Eric Seffinga

It says issue 62 on it... http://comicvine.gamespot.com/spawn-62-return/4000-43768/

I think reserves can be an OK safety net, so long as they are set below the low end of comps. i.e. If a piece is in the overall market range of say 8-12k, setting a reserve at 5 - 6k ensures one doesn't take a complete bath on it in the instance that 2 collectors don't show up that day interested in it. Now setting the reserve up in the 8-12k range is just stupid for a number of reasons, but whatever. I think part of it has to do with actual willingness to liquidate, but part can also have to do with the specificity of a type of work. I think there are some niche artists and titles out there where some big dollar pieces could sell for next to nothing due to timing, or lack of advertising. We always talk about how it only takes 2 or 3 interested parties to make a piece blow by expected estimates and set records. The flip side is if 2 of those folks don't show, it can go the complete opposite way. In the interest of disclosure, I haven't auctioned off anything with a reserve in ages. But I don't see them as all bad, so long as they err on the very low end. What I've seen on this auction is the opposite of that.

Tossed 5 pieces of Harren rumble art on CAF. I love these things so much. Thanks to Felix for making it so easy. http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=7723

Extra cool if your name is Gary...

Enjoyed this. Especially the roundtable on this one. Interesting to hear the chats when the table is with people of mixed interests and collecting levels, because they each inject a unique perspective. Would love to hear more of these with collectors of varying backgrounds.

A direct link is right at the bottom of Felix' post...

I'm with you on the Red Planet piece, actually.

I was laughing my butt off when I saw this yesterday. Classic!

I'm thinking if you ever do a podcast where there isn't Dark Night Returns talk, there will be riots! Paul's a badass. Can't wait to listen to this one.

You got a fanboy, dude!

Pretty sure I've left comments on those each and every one in the past because they are totally right up my alley, but i'll say it again here. That last panel on the Death page... expression says it all. Good stuff!

I know nothing about the book, but that Ninjak piece is super dynamic.

Since I've managed to blow my whole, I'm not buying any art in 2016 goal as posted in that thread... Wondering if anyone's ever seen this piece by John Van Fleet? He and Chiarello are on my list of artists I've been on the lookout for since the 90s, but I haven't spotted the right work to make me want to buy it. They made shockingly little actually. Would dig having a crack at that Shadows Fall cover from Van Fleet though!

As far as the Bond posters go, I was always a fan of this one myself. Not the most historic or well known, but such a cool image... even if no ladies in it... https://paddle8.com/work/frank-mccarthy/88873-thunderball-look-down/ That ET poster is an unabashed icon. Really curious to see how that plays out. $150K seems hella low to me, so I'm assuming that's to spur interest.

That face is really nicely done.

Yeah, I like that concept better than what they made by far.

...cosmic pants.

To put a different angle on that whole idea that dealers today don't deal in 90s art idea... back in the 90s they did. Just as today, most of them rep certain artists and deal in their current art now. The short answer is they sold that stock 20 years ago. OP mentions Kelley Jones on Batman, for example. Mitch used to sell some of JK's Batman pages through GC. Albert Moy had pages too. Others had pages at the time as well. Prices were in the $50-200 range for panel pages, with splashes being more. Not going to see them for those prices today with Batman on the page, but they do exist and pop up from time to time. Mostly from individuals selling them via eBay or classifieds on CAF. Occasionally Heritage. Like with anything else of quality, you gotta dig for the deals, or hold your nose and hit buy if it's something you gotta have. Kelley did keep a certain amount of his work as well, so it's not all floating around out there that I'm aware of. Terry Moore sold me a page from SiP #5 in '96 at Chicago Con. He'd just drawn it and told me it was bittersweet selling it. Bought Madman pages directly from Allred at Philly and Baltimore in the mid 90s. Bought my Sandman and other Vertigo work mostly directly from artists as well. In fact, the way I see it, the 90s were the era in which comic art collecting went from a handful of folks dabbling or seriously collecting and turned into a thriving comic underground niche. Especially the latter half of the decade as more and more folks made use of this new thing we call the internet, and it no longer required that people make phonecalls, scour ads in CBG and the like, or be in attendance at every convention to get first crack at whatever was brought to that show. Toss in the beginning of eBay, where the OA section of the site was literally just 2 or 3 pages of listings for EVERYTHING being offered (no BS color prints, no wannabe comic artist doodles, just pretty much published material), and things just kind of blew up by the time you hit 2000. I think a lot of that Indie work sold to people piecemeal who were into the scene for a time. Maybe happy to just have that one piece of their one favorite story, and never got the whole collecting bug. Perhaps keeping it for nostalgia for the time they got out of High School, got their tribal tattoo and nose pierced, went to Lillith Fair, saw Chasing Amy and grabbed a cool page from SiP. And unless they hit eBay and happen to discover the pages bring money now, it'll just stay on a wall or in a closet. Dealers don't seem to seek most of it out because with a few exceptions, the margins just aren't there for the indie work. What can I say? People want hair metal and boy bands (McFarlane & Liefeld on Spidey, Youngblood, and whatnot). _________________________________________________________________ As an aside to the art buying, for me there was a ton of great comics in the 90s. I think it was a massively creative era, just not so much for the Big 2. Other than KJ and Beatty's work on Batman, or the killer folks producing the Batman Adventures books, if you wanted good work from DC, you actually looked to Vertigo. Sandman, Hellblazer, Shade the Changing Man, Swamp Thing. Along with books that have become industry mainstays like Hellboy and Bone, one looked to the indies and self published work. I'd stick the first few years of Stray Bullets up against just about anything. Especially that first year. It's what got me back into comic buying after a several year hiatus. Jeez, and then guys like Burns on Black Hole. Clowes, Ware, Tomine.... great great artists left and right. If you were at all inclined towards truly great artwork and thoughtful, quirky or imaginative stories, I don't see how anyone would be hard pressed to find something to like, unless it just had to be guys in pajamas. But then, if someone was really fixated on the vapid gyrations of hair metal, or the squeeling glee of boy bands, you really didn't care for the early 90s explosion of what was quickly labeled as alternative or "grunge". And I see the two scenes as really tying together a lot in that 90s era. Especially the first half of the decade. Musicians and artists taking chances. Toward the end of the decade, artists (and a ton of musicians) saw what creatively was selling, and started aping that. And there was a flood of copycats and lookalike work trying to get some of that money. By which point the truly creative folks had moved on to the next thing, and the scene was so flooded, the next new thing came along and the decade ticked over into the next. My .02¢ on that.

Jack Kirby: Storyteller for those who haven't seen it...

The whole joker look thing is making so much more sense now...it's a swipe. God help me, I'm with DA on this one. http://comicbook.com/dc/2016/08/10/suicide-squad-director-gets-called-out-by-die-antwoord-for-jocki/

Another wonderful conversation. Thanks all!

Not on Netflix that I'm aware of, but just watched Art and Craft on Amazon Prime. It's up there with Art of the Steal as one of my favorite docs about art now. Sad, and funny. Touching and all kinds of messed up. And of special interest to this board because it's about forgeries, and there were a couple names in there familiar to the folks here. http://artandcraftfilm.com/about-the-film/

That's rockin.