Hawkgirl

I’m looking for advice. I have a one-bedroom apartment which is east-facing so gets morning light. It’s a small apartment, so there isn’t really anywhere that I can hang my pieces that will avoid direct sunlight, which makes me worried about displaying my collection. I have some inked pages and some pencils-only. They haven’t been framed yet. Should I go ahead and get them framed to hang them up? Or should I keep them in a portfolio for now?

Not sure about AI exactly (it doesn’t seem like AI art is great at keeping things consistent between prompts), but a lot of artist use digital tools for the background. For a more obvious example… in his Daredevil run, Alex Maleev used photos (that he’d taken himself) for many of the backgrounds. He drew the figures traditionally, scanned and adjusted them, and inserted the background digitally. I feel like it worked for noir-like atmosphere of the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil run, and the art was praised in that comic, but for comics in general, something like that probably wouldn’t work very well because the resulting art is more static.

It will be interesting to see what happens with NFTs in the future. I’m a later millennial and would never buy an NFT, but I’m interested in collecting comic art otherwise, and not just OA—I also collect prints. But I collect to be able to display and appreciate the art, and I don’t believe in the value of NFTs. And just like any collectible, an NFT is only worth what buyers are willing to pay. Obviously, art is subjective, but it seems like many who collect NFTs don’t collect it on the artistic merit (see: those apes) and are either using it for money laundering, are trying to sucker other buyers, and/or were suckered themselves. NFTs are like an extension of Bitcoin/other cryptocurrencies so I imagine there’s a significant amount of overlap between people who collect and NFTs and ones who are into Bitcoin. NFT producers/collectors have a vested interest in making NFTs seem legitimate/valuable. So you could buy your own NFT from yourself for $100k of Bitcoin by transferring between your own wallets and now that you have your baseline “value”, turn around and attempt to resell to an actual buyer for that amount+. I also see digital artists on social media complain that their art has been stolen to be sold as an NFT, so while the blockchain might establish that you own the NFT of that image, it doesn’t necessarily establish that the seller had the copyright/rights to sell that NFT. When it comes to physical art, at a certain level of art purchases, there’s definitely going to be some fraud and money laundering just because of the sheer amount of money involved, but there is an actual physical product, more established baselines of worth, more hoops to go through, and more legitimate avenues of purchase/establishing provenance such as auction houses.

I had a milestone for my collection today! I acquired my first cover for my collection. It’s from Indestructible Hulk #9, penciled by Paolo Rivera, inked by his father Joe Rivera. Daredevil is my favorite character, and I love how Paolo Rivera draws Matt and Daredevil. I really like the composition of this piece, where Daredevil is the devil on Hulk’s shoulder and Matt is the angel.

I’m new to OA collecting. I made an account on Heritage but have mostly been watching. I follow a lot of comic artists on Twitter, and I saw this Tweet which I thought it was interesting because I hadn’t realized how many comic artists are into collecting OA themselves. I guess when we buy OA from current artists, we’re funding their OA collecting too! It makes sense that they appreciate comic art as artists themselves. I wonder if there are many comic artists on this board.

Thanks for the response! That explains it. I hadn’t thought about it that way. The penciller and inker are the same, so that makes sense. It doesn’t have the book title on it, just the page number. I guess I’ll just have to remember what comic it’s from.

I have another question. I have a couple of pages, and most have the artist’s name on it, but one of the pages doesn’t. In general, I expect the artist’s name to be on the page somewhere, as well as the comic’s title for Marvel and DC work, so I’m not sure what to think about the page that is missing those (it’s from a Marvel comic but is on plain Bristol board instead of the official Marvel art board). What are your thoughts on getting a page signed by the artist (either if the page already has the artist’s name or if the name isn’t on there)? Is it normal to buy a page that doesn’t have the artist’s name anywhere on it?

I’m a newbie to the OA hobby, but I would be interested if the meetup is open to anyone! It would be great to meet others in the area who are into comics and OA.

Thanks for the advice! Your collection is awesome. You have a ton of art for having gotten started so recently. I think I’ll focus on collecting interior pages from current artists. I think that today’s artists are doing great work. Plus, a lot of the artists I grew up reading, starting in the early 2000s, are still active. I would also read a lot of back issues from the Silver Age and Bronze Age, but I feel less of a nostalgic pull toward those, and starting with modern artists feels like a more realistic starting point for the hobby. I would like to get some covers and earlier art in the future, but I’ll work my way up to that.

Thanks! I will definitely check out Priscilla Petraites. I also like Dani and got a convention sketch from her in 2020! I just created a Comic Art Fans and added all the pages and a few of the con sketches I’ve gotten. https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=177595 That makes sense about the time period focus of most collectors on the board. I’m also in some Facebook groups which focus more on commissions/sketch collecting. I bought 2 artist proofs from Jorge Jimenez, and that will probably be the extent of my artist proof collecting. I just really love his work.

Thanks for your insight. I definitely have that barrier, where I would be fine spending say $1k over several pieces in a year but not on 1 thing. I think that’s ok for now because my collection is so small, and I’m just getting started. I definitely want to overcome that barrier and focus on getting art from the artists I enjoy. I don’t force myself to like an artist because of a similar style, but I tend to find other artists that I like either by reading their comics or getting recommendations based on what I like. I don’t intend to buy from up-and-coming artists because I want to speculate, but because I like supporting young artists who are getting started and sometimes their art speaks for themselves. I bought some artist proofs (I also buy prints), but I definitely don’t intend to resell them. It’s more so I can have art from an artist that I like but who doesn’t have original pages.

Hi! I’m new to this forum. I got started in the OA hobby in 2018 after getting a sketch cover at a con, and I’ve been collecting comics my whole life. I’m slowly easing into getting more serious about collecting OA, both commissions and OA pages. Any advice on budgeting, pacing yourself, targeting certain artists? I’m late 20s and single, no kids, but want to balance this hobby with saving for the future. I’m currently focusing a bit on ‘quantity’ over ‘quality’, so I’m buying more smaller/less expensive things rather than more epensive/bigger names as I start building out my collection. Some of my favorite current artists are Dan Mora, Jorge Jimenez, Chris Samnee, Doc Shaner, Tom Reilly, Bilquis Evely, and Elsa Charretier. I would love to hear any recomendations of similar artists, especially ones who have that throwback, simplified comic art, or use negative space in their style. I also want to get into collecting up-and-coming artists if you know of any. Do you all collect mostly current art or older art, like pages from your favorite comics as a kid, or both? How do you feel about Artist’s Proofs for current artists who work entirely digitally?