drdroom

12 hours ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

Any attendees here who are not vendors plan to bring art to sell or trade? I'm considering it but I don't know if it's worth the hassle or the risk (of losing the art).

I will be, & I'd encourage it. I used to not do for the same reasons you mention, but I find it's a lot more fun to play from both sides. Just don't do any stupid trades! Get a second opinion from a friend, know the FMV of your stuff, consider the difficulty of replacing either piece, for example say you're looking at a trade of equally good Kirby pages: Kamandi for Demon. Demon has an edge because there is quite a bit less of it in existence, therefore: harder to replace. Maybe others will have more advice.

8 hours ago, The Voord said:

I certainly wouldn't advocate buying garden variety art as trade bait in the hope that somewhere down the line someone will jump at the pieces you buy.  With me, on those handful of times I've bought-in trade bait material, I knew exactly who would eagerly be interested in such pieces (which were carefully selected).

Garden variety, no. It would bug me having it in the house. The modern stuff I'm buying is quality pages from notable titles that I believe are undervalued. I like them, which is why I think someone else will too (sometimes true!). They just aren't in my true love zone. It's true I don't know who my client will be, but for the low buy-in I'm willing to hold for quite a while.

16 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

You are correct. It's like the opening sequence of From Russia With Love where SPECTRE agents are fighting a fake James Bond. In this case, Baron Zemo and his men are fighting a fake Captain America in preparation for fighting the real one. 

Guess that explains Cap's awkward stance and bulbous head - it wasn't really him! 

I did not know that. Hmm. It wouldn't change the amount I'd pay for it, but I would sure would tell everybody else about it before the auction

20 hours ago, Bronty said:

If you are a fan of TOS though, its a nice splash.   Its very early in the title (more memorable as a result) and its got a big bold shot of cap, cowboy notwithstanding.   

For me this is a near-perfect Kirby splash for any book or era. Cowboy stance?!? That's classic Jack! Stone at his best, which this is, was one of the best inkers Kirby ever had, superior to the earlier Sinnott. Cap's face looks like a Kirby face, the line weights are bold and varied nearly to Royer standards. Unfortunately my wife has expressed strong disagreement with my second mortgage idea for aquisition of this masterwork, so it's all yours, Scott Williams.

14 hours ago, alxjhnsn said:

I’ve never done a trade. All cash all the time. 

To be honest, I have very few pieces that I’d be willing to move. 

I envy you! My problem is my desire for a terrific piece which has appeared may happen to exceed my cash flow at a given moment Mostly I only buy what I love, and it's a painful calculus, but I've been able to trade up on several occasions, either several smaller pieces for one more important piece, or just pieces I wanted for pieces I wanted more. Lately, though, I have been picking up some lower priced modern pages, more on spec than out of real passion, in hopes of future leverage. 

Question for collectors more than dealers: When you go to a con to possibly wheel and deal, what's in your portfolio? Is it all stuff you're willing to part with, or do you include stuff you love, just in case you run into something you love more? Do you sometimes buy stuff you don't actually love on spec, because you are gambling you can trade it for something you do? If so, what percentage of your collecting budget goes to those kind of purchases? Is your strategy working?

On 7/8/2018 at 7:14 PM, PhilipB2k17 said:

That’s not an objectivist point of view. “Responsibility” is only to one’s self, not to others. An Objectivist would not have been upset that a criminal he failed to stop killed his uncle Ben. Or rather, he would be upset, but he would not blame himself for it. 

And while Ditko plotted the books for a good portion of his run, Stan wrote the dialogue. 

Well, right, exactly, it's not an objectivist view, so probably Stan wrote it! My question was, if, hypothetically, Ditko wrote it (per theflashunc's theory), then what is the Objectivist interpretation, in other words why would an Objectivist insist on added responsibility for the powerful? If our objective responsibility is to be true to ourselves, wouldn't the weak have that same responsibility, in equal measure as the strong?

14 hours ago, theflashunc said:

 

Sorry guys, agreeing to disagree on this one. 

The kid with great power who cuts corners for personal wealth at the expense of what he views as his core self. The kid held back by "the system" at every turn, whether its craven media, school or just suburban life in Queens? Its the rejection of the hedonistic selfishness that Rand differentiated from her espoused rational selfishness. I don't see how you can read those Spiderman issues and say he wasn't on that Objectivist path by that point. 

Course, it comes down to personal interpretation (especially since we'll never get the truth), but I very much take "with great power comes great responsibility" to be a self-directed, rather than societal mandate in the book. That, and its so different than any other Stan dialogue of the era. Ditko-era Spiderman just read different than every other Marvel book, and I chalk that entirely up to Steve. He got co-plotting credit for a reason.

Hmm. That's interesting, about it being inconsistent with Stan's other dialog from the time. I don't have a counter-example offhand so I'll take your word, but it is very consistent with Stan's later work, so maybe that's just his breakthrough moment. 

I'm having trouble following your philosophical argument. So if [great power] then [great responsibility] has a Randian interpretation, what is Peter's responsibility? Doesn't AF15, and the whole arc of the series, make clear that Peter must henceforth act unselfishly, sacrificing personal gain and happiness to the greater societal good? 

2 hours ago, The Voord said:

As a self-confessed atheist, I totally agree with Ditko's observation on religion.  Peaceful faiths, they ain't . . .

I disagree, respectfully of course, with Ditko's implied equivalence between the three. Judaism was warlike in ancient times, before the other two existed, but has been largely self-defense oriented for a few thousand years. Christianity today is far more peaceful than it was a thousand years ago, and it seems that Islam, the youngest of the three, is involved in the highest number of contemporary conflicts. Faiths mature as humans do.

48 minutes ago, alxjhnsn said:

Best three page sequence in comic? I think this is it (from the collection of Mike Burkey)

Also part of the best 5-page sequence!

4 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Nope. That line was all Stan Lee. An Objectivist would never say that. (Not sure Ditko was one by that point, anyway). 

Yes, "With great power...." is almost a perfect ANTI-Randian assertion. 

8 hours ago, grapeape said:

Enigma. Abundance of creativity. R I P Steve Ditko I came home from work one day and my wife says, " you have a letter on your desk from Steve Ditko."

That's a remarkably long reply for Steve, and tells us a lot about where he was in his thinking in this final year. RIP

As a Kirby purist (although I appreciate the historical interest of the on-model correction), the Anderson face is a detriment, but it's minor compared to the Colletta discount. 

Looks like the earliest known Batman OA (featuring Batman) to me, though the fact that it's a re-draw does put a slight damper on the excitement level.

5 minutes ago, chromium said:

Even when bought and paid in Europe ?

Yeah, I have to pay CA tax because HA has a CA office. IRS, I assume doesn't care about the EU connection.

On 5/16/2018 at 11:08 AM, chromium said:

25% buyer's premium + 21% tax on top of that...looks like I'll be sitting this one out.

 

I'm still trying to understand this assertion. Auction terms says "19.5% for comics" and "25% for other" --hasn't OA always fallen under "comics" in the past? And the sales tax terms seem the same as always, based on locality, meaning I would owe Los Angeles sales tax: 9.25%. Where is 25%/21% coming from?

Very unusual for a legit published Tezuka page to be on the market. Usually it's sketches or unused panels. & of course Mighty Atom in an action sequence is 

Plenty of stuff in this auction for me, but really, 25% and 21%? Is this regardless of your location (I'm in CA)?

7 hours ago, glendgold said:

Coming on 50 years, and this is still the one I've been waiting for...

On 4/26/2018 at 8:07 AM, First Upgrade said:

Is there any vaulation data for an unopened Jeff Jones The Swamp Creature jigsaw puzzle?...

I've never seen these. Who published them?

Traced is the same as redrawn, for this discussion. They definitely aren't stats. Look at the shadows on Superman's trunks, just for one of many examples. It's a different drawing, but certainly could be based on an initial tracing, in fact I'd guess panel 5 was. Maybe they didn't want the chemical shading effect. I found some more insight into the creation of the first story on Wikipaedia:

"National Publications was looking for a hit to accompany their success with Detective Comics, and did not have time to solicit new material. Jack Liebowitz, co-owner of National Publications, told editor Vin Sullivan to create their fourth comic book. Because of the tight deadline, Sullivan was forced to make it out of inventory and stockpile pages. He found a number of adventurer stories, but needed a lead feature. Sullivan asked former coworker Sheldon Mayer if he could help. Mayer found the rejected Superman comic strips, and Sullivan told Siegel and Shuster that if they could paste them into 13 comic book pages, he would buy them."^[12]

26 minutes ago, Flambit said:

Really interesting to see the additional detailing on Superman's arms - costume details that were discarded for whatever reason...

Check out the calves! Full gladiator!

2 hours ago, dem1138 said:

My memory is not what it was which is why I wrote "I believe..."  But I think if you compared the panels with a page from Action #1 you would see that the panels are the same.  Whether or not they were redrawn is unknown.  I'm not even sure Sotheby's knew exactly what they had when they auctioned it - if you read the description in the catalogue its rather vague.  I'm not even sure the reference of it being unpublished is referencing that the strip was unpublished or the panels themselves.  If they were unpublished so be it - but I believe the reason the lot didn't sell at the time is because there was a lot of uncertainty and confusion as to what this actually was.  The lot also came with a piece of paper where it appeared that the character of Superman was being fleshed out.

As I read the description, there was a five panel origin strip. Panels 2 and 3 are missing, thought to have been pasted up on the (no doubt lost) Action 1 boards. Sotheby auctioned the unused, unpublished, discarded panels 1, 4 and 5. I have pics of 1 and 5. Comparison to Action 1 shows these panels were redrawn, somewhat more crudely and with minor changes, for the comic. 

1 hour ago, dem1138 said:

I believe you have it backwards.  These panels were the original art that Siegel & Shuster used to try to sell Superman as a strip (which was their initial focus).  These panels were later used piecemeal for Action #1 (I believe on the 1st page to explain his superpowers).

 

I googled it and the first result was a post by you on these boards! You provided a link to a blog post which offers this:

Joe Shuster - Origin Artwork to Superman Daily No 1, circa 1930s, pen and ink on Craftint paper, the surviving three panel section of the original art from Jerry Siegel's and Joe Shuster's historic first Superman daily. This unused artwork is the only known and earliest surviving example from the first series of dailies.

Originally it consisted of a five-panel sequence depicting the origin of Superman. Panels No. 2 and No. 3 were long ago cut and removed, and by all indications, may have been used in pasting up the first page to Action Comics No. 1 in 1938. The first panel of the strip depicts the planet Krypton exploding as a spaceship (containing the son of Lora and Jor-l (sic)) rockets into space. 

7 hours ago, dem1138 said:

 

• The first few panels from Action #1 were auctioned by Sotheby's but no one purchased the lot at auction.  It apparently sold post-auction to a well known collector for 100K and hasn't been seen since.  And apparently the same owner of the Batman #1 page owns the Action #1 panels.

IIRC, these were not panels from Action 1, but precisely the panels that were NOT used in Action 1 when they cut up and repasted a Sunday strip format page by Siegel and Schuster.