Bronty

I know what's at the bottom of the page you posted! (Land of Illusion I assume. OA below).

the posters are great. I'll contribute with the OA for the poster in #35. Its an old pic but its better than no pic.

that's a lot of information ;)

edit

It DOES look like it starts with an A. And the first letter of the last name could just as easily be an L or a P as a R. Do we know for a certainty that the name 'tom reilly' was even correct?

The reaction isn't hard for us to parse out. Its large, distracting and in the middle of the page. If it was small and in the margins no one would say boo. It sort of reminds me of how as a hobby, in the early days, we got books signed on the interior, often the page 1 margin, when the signatures were "for us." It was only when signatures evolved into something for resale that people began to have the covers signed.... the grass roots desire to have the book signed tended heavily to have them signed unobtrusively so that the signature wouldn't distract. That same desire is probably what bothers us as a hobby, at least some of us, when it comes to having a big white signature in the middle of what is supposed to be a large black moody space. While it personally wouldn't stop me from buying the page if I was in the market for it, I might bid an increment or two less. Its a bit distracting. Obviously the comparison stops there as no one would have had gaiman sign it that way for resale considerations, but the basic desires at play are the same and as you hint at, Stan Lee's signatures are the best example of how for many people less is more when it comes to signatures. There has to be a natural tipping point as to what people like and don't like in a signature after all. Otherwise, we'd be getting every panel signed in multiple colors of sharpie.

squirting you say! I may have to start reading it

Btw Gene, I feel like I've seen this artist before but I haven't bought any new books in a while? Does he do other work we might have seen?

Nice piece! As a side note, its interesting to see the different thought processes on the more risque work. My approach is the opposite; if an artist is known for really risque material (R-rated because of graphic sex or violence) then that's exactly what I want and I'm not worried about whether or not it can be displayed. If I collected Crumb, I'd want one that exemplifies what he's known for, which probably means somebody's having sex with somebody on the page where I suspect you'd be more comfortable with say an illustration of Mr Natural that you could hang without any hanky panky happening in the illo. I'm not familiar with this artist, but if graphic is what he's known for, its what I lean into. I wonder what other people think on that? I think both perspectives are out there but I wonder where people fall out, on average.

Yeah, that's the same thing in that people want what was local to their area. At the same time however, its a little different in that I presume there isn't a 50% discount between a New York TV guide and an LA TV guide.

Well if you like the use of the word foreign, you would really enjoy the use of the word "overseas." A good number of Americans conflate "overseas" with "international" regularly. I once had to ask an ebay seller that was mad at me for purchasing an item with no "overseas" shipping to specify exactly which "sea" was between BC and California as my map didn't indicate one He begrudgingly agreed there was no sea to fly over but I should have 'known what he meant.' In other words, Outside of US = Overseas. Hawaii and Alaska = Not overseas. Despite there being, you know, "seas"/oceans separating the land masses which require flying "over." And look, if I'm living in the US, I'm probably acting the same way, so no hate. They are used to the convenience of being able to transact totally within their own borders. If anything I'm jealous!

the market is what it is. American buyers don't respond to foreign collectibles to the same extent as American collectibles. I've had some American buyers express this to me in very clear terms. Obviously, others don't care. And there's also many that want to feel like they don't care, but their buying behaviour says otherwise.

That might have been the reason put on it at some point, but let's not kid ourselves. Foreign = yuck for most US buyers. 1980s Cdn variants don't sell for as much as US variants either. And TBH I can understand wanting the exact version that was for sale in your own country; that's fair. It is what it is and its fair play. But to bring it full circle, in the same way that people want the comics (or other collectibles; lots of examples...) that came out in their own country, Americans want to watch shows that look American to them. That's just a fact and I think generally very apparent to those of us outside the US. I don't think its 'wrong' to be clear. People can watch what they want and buy what they want.

x

It’s both of those factors. If it’s not ‘murican a lot of people aren’t interested. Pence variants of amazing fantasy 15 trade at 50% for this reason. The book is otherwise identical… but it’s not ‘murican.

finally, a decent Signature

I don't think the data really supports what you're saying. If we look at HA results, 1) the most an Usagi cover has sold for is $8400, for #15, back in 2020. The most a groo cover has sold for is $13,200, for #8. Both are excellent covers. I think you can say that Usagi #15 might sell for more now than in 2020, but how much? 10-15k? That's the same as the Groo of similar quality. More sparse Usagi and Groo covers have sold for less. (Groo 15, Usagi 9). I think the best you can say is that the covers are in a similar range. 2) Nexus - same story. Biggest sales on HA are $8400. One was a cover, one was a nice interior page from #1 in 1981. I feel pretty confident that a page from Groo 1 PC would do more than that, considering the endpage from #28 or something just sold for around 5k. 3) Aragones has been selling off books of OA for years and years now. He doesn't have as much as you think at this point, and people have cherry picked away all the best issues. A lot of pages have been out there and been out there for a while now. I own some myself, and as you can see from the sales of interiors on HA, some of the pages bought by people like me are starting to hit the market. The same can't be said for Usagi - not a single published interior page has hit HA. That makes me think (perhaps you know better) that Stan is in fact holding on to all of his interior pages and only sells the covers? As a good number of those have hit HA. So, I think you may have it backwards. If there is a price bump from restricted supply of interior pages that's probably helping Sakai prices not Aragones prices. That's before we even consider how much more Aragones art, in total, exists and is out there compared to Sakai. Metric tons of Mad art. DC Art. Groo. His overall output has dwarfed Sakai's and really has dwarfed almost everyone else in comics, period. More importantly, the pages are just great. From time to time I consider selling some, but I can't bring myself to do it, at least not yet. They are masterfully drawn.

To be clear neither I nor I suspect anyone else considers it a significant pedigree. But the average grades and PQ are super high, thats just a fact.

Nontheless if state of paper preservation - and nothing else - is the criteria as per the quote I replied to , then that’s a top pedigree.

Vancouver?

On a different note, I've been impressed with the prices realized on Groo OA lately. Pieces from early marvel issues in the last signature did very well, and so did pages, in a recent weekly, from the Image series which in my eyes are much less desirable (although some of them did feature my favorite witches, Arba and Dakarba). Maybe that makes a lot more sense than 9.8 destroyer duck 1's.

We could say the same about pretty much any 9.8 comic from 1980 forward in 2021 vs now. Let it go ;)

sounds like a definite maybe!

that's terrific. Last one? Calling it quits?