Sideshow Bob

Was hoping for a similar result on the Hush DPS, but alas, someone took it one increment higher than my absentee bid. The vig + sales tax was suffucating, even after sidestepping the 8% iCollector charge.

Death of Shane! in Walking Dead #6.

I bought three Y:TLM pages from Cadence two months ago. From my payment date to getting the art, it was two weeks max. Smooth and with no drama. That being said, I think they had the art in hand and ready to ship. Sorry to hear of the multiple stories of delays and buyers getting ghosted, but I had a completely different experience. Bob

Last one for me. Brave and Bold #199 (1983). Clearly the doubling up on leg days have done wonders for Spectre...

Prefacing this with "yes, I know these are covers and not interior double-page splashes". But since there hasn't ever been a topic for interlocking covers, and since these are SO cool, I'll quietly drop in these four covers done by Jerry Bingham for the Millenium cross-over in 1989. Kind of like a QCS instead of DPS...

Sean Murphy. Tokyo Ghost #1.

Yep, its the old Hindsight Trading 20/20 phenomenon. Of course he would never have sold those covers for hundreds in the 70's since they would eventually be worth hundreds of thousands each, and only he would be the one to figure that out. My read is that its a case of very sour grapes, but that bitterness is fueled by the work-for-hire ambiguity.

Do we know that Neal originally sold this piece to a collector and its just sour grapes that the price has increased exponentially since then? Or that it was held in DC's office and somehow found its way out of the office, unprotected by a contract that said the OA was specifically his? When I asked him to sign a pencil prelim to the cover of Batman #226, he said "you know that's stolen property?" I followed up with an email asking him for the police report so I could take it up with Heritage (obviously got no reply to that...). But I believe that is the crux of his bitterness and the core of his advocacy for other artists: there weren't actual contracts for the "work-for-hire" crowd when he was in his hey-day, and if there had been, he'd have gotten all his art back and would be sitting on a veritable goldmine. Instead, his OA was produced without the specific artist rights terms that exist nowadays (which he fought for), thereby allowing someone else to profit from every subsequent sale. Now he seethes with every commission he pops out to make a good living, albeit at rock-star prices, every day adding to his ongoing bitterness and crystallizing in his purported shakedown of every major OA sale of his work by creating strawman "authenticity concerns".

You're probably pretty happy with that Dark Victory splash page with Joker going for a decent bit of coin... I picked up the Nightwing cover (with Chicago burning) that I sold a couple years ago and regretted ever since.

Proud owner of two Dream of Rarebit Fiend by Winsor McCay. 1905 and 1908. https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1398415 https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?Piece=1244608

That is a great Punk Rock Jesus page. Can't remember the last time I saw a quality example from that series available... GLTA. Bob

Batman. Quite a lot of Batman. Surprisingly, my #2 is Wild Blue Yonder by Zach Howard. Loved his inks so much, I bought a complete issue and a ton of other pages.

The consignment shop owner told me the consignor was in a care facility and has since passed. The house it came from was mostly packed with collectibles. Chance that some of the key pages were cherry-picked as they left the house, but impossible to say from the limited insight given to me.There are a couple pages I would aggressively go after... and then I would rest for a good while.

After the last two years of the eBay drip release of so many Don Newton Batman/Detective pages (just ended, thank God!), its going to be Don Newton for me.

Zach Howard (The Cape, Wild Blue Yonder) blows me away. Sean Murphy. Some great stuff in Batman: White Knight. Terry Moore: Doesn't skip a beat while doing the whole job of writing/inking/lettering solo, SIP25 is a treat. Fiona Staples. Oh how I wish she did OA. Actually, my bank account says thank you for not doing OA.

At the risk of causing offense for going to four, I'm adding one more page that I just picked up: Batman finds out he's going to be a daddy! Talia breaks the news to him that she's with child, in Batman: Son of the Demon [1987]. Eventually, DC will ret-con this story to become Damien Wayne's origin story. Some superb pencil and ink work by Jerry Bigham. Bob

We bypassed all that recommended 529 planning (fake news!), and went into a surefire investment investment...CGC certified sketch covers! Now we sit and wait and watch them quadruple in value each year. Hello, Harvard!

One hell of a lucky coincidence of WD ending last week, and your WD Tony Moore page ending this week... congrats!

If anyone is hanging onto some Batman #366 pages (Don Newton/Alfredo Alcala), let me know! Top dollar paid. There was a bunch that went through ebay last year, but it was only the front half of the book. The back half has the fight between Joker and Batman (plus Jason Todd in a stolen Robin suit). I have the end splash that I picked up years ago, but would love to add a page from the fight. Thanks! Bob PS: The DPS from Detective #526, also Newton/Alcala...also looking for this and top, top dollar. Been looking for it for years...

For nostalgia, its got to be 1987! Jerry Bingham on Batman is first. I devoured the Son of the Demon HC over and over again. A close second would be Kevin O'Neill on Marshall Law.

I grew up three miles from this shop. My neighborhood is actually in Chicago, which Oak Lawn borders. There is a solid but small-ish LCS a mile away (All American on 95th between Kedzie & Pulaski; I rode my bike there to buy the Punisher mini off the shelf in 1986) vs Chimera (also on 95th but just west of Cicero). Does that part of the city/SW suburbs have enough interest to support two brick-and-mortars just a mile apart? I actually don't think that they do, as they couldn't even pull that off successfully in the '80s. I have fond memories of that little part of the world, but not a chance in hell that I would be applying for that contest, even if the entry fee was zero.

Decent chance I'll be there with my two young daughters. Bob

per PM.