John E.

Have you checked out Scott Eder's inventory yet? I know that he just posted new oil on wood works by Ashley.

I take my OA to get scanned at any corporate office supply store. They handscan it for me. I know this part has been debated in the scanner section, but I request it to be scanned as a jpg, in color, and at 600dpi. It costs me $1.99 per scan. Not bad done in pieces.

Re: Bertram 40x60 absolute talent to work in that size with such detail. Pure speculation on my part, but I imagine not every artist can paint murals, i.e. large scale.

Re: Thanos Wins Holy mother. I wish I read that book upon its release that way I could’ve had a chance to snag a page. But there are 4 issue yet to be released, you say?

You speak the truth here. I’ve been using comps to aid my guesses on Comic Art Tracker and I still miss my mark. By a lot. Lee, great guess on that Star Wars page. I didn’t put in a guess for this past week but I was tracking that pinup Sam Kieth did for Fish Police. I had it at $450 and I think it ended at $525 with bp.

Do I feel that you encourage speculation? Not at all. There are verifiable sources from the web to the podcasts that you are quite the contrary. You have a long "voting record" of this. Honestly, I still believe the art sells itself. Furthermore, each of your artists has a four- to five-figure print run that is essentially free advertising for you and your clients' art. You probably don't even need to lift a finger to hype up your roster (but I know you do because that's what you get paid to do). Does anyone remember the first Steve Oliff Akira color guide drop? Those color guides aren't in my wheelhouse, but IIRC, didn't the art sell out in about 24 hours? Here's copy of the newsletter Felix sent out on February 4, 2016: Anyone can plainly see that there there was no language in the above text that encouraged speculation that may have contributed to a sell out. And then there was the first Bryan Lee O'Malley art drop on August 12, 2014, a year and a half earlier. Notice how subdued Felix is in selling O'Malley: And yet, it was an instant sell out. That's why I say the art sells itself. Then a month and a half later, there's a second O'Malley art drop. Felix could have really milked it, but this is what he wrote: I think it took a little while longer to sell out, if it did at all, but that's understandable. I don't think the market was able to absorb it all in such a short time span. I've bolded the "brisk activity" part for emphasis that the FOMO rhetoric is restrained. And don't even get me started on the first Paul Pope art drop. Pieces for $40???? C'mon! That was ripe for flipping. Felix didn't have to do that. He was leaving money on the table (please keep doing that, Felix). And yet, I've not seen one $40 piece get flipped.

Nah, it was a joke, an ironic statement. That was the point, that just because his rep compares him to Jim Lee, it doesn’t mean that it’s a hot stock tip that moves inventory. Ramon’s market has yet to catch up with, say, DWJ or Pitarra, so the dedicated few who buy Ramon’s art have to be buying for some reason other than speculation. I truly believe that the majority of Felix’s clientele who buy Ramon’s art with passion are buying DWJ with equal passion and not necessarily with future dollar signs in their eyeballs; therefore, the art sells itself, it doesn’t need a messenger.

The first page I bought from you was one by Ramon from Original Sins back when you got started. I so love it. The page is from a mini-series no one read, from an “event” no one cares about today, but I didn’t buy it for that—I bought because it’s Ramon Villalobos. I did crack up when you called him the “Mexican Jim Lee,” but to me he’s the kid from Stockton that made good. I came across your site looking for Villalobos OA. It was through your site that artists like Garry Brown and Chris Mooneyham entered my radar. I bought a Mooneyham Predator page without ever having read the book it was from because it made such an impression on me. When I posted it on CAF I compared Chris to the megafamous Chris Warner (Go ahead and use that in your newsletter; the first one’s free). (As I begin to trade up, I always consider selling it, but I can’t bring myself to it.) Having followed your site since its nascent stage, I—and many others—watched your roster grow. All of them, in the beginning at least, were relatively unknowns. Soon enough, your clients’ art got better and better, catching the eye of more than just fanboys. Your clients (or bosses) went from working on small titles by Dark Horse and Valiant and Boom! maybe?, to steady work with the Big Two. It was and is an exciting time, to see it all happen, to see it unfold quickly there on the shelves of the LCS, to feel like you were part of all that, and buying a page from these guys was a way to be to feel connected to it, to give them a little support and encouragement, to feel like you got there before the bandwagon did, to show your buddies the original art and say, “You see this guy right here? He’s the next Frank Miller.”

I didn’t read Thanos Wins but I imagine quite a few art collectors did, possibly more than the 22 pages that were available. If you want a page in today’s hobby, you have to be lightning fast. Maybe collectors want a page not because they believe it’ll increase in value, but because they know someone later will increase the price.

$45 in 9.8. I don’t know, Felix. I remember that time you called Ramon Villalobos “the Mexican Jim Lee” and then there was a run on your RV inventory.

The WK page 11 is submitted under “Covers”.

Congrats on your upcoming addition to the family. My son/second child was also born in March, on the opening weekend of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. That’s how I remember

Yup...whether anyone thinks that the high price tag is warranted or not, I think of Felix who quoted Richard Martinez in a podcast to the likes of "Art was expensive then, too."

Yeah I see what you’re saying and a lot of “great looking” art today doesn’t get sold whether it’s priced at $500 or $100 ($100 being a “great” deal today). It’s just hard for me to tell someone today that their $500 page wouldn’t be worth $50 if it weren’t for 40 years of collecting and recent comps. I think 40 years of collecting and the comps is what helps justify the purchase.

Eh, I’m making a blanket statement, but yes, it’s closer to “it will only go up for technical reasons than future nostalgia.” I’m hypothesizing here, based on money thrown at art that isn’t aesthetically appealing, but “hey, I read it as a kid!” (me included in this camp). And EC is a comparable example. Great art from Jack Davis and Williamson, but I can’t get through a story word for word. This claim of mine was inspired by yesterday’s trip to the LCS when I spotted a cover that caught my eye and I would love to own (theorically) but I didn’t even bother to buy the book. My claim also undermines the great writing by today’s writers, too; but, unlettered pages de-emphasizes the writer’s role in the creation. The writing may not vanish in the mind of some, but certainly has vanished on the OA. This is to say that I know that my claim carries faulty assumptions, and I don’t subscribe to it 100%, but if you’re buying art before you’ve the book (which I’ve done) than it’s not far fetched.

Although this comment should go in the ongoing “high priced modern artists,” one reason I believe that modern art—those pages on which the ink is still wet—is so high priced because the quality of the art is better, thus it’s understandably higher priced. It just maybe that the value of art up to 1994 (with the exception of Kirby, Ditko, et al) is based on nostalgia, while the value of art from the 2010s, looking back 25 years from now, will be based on aesthetics.

Wow. Just wow. Also, they got a hold of Garry Brown’s Catwoman Annual cover, slapped the trade dress on it and a $2,995 price tag. Get it while it’s, cheap gentleman.

I don't really buy into this "tier" argument. Okay, listen, we can agree that a $130K Ditko Spider-man interior is top tier. So, then, what's a $40K Jim Lee Batman/Hush or X-men page? Middle tier? And that's the first that's going to sink. Uh, I don't know... I just don't think you can classify everything that's in the 100K+ range as top, $50K-99K as middle, etc. I think I subscribe more toward that, oh, someone help me here...that idea/question that was posed not too long ago that went something like, "Would you rather have the weakest page in The Dark Knight Returns or the best page in Sin City?" In any case, I believe that Jim Lee and Steve Ditko are A+, but in different categories. Just because one is in the 100K range and other isn't, doesn't mean the Lee stuff is going to become worthless first. The thing about "investment," is that it presupposes what's going to be hot in 25 years and we just don't know that. Harley Quinn might be hot today, but meaningless in a quarter century. At the risk of sounding optimistic, I don't believe that comic art is a good investment. Like Rick2You says, hobbies go in and out of favor. I'm saddened when I go to a yard/estate sale and see a ton of WWII memorabilia get dumped for pennies on the dollar. It's a dying hobby, no? Or how the vintage toy store owner who runs one of the biggest vintage toy shows in California told me that the "vintage porcelain doll show" went defunct because of lack of interest. My reaction was, "There was a vintage porcelain doll show here?" Our hobby can certainly suffer that fate, just not anytime soon. The people who are doing well "investment"-wise in this hobby are those who were buying art by the inch in the 80s, when no one thought is was going to be worth anything. That ship has sailed. Anyone who thinks they can beat the market in the long term is fooling themselves. We are in break-even territory, me believes.

I put in my guesses for all the Curt Swans and the He-Man promo. That Swan is a tough nut to crack with all the different inkers. That Superman 267 page sold in November for $2,035 and yet it's sitting right now at $195. Gulp.

That Wrightson is in my wheelhouse. It’s the only Bernie I’d ever need, if I could afford it.

Wow.

Ha ha yeah! These same collectors who would rather drink someone else's champagne than spend their OA money on their own NYE party I really like how you included some old ads in this week's write up. Those Jedi ads are pretty cool.

I got killed in this go-round. I went conservative on these New Year's Eve auctions but it turns out that the holiday didn't have a negative effect. Maybe too many people bored at home waiting, killing time until festivities? I also certainly won't be guessing until close to deadline too. Well, here's Mr. Excuses doing some Monday Morning Quarterbacking: Transformers #29, p. 18: My guess, $400; Hammer: $657.25. My guess that having a Transformer on every panel brought a premium. MOTU: He-Man Meets Ram-Man: My guess, $525; Hammer: $896.25. Considering that a Texeira He-Man cover just recently sold for about $1800, I consider this a strong price for a panel page. I don't see many of these pages pop-up, so that might have been it, and perhaps nostalgia and possibly a "first appearance" page. Dennis the Menace daily: My guess, $375; Hammer: $1,015.75. I thought Ketcham art cooled down so I took that into consideration plus the holiday. There were two other guesses and none came close. I account the strong price to it being a funny gag plus it's a clean page. The Ketchams I've seen lately have had some bad toning and unappealing inscriptions. Marvel Fanfare #4, p. 3 (Michael Golden and Deathlok): My guess, $450; Hammer: $1015.25. I know nothing about the Michael Golden market so I had no business guessing. I'm sure this brought my average down. Well, I look forward to next week as I'll be guessing on the plethora of Curt Swan pages.

I'm not privy to any private deals. I will say that I acquired this Kingdom Come pencil prelim in a private deal back in 2013.