Eltanin

2018 has been a slow year for me, I got barely more than 5 pieces, including small head sketches. So, to stay in the spirit of the "Best Of", rather than posting almost every single sketch I bought, I decided to select only 1 piece which was my favorite of the year. It's a commission I've been in love with since I first saw it posted online in someone else's collection. I recently got the chance to buy it and jumped on the occasion. https://www.comicartfans.com/LowryPiece.asp?Piece=9764

Santa came early this year. Crazy cat lady introduces her boyfriend to her cats, by Bill Sienkiewicz. Batman/Catwoman on CAF

I started 9 years ago. It seems like yesterday. Time flies.

Finally cast my votes! As usual, picking only 5 in each category was a hard choice, with all these great pieces. Covers: Splash pages, pinups: Interior panel pages: Strip art: Commissions: Convention sketches: Others:

With a good smartphone, the (free) app CamScanner gives very decent results for B&W pages. Here are examples of pieces I "scanned" using the app: http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1398719 http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1423772 http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1398722

Glad to hear the sketchbook found its way back to its owner.

A buddy sent me pics of the pages Stan had for sale at SDCC. They were unpublished Usagi pages, as well as the published pages for the Six Guns intro by Stan (these pages featured Stan and Usagi) . But no published Usagi comics pages. As far as I know, there are only two in private collections (one is a friend of Stan, and the other offered a crazy amount of money).

I've never done it, but what's wrong with drymount?

"Please"? I tried "Sesame" and "Mellon", but they didn't seem to work.

Since we all gather in a comic art board to chat about comic art collecting, I think it's safe to say there are only two valid answers for us: "Crazy addicted" or "In denial about addiction". Link doesn't work for me.

Two new Mouse Guard pages for me. First, a page from Winter 1152, with the full main cast in both panels! The mice are facing the snow during their journey. http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1398719 Second, a page from Legends of the Guard Vol 3. Some of you (alxjhnsn, I'm looking at you ) may remember the Mouse Astronomer commission David created for me a few years ago (here: http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1155373 ). Well, it seems David liked enough the character he created for me, because he later decided to include him as a character in the 3rd Volume of Legends of the Guard! The least I could say is that I was extremely surprised to recognize this little fellow in the pages of the book! Of course, I couldn't resist the temptation of getting a page with "my" mouse appearing in-story, so here it is: http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1398722

Awful story. I feel for you.

Stan Sakai doesn't sell the published pages from Usagi Yojimbo. However, you can buy either published covers (around 2.5k$, can be more if the cover is from the beginning of the series or particularly beautiful), or rejected interior pages (prices vary, one very early rejected splah page sold for more than 3k$ on Heritage, for example). There are also prelim covers (not published) which are cheaper than the final version. Stan sometimes accepts to do commissions to be picked at a convention, if his schedule allows it. I got this in 2015 for 300euros, which I picked up during his visit at the Lucca convention. I contacted him one month in advance. http://www.2dgalleries.com/art/usagi-yojimbo-commission-boys-day-57031 As for Jason Latour, I've heard he doesn't do sketches often in conventions, and he just confirmed on twitter that he would not sketch at C2E2, for example. But it does happen sometimes if one's lucky. Below is a sketch he did for me during a french convention. The french publisher organized a lottery to win a free sketch by Jason Latour. I got lucky: http://www.2dgalleries.com/art/southern-bastards-par-jason-latour-63358

Thanks for sharing the pics!

Link?

It's a nice story, and a nice commission. It deserved to be published.

Welcome to the hobby! Always a pleasure to meet a new collector with the same passion.

Interesting. What percentage of those auction items sell, by meeting their reserve? Most? Also, does bidding start at the reserve price? I would say most, but not all. Auction houses tend to refuse items if the seller asks for a reserve too high. If they have many items not sold at auction, it doesn't look good (just like Pedigree right now). Also, they prefer to have low or no reserves so they can put a low estimation on an item and claim after the sale: "Look, we managed to sell this item for 3 times the pre-sale estimation. It's because we are very good at getting a high selling price. Future consignors should give us their items if they want to get the best price." Usually, the bidding starts a bit below the reserve, but not at 1euro/dollar like most american auctions do.

Agreed!

I've never read the book, but if Alan Moore and Stan Sakai were involved, I'd say it already looks good! It's a very nice looking page, by the way.

Fixed Link

I had a very hard time not laughing out loud in the office.

Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai!

Cool stuff! (thumbs u

Great piece! And fun to see this when I am trying to get a Usagi piece as well!