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Nice Suicide Squad pieces. I always enjoy seeing them.

As for me, I just got the Russ Heath recreation of Showcase 29 that I ordered. 3 months start to finish isn't bad and the work is excellent (again). Russ still has it at 84 years young!

You can see it here or you can scroll down, but feel free to click the link or image and leave a comment.

Forgot the link to the image, I think.

I agree. Very nice.

By the way, I'm crushed, crushed! I tell you, that no one commented on my wonderful Christmas present above. My ego needs the feed.

Reminds me of this Tales from the Con strip.

I had a very Merry Christmas and look at what I got thanks to my wife with an assist from Russ Heath and Steve Wyatt.

You have to check it out - it has a three-headed, fire breathing, sea horse!

http://cafurl.com/?i=19213

For those that don't like to click (shame on you), here's the image:

I had a very Merry Christmas and look at what I got thanks to my wife with an assist from Russ Heath and Steve Wyatt.

You have to check it out - it has a three-headed, fire breathing, sea horse!

http://cafurl.com/?i=19213

For those that don't like to click (shame on you), here's the image:

Fun stuff, Travis. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, linking to the block from the CAF is a good idea and easy.

Chris,

If you paste this in your description, you'll get a working link:

Neil Gaiman's blog featuring this image

you can change the text "Neil Gaiman's blog featuring this image" to whatever is appropriate.

If you click the image in the blog, it takes you to the CAF.

Excellent!

Interesting. Hard to believe that out of all those people none would leave a comment. Can you comment if you aren't a CAF member?

Thanks for both comments. I must admit that as nice as the art is being married to Kathy is better.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was my thirtieth wedding anniversary and Kathy gave me yet another wonderful gift (as if her marrying me wasn't enough).

This is the rejected cover for Sword of Sorcery #1 (Amethyst) by Aaron Lopresti. DC decided that the characters on the covers of the new books should be leaping out to the audience, but they didn't make that decision until this was finished. I think this piece is a better composition.

There's a bit more to the story so give the link a click and check it out.

Congrats, Court!

The fact that they do so much restoration is one of the things that makes me consider them a collector willing to trade; rather, than a dealer.

For example, I have a Swan Legion page that is missing a word balloon. I want to get it replaced and I am torn between:

1) Replacing and mounting on the board

2) Mounting on an overlay.

It's actually a tough call for me since it's just the one balloon. I did have Chris Ivy add the cover blurbs to my DeCarlo Archie as an overlay, but that was much more substantial. I do need a scan of the piece without the overlay though.

I'd like to preface this with that my relationship with Coollines Art has been only through e-mail and while we've never struck a deal they have always been prompt and polite.

That said, they do things differently than I would and one of those is "restoration" of their art. One example is Curt Swan's cover for Superman Annual #7.

This Curt Swan piece was sold on Heritage in 2007 -

As I understand it, the Heritage buyer sold/traded it to the Donneleys.

They now show it on their site as:

A conversation on the Curt Swan FB fan page led to an e-mail conversation with Steve.

Steve told me in that note that:

As our web site mentions, the large center Superman figure by Curt Swan was the only original art ever created for this cover. The four side images were stats taken from images of earlier reprinted stories and were missing from the original when I bought it.

 

"The 4 side images on the 1963 annual were originally stat'ed from earlier Superman stories and were hand redrawn for this cover"

 

So, I had the missing stats redrawn and placed on the original art board in the exact position that the DC production material would have gone!

So, they restored the cover to its original state by re-creating stats.

An interesting point was made on the Swan FB page by Ray Cuthbert about Steve's assumption:

Steve's information to Alex above shows an incorrect assumption. All of the images for that cover were drawn especially for that cover by Swan & Klein. They were not stats unless they were drawn by Swan and Klein and then statted for publication purposes. The stories reprinted were not all drawn by Swan, let alone all inked by Klein. There is no way that those were stats from story panels originally. I have no idea if it was done on two separate boards, but I suspect so, since only the "statue" part was done in ink wash, to make it look distinctive.

While I would not have mounted "replacement stats" on the original Swan piece, I might have done it on an overlay.

There are several takeaways here:

1) People do try to "restore" art and Coollines is one place that does.

2) Proper restoration is hard.

3) Be an informed buyer

PS. If you are interested in the Swan FB Fan Page, let me know.

In the old days, lettering was hand down; today it is most commonly done by using computer tools to add it to a scanned image of the page.

BTW, inking is moving that way rapidly. It's common to see pages of OA pencils and the same page with blue-line inks. Here's one of mine:

Finally, pencils are moving to the computer as well. It's conceivable that we are buying a dying art form.

I prefer pages with everything - pencil, ink, and words.

Love batman's shadow on the building behind him. Very cool.

That's one of my favorite features in the piece, too.

I agree with Kevin J. Thanks for posting both.

Yet they're still in business after all of these years The tactic is working on someone (many someones!)

Or they have other sources of income. They've always struck me as collectors more than serious dealers, i.e., someone driven to turn inventory.

Ah! That explains it. Can you post a scan of the pencils? I really enjoy seeing the inker's impact on pencils.

I like the minor changes, e.g., Superboy's jaw, that Joe Rubenstein made to Mike (Nasser) Netzer's LSH piece for me. You can see both by clicking on the image below:

Re: Topps

Regular work from regular clients is good!

Did JLGL ink it? It's very nice.

The $5 ones are a bit small (a reflection of their value? ). Got a bigger scan?