John E.

First, when it comes to art that you own and possess, that you paid money for, or were given as a gift, there are no rules. You make the rules. I've had blank cover commissions colored by another artist that had nothing to do with the original penciler. I've also had pencil pieces inked by someone else (often industry professionals like Mick Gray or Derek Fridolfs, who make appearances at conventions).

When I decided to have a sketch cover colored I "shopped" around for the right colorist--someone who knew how to approach the piece. I went with an independent artist (one of the local artists here), someone who hasn't worked for the Big Two. I was really happy with his work.

If you're thinking of resale value, theoretically, adding color should increase the value of the sketch cover because more work has been put in and also money. However, it doesn't necessarily work out that way. You have to ask yourself honestly what's the market for that artist and piece? And ultimately, you have to find the right buyer. The "right buyer" might be someone willing to pay three figures for your sketch cover, but wants the "virgin" pencils only and is turned off by the ink and/or color on it. Or the "right buyer" might be someone who doesn't care and loves the piece as a whole and pays top dollar. Your best bet for value would be if you had a well-known penciler and inker team work on the blank and maybe the colorist of the book, or a name brand colorist. But those are going to be rare occasions.

At the end I sold those two blank covers that I had colored. One I made a little money on (I think; I got it in a trade deal so I don't know how much money I actually put in). But if I made a profit, it was between $10-$20 dollars. The second I broke even on, or maybe took a $2-$3 loss. Again, it takes more than color to add the kind of value that you're looking for. Buyers consider other factors. So if you color your stuff, do it because you love it, because you love the experience of engaging with multiple artists on one piece. Otherwise, expect to take losses on your pieces; if you do make a significant profit, then you are a very wise businessman.

Again, thank you all who may have bought any of my stuff or put in a bid or two. I was extending my fundraising to purchase a page from New Mutants #100, but that deal went sideways; therefore, there's no urgent need to raise funds on my part. Summer is the slow selling season, so there's no need on my part to push these. I've made price adjustments on everything that remains and I have refreshed the eBay links. Whatever doesn't sell now I might quietly re-list in the fall but I will close this thread after the final listing ends. Please note that I have the Kenneth Rocafort sketch on auction right now (currently at one dollar). Here is a new addition though:

Dark Intruder by Richard Sala. $45 eBay Link

8-1/2" x 11"

Archival ink over graphite on hand-trimmed Bristol board

Thank you all for your answers! Story page it is! 

I check CAF and the dealers' sites in-between things, looking for that Grail, or just to see what hobbyist are collecting. 

I'm with Gene though. Although four years into the hobby, I peaked much earlier. I have two small children so I told myself that I wouldn't spend actual money on the hobby, but though eBay sales of my collectibles. That's tough, because, yes, art, particularly vintage art, is getting harder to find and more expensive since I got in. I have figured that even a Grail piece from the early Copper Age that may mean nothing to most anyone else would cost me $2000-$3000 and that's just too much for me. Even the awesome new/just release art costs that much. That's just hard to swing. There was something that Felix said in one of the podcasts to one of the collectors in the "talk show" segment that really clicked for me. I think the collector was interested in Sam Kieth (who is on my want list). We all know good Kieth isn't cheap. But Felix said that you don't have to own the art to enjoy it. That made a lot of sense, as "dumb" as it sound writing it out. 

19 hours ago, F For Fake said:

I think he more or less left comics to go into animation, storyboarding, something like that. He has returned to comics a bit in recent years, doing a couple of random issues here and there, a few covers, etc. He was really active on FB for a while, and I spoke to him there a bit. His wife passed away recently and he more or less stepped away from art for a time. But if his website is to be believed, he has a project in the works, so hopefully we'll see more from him soon!

Bret Blevins made an appearance at Silicon Valley Comic Con in 2016. I didn't talk to him specifically about what he had been up to, but it is my understanding that he was doing storyboards during his gap in comics. I didn't know about his wife passing recently. Sad. I had read somewhere--maybe an Image Comics newsletter, that he was teaming up with a "name brand" writer on an Image book; but searching the Image site, nothing pops up. It might be on hold due to his wife's passing? Otherwise, an insider told me that Bret has held on to all/most of his artwork.

48 minutes ago, mister_not_so_nice said:

Not to get too off-topic (because we all love a poorly drawn MJ, amirite?), but WTF is going on with this GALLERY?

Clearly ristones ristones. 

Original comic art on Marvel and DC boards usually have two page numbers: the story page, often written in black ink by one of the creators, and the book page, often written by someone at editorial in red ink that indicates where the page lands in the comic taking ads into consideration (is this correct?). So for us completists who like to give as much information about the art on CAF, which page number should be used? Story or book? Is there an agreed upon standard?

My default is to use the story page simply because I'm paying more attention to what the creators put down. 

In thinking more about it, isn't important to have a standard in order to avoid page conflicts in the "Comic Art Archive" between to users? Also, for nostalgia collectors, isn't (could it) be important to use the page number that lands in the book, the object of nostalgia? Does the publisher treat that as the "official" page number. On the other hand, if you own a complete book and upload all the page individually, you're probably going to upload them in the 22-page sequence and not introduce gaps that represent ad pages.

Furthermore (), how do you represent stories published in anthologies? If it's an 8-page story, do you say, "This is page one of an 8-page story," or do you say, "This is page 9 in Creepy #12? Art dealers tend to go by the former.

Please edify me!

@Doc Joe Thanks for sharing! And...ah, so you're the one who took down the Barreto cover. I was so surprised it wasn't moving at the asking price--great cover, even better deal.

11 minutes ago, MrReedRothchild said:

Just got my Astro City covers in from framing and completed my wall...for now.

 

 

 

 

Those are great Ross/Astro City covers!

When one thinks of Black Hole collectors, one tends to think about those folks who are stashing away Ditkos and Kirbys or the covers to ASM15 and BA12. But those I don't care about because I could never afford them. If you scour the dealer and auction sites obsessively for their updates like I do, you'll notice some really nice pieces that get bought up quickly, but they never show up on CAF. Or what about those pages I sell on eBay that hardly ever show up on CAF. What gives? Were these just one-off purchases? That Black Hole Collectors that "scare" me are those stashing away the $50-$500 pieces, especially the 90s stuff 

On May 22, 2017 at 1:43 AM, Nexus said:

Just a couple of other quick notes:

-- Congrats to buyer of the AMERICAN FLAGG! painted cover. Gorgeous piece.

-- Was hoping those pieces relegated to the afterthought Saturday session would go cheap. No such luck. Besides the aforementioned JON SABLE cover, there were also two Paul Pope BATMAN: YEAR 100  pages I was watching. Two of the stronger examples from the book. I thought the consignor erred by A. not splitting them up between two auctions (assuming both were consigned by same seller) and B. allowing them to be sold on Saturday. In the end, didn't matter. One went for $10K and the other $7K.

HA has been insisting that Saturday is as worthy as the main session. I'm still not convinced (there's a reason Saturday lots get thumbnails in the back of the catalog)...but it does appear that nothing good will go under-the-radar, and that there's always dry powder for quality.

I followed those Paul Pope pages with huge interest, too. That "Batman with teeth" page is the one I would want the most from the entire series if I had that kind of money. I thought it would top out at around $5K. But $10K??? Sheesh...give budget collectors at chance, you high rollers!. That price makes the Batman 100 #1 cover look like a bargain, not that $25K is chump change. Well, Felix, here's another example of a 5-figure modern art piece...without any lettering to boot!

You made the call, NinjaSealed. Well done. 

Geez, if the price made Mr. Tfish say What The...? Only two people saw that coming. 

I guess we haven't seen the end of crazy. 

On May 9, 2017 at 9:15 PM, SquareChaos said:

You are correct, that is what I heard as well. They were talking about who inked what with regards to Klaus / Miller on DKR. Right in the middle of that conversation, Felix speaks up and says not only did McFarlane do some amount of inking on the mini, but McFarlane himself had confirmed it! I had never heard this before, and I figured Felix must be mistaken (I should have known better), because if that was the case, how the heck could it be that everyone didn't know? 

This link wasn't very hard to find once I started looking:

 https://mcfarlane.com/blog/wayback-wednesday-frank-miller/

 

Thanks for finding the link, @SquareChaos

Wow--I had no idea some inkers had inking assistants. I ask this rhetorically, but you know, since we're already off-topic, do collectors care about this at all?

Fascinating podcast. Scott was laying it all out there IDGAF style.

I'm glad that the "Scott Free Mystery" has been solved; I had been very curious about it since Benno's episode. And I'm so glad Scott explained his pricing on the piece because even I was, like, $1000 for a piece of art in '87 is A LOT of money. I love how it was hard for him to keep his cool as he tallied up a sale that's how serious money it was back then.

Thanks for bringing us the Scott's story, Felix, and so quickly too. 

I'm going to make a general statement about a "principle" in linguistics here. Generally, the meanings of words change over time. I believe linguist John McWhorter's new book is about that. He uses the example of today's (mis)use of "literally." "Literally" is, like, literally misused all the time; it's become more of an expression for exaggeration that, generally speaking, the public has accepted. It seems like the meaning of "holy grail" has changed, too, inevitably. (Heck, what would Dr. Henry Jones think about what we refer to as "grail"?) As a newb who entered the hobby 4 years ago, even I was confused as to what "holy grail" meant exactly and I had to come up with my own personal definition.

End pedantry. 

Welcome, Tatiana! You wouldn't remember me, but I stopped by your table at East Bay Comic Con this past February. In that brief meeting I can tell that you are very grounded and your prices are grounded as well. I take it that your 15 years of collecting has given you a good sense of the market pricing!

Legends of the Dark Knight: Batman: Jazz #3 (1995) by Mark Badger

11" x 17"

Ink over pencil

SOLD

On April 30, 2017 at 6:03 AM, Twanj said:

it's back!

 

here's the seller 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CONAN-THE-BARBARIAN-1-ORIGINAL-COVER-ART-JOHN-BUSCEMA-VERY-RARE-RECREATION-/371922186092?hash=item56984a2f6c:g:bpAAAOSw5cNYKcZc&rmvSB=true

I don't know... "Agatha Harkness" just posted my Nick Dragotta-East of West sketch cover in the Market Place forum with my photo and eBay link. To what purpose? I don't know  . You can find that sketch cover in my "for sale" thread.

$30.

Archibald on East of West #4 sketch cover

Marker(?) over pencil

 SOLD

The Flash by Matt Kindt on a Justice League of America #11 sketch cover

Ink and gold Sharpie

$50 OBO eBay Link

Red Robin symbol on Teen Titans #8 sketch cover.

Done in marker.

Sure it's not a figure, but unless you're willing to pony up $250 for a bust, or $350 for a torso commission, here's your chance for an affordable Rocafort example.

SOLD

Reimagining of Green Lantern #85 - Speedy Drug cover by Fred Hembeck

Ink and marker on sketch cover

SOLD

Golden Age Catwoman - Simpsonized by Bill Morrison

Ink over pencil on sketch cover

SOLD

Fabian Gray of Five Ghosts by Chris Mooneyham 

Marker on sketch cover

SOLD