CartoonFanboy

I became aware of original comic art in the early 1990s thanks to (of all things) Wizard magazine. They talked about original art and Bart Sears had the Brutes and Babes column which would often times show original art for learning purposes.

My interest in owning art came about in the mid-90s when I saw a piece of OA up close for the first time at a small comic convention. It wasn't until the internet opened up the accessibility of OA in the late-90s however, that I finally got my first piece as a senior in college.

16 hours ago, Brian Peck said:

Once you complete a deal for a piece either completed paying for it or with a trade the other person has received the piece in trade is when you can post. I know one collector that thinks its bad luck to post art before he has received it. With HA I usually don't wait til I have received the artwork to post it, many times I wait until I have a few auction wins for HA to ship them to me.

 

 

I'm totally one of those guys who's superstitious about posting art before I have it in hand 

Of the two comic related Kickstarts I've backed, both were late. One was about five months late while the other was about ten months late. I have an art reward coming for the ten month late project, but since the printed book arrived just this week, it will probably be a while before the reward gets done.

Communication was pretty good overall, though I would agree with other posters that when there isn't much work being done, the communication has tendency to go dark.

All that said, I enjoyed the finished products from both Kickstarts immensely and was ok with the wait.

6 hours ago, Peter L said:

I think Quietly is now an All Star especially for doing the narrative art for so many classics including All Star Superman and Doomsday Clock.  I don't own any Doomsday Clock art but if it keeps up this high level over the end of the series, I think the pages going on ebay will be considered cheap in a few years.

Gary Frank is the artist for Doomsday Clock, not Frank Quitely. That said, I would consider both of them to be All Stars (though not new ones since they've each been working in the industry for over twenty years).

Unlike most people, I didn't discover Norm Breyfogle's work on Batman but rather on the Ultraverse series Prime. I still remember being at my LCS as a teenager and opening that first issue. Everything just seemed so big, larger than life I guess you would say. From just those first couple pages I was hooked. Later in life, I was fortunate enough to meet Norm at the inaugural Akron comic con in 2012. As you can imagine, he was wonderful, and at the time I hoped he would make regular appearances at the show. Sadly he suffered his stroke less than two years later and now he has passed on.

RIP Norm Breyfogle.

Below are some of my favorite Norm Breyfogle Prime pieces that I've been fortunate enough to acquire.

With the new Supreme Court ruling, this was obviously coming (though I'd hoped it wouldn't be this soon). Unfortunate for me since I'm in one of the affected states. I will definitely be factoring sales tax into future bids.

On a more positive note, my last purchase was earlier this month, and it just so happened to be the biggest purchase I've ever made at one time.

Being of modest means, I don't usually win that much off of Heritage due in large part to the BP. With sales tax now being a factor, I get the feeling my bids are about to become even less competitive.

3 minutes ago, TomDehnert said:

Another quick thought too. There a lot of people that are verified witnesses for both big companies that I personally have seen them verify books they weren’t right there to see based on the fact they know someone or feel that the persons trust worthy at cons comics shop owners it happens. I guess point being it shouldn’t be to hard to find out if a piece of the original comic art work was done by a particular artist and have them verify it. I’m sure they would rather verify that they did it than have a bunch of imposter work out there. 

Personally I think this would be a vauluable asset to have from Cgc and I would be willing to pay more if there was a premium for the opportunity to slab original comic art.

Well, not all of these artists are alive mind you, and even those that are may not be interested in spending their time authenticating the thousands of pages of art they created in their career. The logistics of authenticating original art are numerous, especially for things like existing sketches done by artists no longer with us. 

Regarding the idea of slabbing, I once again have to argue that it's not practical. You mention posters being slabbed, but how many of those can you store before it becomes cumbersome? I have a modest collection of 130 pieces of original art, when I try to imagine how much space and weight that collection would take up because it's encased in plastic, I shiver. That - and as another board member once observed - most OA collectors don't see their art as a collectible, they see it as art. Art is the kind of thing we see in portfolios and framed on walls; for many of us, slabbing the art would lessen it.

This topic comes up every now and again. As Pete said, you can find some spirited discussions on it if you search the forum.

For me, I have NO interest in slabbing my original art, even if there were a service that specialized in it. In truth, slabbing art just isn't practical given how large it is and the inconsistency in size. An argument can be made for an authentication service given the large number of fake sketches (and even published art) that exists in the hobby. Forgeries and misattributed art are real problems for collectors, thus opportunity exists there. Slabbing isn't necessary for that however, and in and of itself a slab really doesn't serve the needs of most art collectors.

I can see using CGC to slab sketch covers, but other than that, no thanks.

That's the one @ O. 

This is the only page I have of either character. It's Venom from the "Venom: Dark Origins" mini-series that Angel Medina drew some years back. Since it's an origin story, this page takes place prior to the unveiling of Venom's trademark toothy grin (actually I believe our resident original art aficionado has that very cool unveiling page).

All I could think of when I saw this thread title was this old Marvel ad from the 90s. 

15 hours ago, Pants said:

Anyone know if this Tom Grummett piece was published? The writing at the top says Batman 'Coloring Book', but I haven't found one with this image.

I asked the Facebook community on Tom Grummett's fan page about this and I got the following info:

"Yes. This was used for WB Store Puzzle. I still have mine." John S. Jr.

Here's the image he included:

3 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

Keeping in mind the guy is pretty much Walt Disney (not the company) to a couple generations of people, increasingly globally. Along with the aforementioned generally sold out museum tickets, they are also currently building a theme park based on Studo Ghibli's releases akin to Disneyland. And if you really have no idea and have never watched Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, etc and so on and on and on... boy do I envy you watching these films for the first time.

My first in-theater viewing of one of Miazaki's films was Princess Mononoke, after Disney (very wisely) secured U.S. distribution rights to the Studio's films back in the 90s. My first Studio Ghibli film was Grave of the Fireflies back in the late 80s. That one is still.... phew... that's a serious film, animated or otherwise.

Calling what Ghibli does "anime" is a bit like calling Fanstasia or the works of Pixar "cartoons". They are films. And stunningly good ones.
For my money, right around the time that Disney animation started to become formulaic garbage (around the time of the Little Mermaid) Ghibli really took off and looking back over their track records, I'd take Ghibli's films over Disney's output of the same time period any day.

 

My .02¢
That all said of course, the price is still... wow!

 

+1

On 5/6/2018 at 12:34 AM, J.Sid said:

Kevin Maguire. Anyone know what comic/issue this was from?

 

I believe this was published in Ultraverse #0. Short story featuring Hardcase before his team the "Squad" gets mostly killed.

That exhibit looks amazing. Thanks for posting!

22 hours ago, newshane said:

True that he wasn't worth back then what he is worth today...but I'd say he was already well north of a million by the time 1999 rolled around....

but yes, indeed, probably not rich enough at the time to drop 3 million on a baseball! 

What does (did) his wife do? 

I'm not sure what the previous poster was referring to when he said that McFarlane's wife financed the purchase. To my knowledge she has only ever worked as part of McFarlane's company. I've never heard anything about her being rich or anything prior to their marriage (I believe she was the daughter of one of McFarlane's baseball coaches from college or something).

19 hours ago, shadroch said:

I heard he had a prenuptial agreement that excluded his sports memorabilia collection, so he put a substantial amount of his worth into it.

Most likely a fan boy rumour, but it made sense at the time.

 

That definitely sounds like a rumor. McFarlane was married long before he became successful, so it's highly unlikely that he had any such prenuptial. 

6 minutes ago, vodou said:

I saw it is more as "moral" than "legal" transfer of ownership. Meaning, if you buy some manga OA and then try to publish it yourself (in a non-exempt manner)...don't be surprised if you get a cease-and-desist letter from somebody's lawyer!

That's the impression I had as well. It seems to be a perception thing. I don't think the artwork is the literal copyright, but the artists see the art as part of the copyright and (according to the video) usually leave the art in the hands of the publisher who is the copyright holder. That was my take away at least.

5 hours ago, Brian Peck said:

I have been a fan of Jean Grey/Marvel Girl since I first read X-Men #8 by Jack Kirby. In 1994, X-Men #30 Wedding of Jean Grey and Scott Summers was published. I was on the hunt for the artwork. About 4 years later I found the wraparound cover at Spider-Web Art Gallery. The interiors for the wedding issue was tougher, the penciler Andy almost never sold his art and never had seen any interior art on the market. 
I found Spencer Beck an art rep was helping Andy sell some art so I inquired about the wedding issue. Spencer informed me Andy would sell his part and Spencer has contacted the inker Matt Ryan and he agreed to sell me the pages he owned. After paying alot for all the pages, I discovered 3 pages were missing. Andy never sold and of his art and neither had Matt… a mystery. This was back in 2000, 6 years after the book was printed.
Fast forward 6 more years…… and I get an email from Spencer Beck wanting me to call him. I called and he told me a story.
The staff at the Joe Kubert School of Art were cleaning out the basement of the school, I think they were renovating it. They found a rusted out old desk belonging to Andy Kubert. Andy said just to throw it out since it was useless but when they started to dismantle it to move it they found.......
a ton of original art by Andy including 50 plus covers..........
an envelope containing three pages from..............

X-Men #30
Andy mentioned this to Spencer who remembered someone one was trying to put the book back together. He then contacted me.

With Spencer's help I was able to do a deal with Andy for the three remaining pages. 

That's a great story. I can only imagine your excitement when Spencer told you the three missing pages had turned up. So cool that you were able to reunite the entire issue.

1 hour ago, BCarter27 said:

Talk to your web designer about having your images not be set as background images. It makes them all disappear for people who need to use High Contrast themes.

I don't use high contrast themes, but I agree that having thumbnails as background images is a mistake here. If this was done for vertical centering purposes, there are other ways to achieve the effect. 

I do like that the site is now responsive though. I'm hoping to see more sites in our hobby go this way, especially CAF (though I don't know how possible that is from an advertising perspective).

Actively collected from 2000-2005, then marriage, house and kids caused me to step away from the hobby for a while. Dipped my toes back in around 2009-2010. Actively started buying regularly in 2011 to current. So overall I'd say about 12 years of active collecting.

1 hour ago, zhamlau said:

ah, ok...i was gonna say I can see a single cover being over 1000 so getting 760 for one seemed reasonable. Now that i see its 760 for a pair of older DC hero covers by a good artist, I think the the ebay ones were steals and the Heritage one just went for full market.

Right, two covers for $760, though I have to admit the second cover (Superboy #15 by Grummett) was on the weaker side. So maybe it's not that big of a jump after all. Still, I follow Grummett's work pretty closely and was surprised by the Heritage result, that's the nature of the hobby though.

Amongst my modest areas of collecting interest, I have to say I was very surprised to see the Robin #15 cover by Tom Grummett go for over $1,300 with the BP. The same piece sold as part of a two cover lot on ebay less than three years ago for just $760.

1 hour ago, Rick2you2 said:

I guess this would be the place to start. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/report-fraudulent-ebay-seller-75925.html

Was nothing done? Was the claim rejected with a reason?

That is the current process, and in my experience (I cannot speak for others) ebay has never responded or shut down the listing. The report just seems to go into a black hole. 

This is only my opinion, but I doubt that ebay has the personnel (both in size and knowledge) necessary to accurately review a fraud claim from a niche hobby such as ours, so they err on the side of just letting the auction play out and see if the buyer complains. The problem being, of course, that the buyer is unlikely to have an epiphany once they receive the fake goods. 

22 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

When it comes to OA, I don't claim to know a forgery from a non-forgery. But, I do know that allowing something which you think is a forgery to be potentially sold on eBay to an innocent prospective buyer isn't right.

If you really think this is a forgery, someone here should give the facts to eBay and let them make their decision about whether it should be removed. Give facts, not generic opinions, saying why you think it is a fake. Maybe the Powers-That-Be at eBay will disagree and let the seller keep up the listing. But if so, you've done the right thing by bringing it to their attention.

Sorry for the lecture, but I was bothered by this. 

You'll find that people around here report suspected forgeries to ebay all the time, and ebay in return does nothing. I can't count how many times I've reported items that were clearly fake only to see the auction stay active. 

If this really does bother you to the point that you need to shame someone, I would recommend that you start with the "Powers-That-Be" at ebay.