alxjhnsn

Yeah, deciding to send the art is the biggest decision. Priority Registered from Houston to Orlando was $80. So, $160 was the minimum I would have spent. As far as bleaching goes, I have a sunburned piece (why was it framed off center anyway?) It's colored pencils. When I asked other restorers (not Alexandra), they said that there was nothing that they could do. Basically, I would need to block off the tanned area and let the lighter side age.

As I have said before, I spend the same pool of funds money that my friends prefer to spend on their golf games. I really don't care about resale value. I hang some and put the others in portfolios that display on custom book stand and flip through each day. It makes me smile. Am I smart? Probably not from an investment POV. From a smiling POV though I am.

One of the two most commonly mentioned comic art restorers is Robert Dennis. Robert attended the proceedings of January 6th, 2021 in Washington, D. C. and was convicted of attacking officers. He was later sentenced to 36 months in prison and fined.

Here's how it went. I reached out and explained what I wanted done and asked if she was interested. She was. I sent her pictures of the pieces and my areas of concern. She made some comments, but said that she couldn't quote unless she had the pages in hand to examine. I made the decision to send them to her - USPS Priority Registered. USPS Priority Registered keeps the package under lock and key the entire way, but it is slow. I put an Apple AirTag in the box to track it. That was interesting to see. She got the pages and told me what she thought she could do and what she would not be willing to do (bleach the pages due to the damage that causes). Eventually, she sent me a quote and asked for 1/2 up front with the balance due when she shipped the completed work back. The bid was Lump Sum Turnkey (LSTK). I could have declined. The cost in that case would be the shipping in each direction. There was no charge for the evaluation mentioned. She sent a large number of pictures of the work as she did it. The total less S/H was just a bit more than $1600 for the batch, but she didn't do a lot of work on some of the pages. Turnaround from the time she received the material to the time she shipped it back was a couple of days over a month. Your mileage my vary depending on her workload. Yes, Bill Cox recommended her and used her services. See above.

I have a little more time so here's the next piece that I had restored. It's page 11 of S&S 93, a one page story entitled How to play Arrgh!. Here are the before and after images: The scans don't show much difference, but the patched area is much lighter now. She lifted it off, cleaned up the glue on both the board and the patch and used an archival hinge to allow me to see bot the original drawing and words and the printed panels. Here's what was under the patch after it was cleaned: Now here's the patch: I think he definitely improved the story with his change. I'm grateful that she could clean and neutralize the glue and hinge the patch so I can view both.

I recently hired Alexandra vonHawk of Von Hawk Labs Restoration (https://www.vonhawklabs.com) to restore four pieces of art from my collection. I thought I'd show these two first. They are: An unused cover proposed for Scribbly #13 based on the writing on the piece A recreation done by Sheldon Mayer in watercolor, pen, and ink. Here we have the before (top row) and after (bottom row). I now think the color piece was intended by Sheldon to be the cover to Buzzy, but DC used a different artist. This explains why Scribbly's hair is red vs. the normal black. Here's the published Buzzy cover for comparison. The other images are progress shots from Ms. vonHawk as she worked on the pen and ink piece. I'm very pleased with her work and communication. Hope you enjoy it.

I thought I'd share this $100 piece - the Red and Rover strip for 2023-06-04. Click the image to learn more!

You are soliciting commissions.

This belongs in the Original Comic Art Marketplace.

I have my want list setup, it got one ping for a piece well above what I can/would pay. That's okay.

I wouldn't ink the pencils, but I did have Joe Rubinstein ink a blue-line and had Laura Martin color that. The pencils hang at my house. The colored piece at my eldest's house.

@Dr. Balls,Yes, it's custom. If you are interested, I can put you in touch with my cabinet maker. He's really good and affordable. Just PM me.

I do that, too.

I should have mentioned this on my first post. I my best pieces framed and hanging, but I also have a book stand upon which I place a portfolio. Each day, I turn the page to see new art. It works for me. Here are some pictures of the book stand in use: Here's the framed and hung art. Jeremy Bastian Cursed Pirate Girl on the far left. Art Baltazar's Action Cat. David Wright's Carol Day - consecutive strips from my favorite story, Problem Child. Percy Crosby's Skippy cut off the top. Curt Swan's Superbly, Mon-El and Shadow Lass. Boring/Shuster Superman strip. Frank Brunner's Howard the Duck vs. Donald Duck. Kaluza's Shadow and Margo. Sheldon Mayer's Santa and Rudolph (front and back covers tell a story), Colored print of a LSH commission by Yale Stewart. LSH painting by Agnes Garbowska Frank Brunner's Dr. Strange and friends. Tolkien's Middle Earth map recreated and scaled larger by me. Al Plastino's Adventure 247 LSH splash re-created. Sekowsky/Sachs JLA 29 (my first comic!) page. Gene Colan DD & BW commission. David Petersen's Mouse Guard (Kenzie). Sheldon Mayer's birthday card for his mom. Swan Superman. Patrick McDonnell Earl and Mooch. Sheldon Mayer's Sugar and Spike (his sample Sunday when he tried to sell it as a newspaper strip). Carey Bat Lash. Stan Lynde's Rick O'Shay at Christmas.

I agree with they shouldn't offer if they can't do it.

Michael, I doubt it's a monetary difference. I suspect it is a matter of who will give them the most repeat business. A publisher will win that battle against a commissioner who is likely to buy only once. So, #pages * page rate > 1 commission.

Thank for sharing. Jim was a very talented artist and a really nice person.

A new addition to my comic strip collection and like many others, it is kid centered. In this case, it's Russell (Red) McLean and his dog Rover. Rover was a stray who saved Red's life by pulling him from an on-coming car. They have been tight ever since. It's written and drawn by Brian Basset. Terrific strip in my opinion. Hope you enjoy this example. You can see the color guide and the published form on the link. Click the image to learn more.

Once upon a time, there was an auction arranged by Brad Meltzer to raise money to restore Jerry Siegel's childhood home. In that auction, there was a Legion of Super-Heroes piece by Curt Swan. It was the cover to the second issue of the ICG Legion of Super-Heroes Index. That was MY Legion by my favorite artist. I had to have it. I watched and waited. I had three kids in college at that point and really couldn't afford to spend a lot of money, but man I wanted it. My wife encouraged me so I over time I bid more than any Swan cover of that vintage had ever sold for. It was clear that I was bidding in real time at the end against someone, but I had no clue. Finally, I bid more than I really was comfortable with (with my wife's approval). IIRC, it was $7000. That was a LOT of money for us. I lost. The good news was that the art showed up on the CAF site. It had been bought by David Mandel. I've met David once and really enjoyed the visit, but the similarity of our finances is faint. I had no chance. If I'd known I was bidding against him, I wouldn't have bothered. I found out from the CAF post, that David helped with the auction and that Mark Waid had brought this piece and one other as potential donations. David was consulted by Brad and he said this one! So close... P.S., I've since collected a few Swan Legion pieces that make me happy enough. None is a flashy, but they are quite nice.

Wrightson zombies from "The Others". Click image for more.

Rocket Raccoon of the Guardians of the Galaxy? Interesting. Disney/Marvel needs to upgrade their marketing game.

+1

I'll have you know that I've been off for many years!

Neil went to some trouble with the signature - he switched from a white ink to a black one fairly seamlessly. Interesting touch.

I guess this counts. It's a DPS from a (Whitman?) coloring book featuring Superman in his Supercar. Does anyone happen to know the coloring book? Double click on the image to learn the bit that I know about it and why I bought it.