DocR

I love the matching frames, and what you've got described as the mounting process sounds perfect. Do you mount things up yourself? I've been thinking of a similar approach to matching frames, but I'd be interested in being able to switch out the art in the future - not regularly, but I've only got room for 5 or 6 frames, so I'd want to frame my best pieces and be able to switch them in the future if/when I upgrade.

I had all the frames and mats cut professionally and then framed them myself at home. I wasn't comfortable leaving the pieces at a framing store. Plus by ordering the frames from an online retailer I can get more in the future that match exactly hopefully if I need to.

Finally got around to framing a bunch of my pieces. Check them out.

http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=161578

Thanks Gene

Thanks to Nelson who brought photocopies of Miller's pencils to DD #182, 184 and Wolverine LS #1 to the show today. I don't know if he mentioned it before, but he found these at a garage or yard sale in Brooklyn - apparently the house was rented by a Marvel editor/staffer of some sort, who left behind all these photocopies which were then sold. Amazing that Nelson was able to recover these before they were lost to the world.

 

I can confirm that every page from DD #182 and #184 are finished Miller layouts directly on the board. There are a few of us who are going to try and track down Janson at the show tomorrow and show him that these issues were done directly on the board, and to see if there was a reason #179-#181 were done on separate sheet layouts or whether he was mistaken and these too were layouts directly on the board. I'm going to bring my DD #181 page and the TPB which features the issues in question as visual aids. So, hopefully we can get to the bottom of this tomorrow.

 

As for the Wolvie LS #1, they are definitely finished layouts on board as well. So, I don't know if Rubinstein was exaggerating the level of his involvement on this mini-series or if the later issues got progressively less detailed. But, as far as issue #1 goes, it is definitely detailed layouts and nothing even remotely close to loose shapes or squiggles.

Gene,

thanks so much for confirming this. I thought I could make my first comic con this year but sadly no such luck. I would drove to hear Klaus comments once you track him down.

thanks chris

If I consider it one of the best pages of the Miller run, nothing can change that.

 

Agreed. Except I would only want to own pages that had been touched by Frank Miller.

 

As a fan of the Daredevil series and a collector of Frank Miller art, I would love to find the 8 x11 thumbnail layouts for DD 179 and 181.

 

If there are in fact 8 x 11 layouts. I believe this has yet to be proven. If someone could produce one that would certainly back up KJ's 2012 statements.

He either forgot or deliberately didn't disclose the fact that Miller did 11x17 boards on 182 and 184, which Nelson has copies of. Again, this is called evidence.

 

Given the rescheduling of the #182-#184, I don't find it implausible that there may have been reasons why these issues were created in a different fashion than #179-#181 (to maintain consistency, for example). That's definitely a question to be posed to Klaus and Frank if anyone can pin them down. As for Nelson's copies, I think everybody wants to see scans of these so we know exactly what we are dealing with.

 

Even if we can prove that #182-#184 were all done by Miller's pencils on board, to me, that wouldn't necessarily invalidate Klaus' statement if he recalls that those issues were done that way because they were started that way, but the other issues weren't. If he says, no, no, those were separate sheets too, then I can believe that he was just wrong about #179-#181 as well. But, right now, I don't see anything even remotely resembling a smoking gun.

 

If he's at the NYCC again this year, let's go ask him.

 

His testimony has already been proven to be.... let's call it "incomplete."

I've got to say something doesn't smell right about the 2012 comments by Janson. Hasn't there been a falling out between Miller and Janson? Nelson's comments and description of the scans also seem to contradict Rubinstein's comments that Miller just provided squiggles for that book. Maybe inkers just don't like Frank Miller, Maybe they feel he gets too much credit. All I know is the thing that's odd about the 2012 comments is that it took 30 years for this sentiment to surface. I find that more troubling than the idea that Janson can't remember 30 years ago. J Sid's point is that how is there radio silence on this issue for 30 years and then "BTW, I was really doing pencils on one of the most celebrated runs in comic book history 6 issues earlier than everyone thought." Not trying to impugn Janson's integrity, but it just strikes me (and a lot of other people) as quite odd.

 

My head is starting to spin here. IS it your position that miller put pencil to board on 178 -184 or are there certain issues where you disagree with this statement?

 

I think he put pencil to board up until 185.

 

Also of note, the letters page scan I posted was from issue 188. So when they say "the last few issues" this means a few issues back from DD188, not a few issues back from DD185.

Ok, thanks for the clarification, We are in agreement.

Psst ...

I have been sharing information.

I think my copies are more reliable than the memories of FM, KJ, and JR. Hell, I have trouble remembering what I ate for lunch yesterday so who would not have fuzzy memories from 30 years ago.

 

 

Again, I'm not part of any discussion group outside of CGC. I only chimed in recently when I read this thread and thought I could contribute in a positive manner.

 

Cheers!

N.

 

I'm not doubting your assessment. I'm agreeing that your copies of the pencils can end this debate once and for all. A picture is worth a thousand words.

 

I lugged the copies to NYCC several years ago so a few collectors saw them in person. Other collectors were not interested in seeing them.

 

You found an eager audience here at CGC and I'm sure you're scans would get a warm welcome over at comic art fans.

 

Several years ago on these chat boards I provided a scan of a DD / Kingpin page which showed FM's detailed layouts. My scanner was working then. The OA was up for auction and my scan helped clarify questions about FM's pencils.

 

Can someone help nelson out with scanning!

I have an A3 scanner and would love this chore.

I still haven't been convinced that the statement from the DD letters page, (OK'd by Editors and published at the time when all this was occurring) is anything other than accurate.

Klaus's online statement came 30 years later. Sorry Klaus, if you'd done an interview back in the 80s where you'd made similar statements I'd be more inclined to give them credence.

Mitch's statement that he received all the pages from 181 doesn't necessarily mean that Klaus drew all those issues. As pointed out, complete issues were sometimes split up when returning art to penciller/inkers.

My head is starting to spin here. IS it your position that miller put pencil to board on 178 -184 or are there certain issues where you disagree with this statement?

I think the basic message with all of this and where I completely agree with Gene, is that Frank Miller was integral to this run and if he had penciled and inked everything himself vs loose layouts on separate sheets it shouldn't affect value dramatically because you are buying the run. That being said I can understand why people who may only have room in their collection for a single page of this value/caliber are concerned with the specifics.

That all being said any pages from this run I consider to have especially high collector appeal and Frank Miller had a direct hand in their creation whether his hand directly touched page or not. I would love to see more of those 8 1/2 by 11 rough layouts surface to prove or disprove the issue.

P.S. I wish auction houses put 1/10 of the effort into these things that we do

It's been brought up before, but will people now start to care more about Miller's extremely loose breakdowns on the Wolverine Limited Series as well? Again, for me, it doesn't matter - I love that series and I think the art looks great, full stop. But, I've long felt that it's obvious that the look of the book was more Rubinstein than Miller (as confirmed multiple times now by Rubinstein)...will this art also receive more scrutiny as well?

 

I always find it fascinating to chronologically take a look at what books an artist was working on at a given time (for instance, check out how many books Byrne was doing in a given month off and on in the 1977-1979 era - unreal). To perhaps state the obvious, but Miller most likely had to move to separate sheet layouts during the post-DD185 time period due to this Wolverine chores at the same time.

 

I also reviewed the Miller DD TPB's last night and it is amazing the stylistic changes during the run...I have to say however that it is a little perplexing to me that if DD179-190 (except for 183/184) was done with separate layouts then 1) why did the title credits only adjust to "Miller - Storyteller, Janson - Art" as of DD185 and 2) why is there such a distinct stylistic difference between DD182 and postDD185? In other words, if there was no change in artistic approach from DD179-190 between Miller and Janson (meaning layout by Miller on a separate sheet), then why did things visually change as of DD185? As previously mentioned, there is a minor stylistic shift between DD178 and DD179 but not as significant as between DD182 and DD185-190. Some may say this is just my opinion but I believe it has always been widely acknowledged that DD185 onwards just looks more Jason-influenced than DD182 and before.

 

To be transparent, I do own a page from DD182 so I do have a dog in this fight admittedly.

 

Agreed, Would love to hear from Mitch regarding these points.

In all fairness to the comments re #182 I would like to hear from people with direct knowledge of the situation (Mitch Itkowitz, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson) before annotating the guidelines of miller dd run art breakdown duties.

Yes I have a self interest, but also since these 3 persons are alive and well I don't see why we are relying on theory.

[*]DD #173-180: Layouts by Miller in the same sheet, embellishment by Janson.

 

BTW. where did this #180 cut-off come from - shouldn't it be DD #173-#178 done on the same board and #179-181 and #185-190 done on separate sheets? Also, wouldn't the new pages from #182-#184 (those that weren't done around #167) be separate sheet layouts as well? Someone cited a 2012 post by Janson where he said that the separate sheets started with #179, not #181:

 

"Just to set the record straight, though, Frank went to 8 and a half inch by 11 inch breakdowns on issue #179, not #185."

 

I was just looking through the TPB covering DD #168-#182. I can't really detect any noticeable change between the art for #172 and #173 (when Miller supposedly went from full pencils to loose breakdowns). To the extent that I can detect any meaningful stylistic change, it's between #178 and #179 (not between #180 and #181). If #181 was a separate sheet layout issue, I would strongly suspect that #179 and #180 were too - and that is backed up by Klaus. Would love to get opinions from others after they take another look at their TPBs or back issues.

 

Not that, as I said, it matters to me, but if we're trying to set the record straight here, let's set the record straight. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I'm willing to take Klaus at his word; his recollection seems pretty clear to me from what he wrote.

I believe this was the initial thought but Ferran Delgado did a ton of research and presented some evidence, which resulted in the summary that Alex provided. I could be wrong though.

On the comicart-l, we had a long conversation on the topic and this was the consensus there and I took notes and created this summary:

 

• DD #158-172: Full pencils by Miller, inks by Janson.
  
• DD #173-180: Layouts by Miller in the same sheet, embellishment by Janson.
  
• DD #181: Layouts by Miller in a DIFFERENT smaller sheet, embellishment by Janson. Miller didn't touch the original art.
  
• DD #182-184: Layouts by Miller in the same sheet, embellishment by Janson.
  Notes:
  
  • Theory: Issues 182-184 (Punisher arc) were originally intended for an earlier publication and probably have a mix of (Miller pencils/Janson inks) and all Jansen pages from Miller layouts. It might be difficult to know who actually did what as the story was altered for the revised publication and changed situation.
    
  • MikeyO, the proposer of the theory in the note above, later wrote:
    

    My theory is logical but needs support from other sources. Some one could counter and say the previous art drawn by Miller a year and a half or so ago may have been used as a complete issue (perhaps issue 183?). My guess is that other pages were inserted but I still think verification is necessary.
     
    Mitch [itkowitz] had responded that your previous supposition was correct (that Miller went to breakdowns and Janson finished on the same page for 182 to 184), but if you think about the possible rationalization that Mitch is using to assume this you can determine he may be coming to an erroneous conclusion. As Mitch said he got the whole issue of 181 from Janson to sell because he essentially drew the issue, so Mitch would assume any issue he received the complete book would be done in this method and any book where Mitch received only partial pages to an issue would indicate that Miller did breakdowns on the page and Janson finished. The problem with that logic is that as we have discussed that some pages to issues 182-4 would have been done by Miller more than a year ago and obviously returned to him and Janson could still be working the procedure of following Miller layouts on 8 by 11 paper that was instituted with issue 181 on the pages that were added to issues 182-4. Therefore, Mitch would not get a complete book as Miller would get his pages back even though they were done many months ago but Janson could still be the only person that added anything new.
     
    Others have said that the Punisher storyline was meant for issue 167 as a one part story. As said, my rationale is that they added pages to make up a two part story. Evidence to lend credence to my theory is given by Grand Comic Book Database that credits Roger McKenzie as the co writer for issue 183 and 184. Roger's last story on DD was issue 167 and after that he was done with the title, so they are obviously crediting him with both issues as they broke up the one issue and expanded into two. Now, the question is was the new art done by the process started in 181 or did Miller work on the same sheet as Janson? It's bending a little towards the former, but not a dunk yet.

  [*]DD #185-190: Layouts by Miller in a DIFFERENT smaller sheet, embellishment by Janson. Miller didn't touch the original art.

  [*]DD #191: Full pencils by Miller, inks by Austin

 

[Yes, this might make my head explode. All I know is it was great reading off the stands way back when. ]

 

 

Should I revise this or annotate it differently?

This has been my understanding of the consensus as well.

1. Page 32, iconic

2. Page 41, battle page

3. Page 40, batman through the glass, battle

4. Page 42 Battle

5. Page 45, the joke

6. Page 43, fake gun

7. Page 35, battle

8. Page 36, battle, acid

9. Page 33, maniacal joker 3rd panel

10. page 34, I'm a sucker for the bat mobile

Thanks for the info. So, should I generally not worry too much about the fact that they aren't sealed?

 

Mike

Since the bags are so much larger you can cut them to make your own flaps or , what i do, seal them with acid free tape. You can also put an acid free backing board for OA that you can buy that fits in perfectly from BCE.

I've searched around quite a bit, but I can't seem to find a good answer to this. For storing most of my OA I've been using 11x17 2 mil mylar bags from BCW. However, I have some pages (mostly on DC/Vertigo boards) that are a bit bigger by an inch or so in either dimension. Looking around, I have seen some 4 mil mylar sleeves meant for tabloid newspapers that would probably fit, but they don't have flaps for sealing. I've also seen some poly bags, but I was hoping to stick with mylar. Anyone know where I might be able to find 2 mil mylars with flaps in something like 12x18 or 13x19 sizes?

 

Mike

These are what I use and then put them inside itoya 13 x 19 portfolios

http://www.ebay.com/itm/12-1-2-x-18-1-2-inch-MYLAR-Sleeve-s-4mil-no-flap-/200405465175?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ea918b857

To my recollection, a few Trimpe Hulk panel pages have hit just above $3k (most seem to be in the broader $1k-$3k range, with better ones in the $2k-$3k range). We are talking non-splash, correct?

 

That sounds about right. I wonder if we need a category for 1-3K, although that might be too big a listing.

I would say the true A trimpe panel pages break 3k. I'm talking the top 3% of pages.

I wonder what possessed herb trimpe to give this away? e

 

A generous nature? I've heard he's given away other art, as well, including key G.I. JOE art (although, obviously, nothing of the magnitude of this page). My guess is he's a product of his time, when OA was seen as disposable, and he never grasped the possibility that it could have value. Either that or he simply didn't care.

i've exchanged several emails with Herb a few years ago and bought a commission from him and he struck me as just a really nice old school guy. That, and he probably didn't ever think the page would be worth 6 figures.

I'm glad this news came out before the Heritage and CLink auctions this month - hopefully the potential buyers of the Hulk #180 piece will put their checkbooks away for these sales in order to have maximum firepower at their disposal in May!

 

"My prediction for the Hulk #180 page? PAIN."

 

 

Interesting thought.

 

Does putting out a preview like this before your current big auction ends a mistake? Maybe people do look at these previews and say "I'll wait for May to spend my money"

 

If I was consigning a big Wolverine A+ page in HA or Clink currently I'd be kind of annoyed....

 

I don't have that kind of money, so I don't know the answer :shrug:

 

It's a cute theory, and I hope the same, but I don't think there will be any effect. There's really nothing at that same level in either HA or Clink this round to make any BSD have to choose. Maybe the ACTION cover and even then, I doubt the same guys who are going after that will be going after the Wolverine page (and vice-versa). If there is someone who does want both, well...they can probably afford both. Gonna be fun to watch!

This page should bring more money than just about any other page in our hobby save very early bats, supes and spidey covers or splashes. The fact the 181 interior is gone even adds more to the desirability of this one. Wolverine may very well be the second most popular comic hero today after batman. If the cover to 181 is still in existence than I could see that going for more as well as the covers and interiors to Action 1, AF 15 and ASM 1, Tec 27 and similar. As far as I understand most of all of these ( on the DC side) are not thought to have survived. Bottom line the list of more desirable comic art pieces is very short indeed.

Great update and thanks to mitch also. your in depth research is great stuff and you could probably have a future as a private investigator. thanks again!

ferran, thanks for your work on this issue. As the owner of a #182 page it has always appeared to me that Miller pencils "touched the page" and it also always has been presented that way by both the big guys and collectors. there is a distinct difference in the art on 185 and later (don't get me wrong, still great) and Janson's recent comments do really ring of sour grapes but I certainly do not claim to know the inside story.

thanks again, and I agree, if a description can be clearer at auction it should be.

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=51600

I don't normally post my new pickups to the board but I'm super excited about this one.

Its finally arrived. David Finch/Danny Miki Avengers 501 cover. I'm super excited and still can't really believe it. take a look on caf. Comments welcome!

http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryPiece.asp?Piece=997342&GSub=0&GCat=51600&UCat=51600

thanks chris