Garf

Oh I don't know, there are quite a few nice pieces in there if you like your DC, Vertigo and indie stuff. If it's not your thing then sure there isn't much meat on the bone for buyers. There isn't really a focus on anything super powered. To me it looks like a pretty cool part nostalgia, part creator collection. If he's selling it then OA was probably never really a long term priority. I have always wondered if creators eventually become less and less interested in what they did as they move towards getting the next thing out of the gate.

I could list all my pages like that! I wouldn't care if they sold

I recall reading that someone mentioned Jeff specifically likes to take care when drawing Thorn to make sure she looks consistent, which is difficult to do when time is limited at conventions, so yes not many con sketches of her at all.

It's a fair question. There are so many reasons. The main two are that I have already gone past the amount I can comfortably display and rotate, and I am also in a pretty happy place when it comes to having a collection that spans a lot of titles which I have really enjoyed reading. I need to work out where to go from here, and slowing right down will make that a lot easier. I really don't mind taking my foot off the gas, it will probably be a good thing. I only have so much time and energy and there is a lot of change going on in my life over the next couple of years... house, bigger job, kids going to college. I got back into all things comics when my life felt more settled after starting a family, and now things are a lot busier. ... I mean I could do that, or I could just become Captain Compulsive with his trusty OA crack pipe (as I do still very much enjoy this part of the hobby) and claw my way up the buy/sell/trade ladder

That one really helped me out. When I decided to actually keep a written list of what I want to "complete" my collection it eventually highlighted how unrealistic my goals could get. It started off as a solid list of all the things within a reasonable price range that I wanted $100 - $1000. It was fairly easy to compile too as I only had to glance over at my Omnibus and TPB collection to work out which books were dear to me, and they were usually the ones I had read and re-read time and again. Gradually I started to weed out the "nice to haves", and sometimes things would weed themselves out because pieces would sell before I got to them. Then as the list shrank I tried adding in a few bigger ticket items just to see what that change would feel like, and you know what I didn't like it one bit. Putting them on there made me think long and hard about how they would have a much larger impact on everything else I enjoy. If you have a list for OA then it stands to reason that you should have lists for other goals, and putting these side by side cemented that I should keep all things OA in the fun zone. Now I am actually only two pieces away from finishing the list Maybe I will finally get to transition to being a collector who buys max one or two pieces a year

Love it!

There isn't a chance this is going for less than several thousand.

Oooh... I could play but I don't have any pictures to hand. I recently found and bought a Batman page over 9 years after I originally bought the one that follows it. They make a nice little story sequence too, was a pretty easy purchase decision

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?IID=29482319 https://comicvine.gamespot.com/spider-man-national-committee-for-prevention-of-ch/4000-192272/ Looks like it is two pencillers across two stories. 1995 Edition. Prevention of Child Abuse Toyota giveaway. Cover by John Romita Sr. (W) Louise Simonson (P) John Buscema, Mark Bright (3 pgs). "Who Cares" & "Nobody Wins". Hobgoblin appears in both stories.

This must have inspired this episode of the cartoon (about 2mins 30 in)

... or simply point out all the big ticket items in this auction, then when you buy something for a fraction if the price it ain't so bad :P

You have a really good suggestion already regarding the pencils + inks. Splashpage Art has a few books with this available e.g. Gotham Central - https://www.splashpageart.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=36399&ArtistId=113&Details=1&Mag=Gotham+Central&From=TDetail - where you get everything done by the same artist. Walking Dead - https://www.splashpageart.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=28724&ArtistId=84&Details=1&Mag=Walking+Dead&From=TDetail - where you have pencils by one artist and inks by another. The colour guide thing is really tricky. You could sign up for Comic Art Tracker https://comicarttracker.com/search?query=color-guide and search for that term to see what is out there... who knows you might find a match. I know that there are at least 3x colour guides out there on eBay for pages that I own, but I am not willing to pay $200+ for them when I could spend that elsewhere. The other thing is that you won't get colour guides for modern comics, because people just don't do them any more since the advent of digital colouring. That will make your search even harder. It's not impossible. If you are interested in all aspects of comic book creation then you could also count lettering as another aspect. You might get a kick out of Todd Klein's blog and shop https://kleinletters.com/Blog/signed-prints/

You stole my reply Thanos is a really good example. He had a lot of iconic moments in those films too which stand alone as pop culture references too. The ones translated directly from the comics like the Thanos "snap", which are already grail pages, will just elevate everything else close to them. I am guessing that the amount it goes up depends on if we are looking at increased value amongst the same collectors, increased speculation or... or new collectors coming in The path that the money takes to get to this end of the hobby when something has a buzz around it doesn't feel like it should be TV and Film alone. We have seen the occasional unicorn appear out of nowhere after screen releases, but it's not the norm. I would still think that something like ... comic fan > comics > films / tv / > return to comics > omnibus collection / key comics > conventions / social media exposure to original art content ... would be a more natural fit over time. Speculation and FOMO (let's face it there isn't always enough to go around) might still be what is fuelling things.

https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/MARVEL SNAP ... but I was looking forward to your long and illustrious streaming career.

Well for the $200 - $500 fix there is still some modern TCG art. The current generation will have whatever Marvel Snap cards were not done digitally, and haven't already been... snapped up https://marvelsnapzone.com/cards/released/ https://marvelsnapzone.com/variants/

Have you thought about getting it coloured?

If I had to guess I would say that it might stunt the growth of the top end of Punisher art more than stuff further down the pecking order. There is a smaller pool of bidders in that rarefied air and if a few drop off then it might have a greater effect. I would imagine a lot of the people here happily continue to view stories and characters under the same innocent light that they did when they read them off of the rack. Sure things change over time but that doesn't change our memories. So no doubt that plenty will still be fond of Frank Castle. Anecdotally I did get rid of most of the Blizzard TCG art I used to own during the height of their scandals, I just didn't feel right owning it at the time, still don't. However, their fandom and sales have happily soldiered on without me. They are big an ugly enough to take the large bumps in the road it seems, so any future decline is going to be really slow / drawn out.

I was hoping to post an update by now about progress, maybe even some art on the walls. It has been 11 months to the day since the fire, and unfortunately I can't. It turns out that even though I have really great cover in financial terms that there are other things behind the scenes which are a bit messed up. We aren't uncomfortable in our situation. Our alternate accommodation is paid for, really nice, convenient... but frustratingly life is still mostly "on hold" and may continue to be that way for quite some time. We should be a lot further along with things, however they have barely started the repairs on my home. In 11 months there have been less than half a dozen part days of actual repairs. As far as I can work out several years back my insurer used to resell. They were ultimately underwritten by whichever of the market leaders were most competitive on their back end system. However, I assume to grow that arm of the business, they then took it all in house. They are still, after many years, woefully immature with their processes. Literally to the point where they are often blatantly breaching the guidelines set out in the UK by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), in both the general conduct of business and insurance conduct of business sourcebooks. By the looks of things also struggling with retaining staff and trying to re-structure, it's funny how information leaks when people run out of excuses. Policy said 5 star on the can, opened the can and it was full of worms. It's going to be a hassle but we will complain, and if there is a deadlock then we will take it to the FSO and beyond if necessary. Then hopefully the people after us won't have to go through similar, but I am not holding my breath for them. If I had to give you all one example to illustrate the overall level of incompetence that we have seen then it would be one that doesn't even impact us. The insurer didn't even attempt subrogation. They knew what caused the fire, they were even stood next to it with me pointing at it. They didn't ask if it was new, and they didn't take it away to investigate to see if they could recoup from the manufacturer. They just chucked it in a skip/roll-off dumpster. The one that really hurt us though was that they did the same with our surviving possessions on the ground floor, indiscriminately and without authorisation. We just stopped by one day and it was all gone. There is a lot more to this, and a lot of emotional baggage, but this isn't the place to dump it all. Everyone's situation when things go wrong is going to be different, but it is always going to be easier to pick stuff apart with your hindsight goggles on. At least we all have that in common. When I took out my policy it was mostly governed by my collecting habits and general levels of cover. I should have been more diligent when checking their reviews. Maybe I should have sought out some personal recommendations instead. Seems like 4.3/5 or similar on a lot of review sites for a company with £1B in revenue just doesn't tell the whole story. The main body of those reviews might be because they had a decade (or more) of being backed by others. Those recent 1/5 reviews seem a lot more believable now, even though they appear on paper to be in the minority. If you ever find yourself in a similarly life changing situation and have the means to temporarily remove yourself from it then I would personally recommend doing just that. It wasn't until 9 months had passed that we managed to get away on holiday. At which point we found ourselves again. For a whole week we weren't in survival mode any more, and everything was a lot clearer on our return. Things that might seem obvious or common sense can remain hidden when you are in the middle of a crisis.

Yup. I 100% get the intended analogy, but it's hard pushed to be more faulty in the real world Those two have a bromance. I still think there is more that we can add to the conversation here too whilst we are all flirting with the topic of getting commissions. Has anybody mentioned networking? It doesn't always have to be about emailing/messaging. There are plenty of artists out there at the top of their game who simply don't do commissions. Maybe they made it and just want to focus on what they enjoy, maybe they also have a career elsewhere and are too busy (film/tv), maybe they have 34,576 unread emails... but every now and again someone manages to get their attention. I doubt that it is mostly just a case of right place and right time. There have been three on my list for the past 9 - 10 years and networking at conventions has helped me get one of them done, I am a bit closer on the second one... and... well JHW3 remains an enigma. Where I have really struggled though is asking artists that are mostly, if not exclusively, digital for traditional art. I read quite a few web comics and only have art from one of them. Would love to get something K6BD related https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/kill-six-billion-demons-chapter-4/

I don't think you are ever going to avoid bad experiences no matter what you do, and it certainly is unfortunate if you have had several in a row. I can see your messages weren't offensive, but tone can sometimes be hard to get across in writing. How many times have people written and re-written an unimportant message-board post to get the right tone across? I would have gone with a longer initial message and a large sprinkle of sugar. There's no harm in a bit of flattery to try and get the right tone going, and every once in a while it might just net you what you want where you would otherwise have been turned down. I'm not saying people need to do this when they are requesting a list of available pages, but if you are asking for a commission it will pretty much always enhance your chances of a good outcome. I personally find it a fun challenge to try and put together a nice inquiry email/message, and after a while you will have collection of them in your sent items that you can plunder when you are feeling less inspired. If you just throw a single sentence out there as your comms did you really care that much about what you were asking after in the first place? The reply you got was a little bit on the "yikes" side of things, as if they mis-read stuff. I would have been upset if I got a response like that. Likely would have replied saying I meant no offence, then never messaged again. Asides from that last remark the chances are that they were being entirely honest with you about their reasons as to why your request was a bit of a hassle for them, clearly sounds like they are behind on things. You just have to take it all as a learning experience and hope that you can better read the room next time. If you get turned down a lot because an artist is saying they are busy and you still want to pursue things, then there's nothing stopping you asking them when would be a good month to ask again(?). They should have an idea when they will be finishing a run or between things, that way you have the best chance of getting through. They aren't the only reasons you will ever get turned down, I have had a few negative responses (and a crappy commission) when not playing to an artist's strengths. Some people don't want to work outside of their comfort zone. Maybe if they have been working on Batman for the past 9 months, unless they are an experienced all rounder, ask them for a Batman. I have also had some amusingly crappy responses when making a crappy request for a something that an artist has clearly drawn one too many times. There isn't really anything mind blowing to say on this topic, just keep plugging away at it and you will get better results over time if you put effort in. Eventually you will find yourself using your last commission to also get a quick sketch of something created by the next person you want one from ;)

*sigh* I might end up reaching out to someone for the same reason, but thankfully nowhere near the same league. Personally I probably wouldn't even feel bad if I sold after a longer period of time, say 5 or 6 years later, tastes change, people have their price, and it took me a while to realise why I may never be truly finished with this hobby... but then I also am not likely to have been pleading hard times or similar shenanigans. It probably doesn't need to be pointed out, but there is a distinction between being honest about offering what you can afford, when openly negotiating, and low balling. Would there have been a period for you where enough time had passed to make this a non-issue or at least dull the impact?

Jim Balent kept his share There are so many similar tweets, I gave up scrolling for the group shot I recall.

It's an interesting question, there are probably a few different answers depending on who is asking. You might not have to look at a specialist insurer if you don't have a large or extremely valuable collection, the caveat here is I live in the UK so my experiences are probably going to differ slightly. I thought that I should be able to get a complete package from one of the well known UK insurers as I didn't have a vast amount to cover. It took quite a bit of ringing around to get the right quote but it was definitely worth it as I ended up with a lot of perks across my entire home policy. Collectables had a limit, but that was something I could set. Definitely read the small print and keep in mind how it can be argued in your insurer's favour. As an example a regular insurer might deem you have several different collections that fall under your limit, or might not differentiate between reading material and collectable comics. Whatever you do it's definitely worth getting the best insurance that you can afford. Take the time to run through your contents and breakdown with them beforehand over the phone to check off everything you need covered. Maybe once a year get your mobile and do a floor walk video of your entire property. Chances are you will never need it, but just in case you do it shouldn't be half arsed.