, you should join the comic book OA community. The three main points of Internet contact are:

    The main points of physical contact are probably:

    • Dedicated Comic Art Shows
      • Comic Art Con (Spring/Fall) - A twice yearly show originally in northern NJ, but moving to NYC. The domain seems to have lapsed, but the show owner has a page for it here.
      • NYC Comic Art Expo - Annual spring show, nothing but art people (dealers, individual sellers, and buyers) and a few local artists. Held at the Penn Hotel opposite Penn Station
      • Torpedo Comics Collectors Convention (née LA Comic Art Show) - Annual art show one week before SDCC to leverage the dealer’s visit to the west coast
    • Conventions with High Dealer Attendance
    • Shows with a comic artist focus
      • Heroes Comic Con - Not a lot of comic art dealers, but a huge number of artists who generally will draw and have portfolios to sell
      • Baltimore Comic Con - Similar to HeroesCon.

    One last comment, if you are looking to buy or sell, spend the time to learn the market. That might take 6 months, but it's worth the time.

     

  3. 9 hours ago, Bronty said:

    2x the average is pulled straight from your posterior ;)

    gotta compare him to say Jim Lee.   We simply don’t know but I’d be surprised if Jim isn’t making more particularly once you add in what his work will fetch in the market  .   If you want to talk average page rates then the discussion is Don Perlin not Jack Kirby  

    Re: 2x
    Yes, it's a guess. 

    Re: Compare to Jim Lee
    Back in the 50s and early 60s (prior to 64 - the timeframe of the quote) the big money cartoonists were in the papers. Yes, Jack probably made more than many others in comics in the 50s/early 60s, but was it the same % difference as Jim versus others today? It seems unlikely to me.

    Plus Jack didn't have the aftermarket for his work that Jim has; Jack's sole buyer was the publisher. :(

  4. 4 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

    So today's artist combined (high) rates at $385 - especially if you need to add in a writers fee on top of that -  is close to the high range of the inflation calculator of Simon &Kirby's $480 in 2020. (a $95 a page difference)

    Still that's a 20% pay cut over the years and the cost of the books (64 pages for $0.10 cents) to today (20 pages of story for $4.00) is even greater than inflation (640 pages per $1 vs. 5 pages per $1; 128x). Someone's making money, but it doesn't seem to be the creative types.

  5. 2 hours ago, Bronty said:

    That’s not apples to apples... can’t compare Kirby to what the starting or average guy is getting.   Even in the 50s he was already a grizzled veteran

    Inflation since then is nearly 10x. If you care to assume K was 2x the average, the majority of the artists today are still being paid less in purchasing power.