John E.

If provenance does have an effect, it's a tiny slice of why someone would bid high. No one is questioning the authenticity; I think jaybuck's point is that the piece has been pretty much in the hands of the creators all this time and the winner will be up there with "the royalty." It's kind of like buying the house that Frank Sinantra lived in. But I'll restate, I have no idea how the original looks like and if it's an all pencil piece that's going to have a bigger influence than "provenance."

That's interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't know how the provence would affect the value. It may work in Kyle's favor to photograph the art hanging in his office and post it online. That might stir some emotional bidding. I don't know what Middleton's process is, but I'm dying to know how the artwork looks like. I mean if it was just a pencil piece, that might affect the final hammer price more on the lower end regardless of provenance.

I've entertained the same idea...to focus on one artist, like Bruce Timm or Alex Ross. And I really like your analysis and what would happen if you did. I have an acquaintance that I run into at cons and with whom I talk art. He told me he had something like 12-14 pieces by Chris Bachalo. It seemed like he had various examples by Bachalo and was considering picking up something from Doctor Strange until he caught himself and said, "Well, maybe I have too much of him. And the market is beginning to soften." That's what got me thinking: how much is too much of an artist? I don't know the Bachalo market but if he bought pages for $1400 and could "only" get $1100 from them, then at a dozen he'd have $3600 loss. But that's in theory. Sure, the value of some of those pages might soften, but if he had one or two "Death" pieces, then those pieces are likely to pick up the slack. So at first, my misperception was that there is such as a thing as having too many of one artist; but if the artist is worth collecting, and you've started collecting him since the beginning, then pages from the artist's most popular/historical title is where all the equity is made. Unless you're dozen pages deep in an artist's worst work from his worst title, your portfolio is just as diversified as it would be collecting many different artists. Just as an aside, trading a dozen pieces for one piece is similar to "putting all your eggs in one basket" I believe. Second, most art collectors have different interest and tastes and favorite, that I also believe that hardly anyone puts it all in one basket. Bill C. has an extraordinary collection of GOTG but he has other art, too.

John Pound does commissions???

So Craig Kyle is the current owner/cosigner?

Simpsons Comics #67 (2002), title page. Wolverine and the X-Men (X2 film parody). Graphite/blue pencil by Phil Ortiz 8-1/2" x 12-1/2" on thin animation paper SOLD

If the original cover art for NYX #3 and NYX #4 sold within a year of each other, it wouldn't surprise me if #4 matched or exceeded the final hammer price of #3. I'll certainly be following the auction.

I should've been clearer to say that I don't assume it was you, Mike, that won the auction and is trying to resell it, as it could've been another buyer who could've taken it to you for consignment; that's why I wrote that it's on your site, but not that you did it directly, but I'll give you that my last sentence makes that assumption. Besides, that David Mack piece was in a recent public auction not forgotten by anyone who was watching or bidding. The sales history is still available on eBay. Anyone who followed the auction and sees it now on your site will draw the same conclusion, not just me.

Can I hijack this thread a bit? So I've never traded art with a dealer, so I'm wondering who determines the value of your piece? Since I've never traded with a dealer, I imagine that the trade is usually lopsided in favor of the dealer. The one exception might be that $20 page you bought at a con 40 years ago that's now worth $2000. But what if we're talking about modern art? I guess that point I'm trying to get to is that if you trade in your $250 piece of modern art for $200 in credit, then what's the advantage of trading over just selling it on your own?

I just noticed that a really nice David Mack "Kraven Last Hunt" commission that (under)sold on eBay for $145 on 1/22/17 is now up at Romitaman (2/26/17) for $500. That's about a 3.5X markup.

Azrael #38, page 4. Bane injects Azrael with Venom. Pencils by Roger Robinson, inks by James Pascoe. 11" x 17". SOLD eBay Link

Hi, everyone! I just pulled the trigger on my most expensive piece yet and I'm looking to sell some art to pay off the balance. These are all eBay listings with international shipping, too (If I didn't designate int'l shipping in the listing, let me know and I'll arrange it.) I'll be posting more work as I get to them! Legends of the Dark Knight: Batman: Jazz #2, p. 7 by Mark Badger - SOLD Sketch cover: Wolverine by Darrick Robertson (colors by Gaz Gretzky) - SOLD Death Rattle with Eric Draven (The Crow) remark by James O'Barr - SOLD Thanks for looking!

Ah! That issue sounds like a lot of fun. It's no wonder. I think I'll track down that issue.

Nice write up, Dave! The Hulk focus makes a lot of sense now. But why 227? First Hulk comic you ever read?

1. Alex Ross 2. Sam Kieth 3. Kelley Jones 4. Mike Allred (I was going to put in the Hernandez Bros in the #4 slot, but I didn't because I just recently started to appreciate them. If I couldn't cheat, I would've chosen Beto over Xaime.)

"Flipping" to me was always a fluid term. How fast must you turn a piece around in order to consider it a flip? A day? A week? A month? 90 days? A few years back I saw an eBay auction for an 11x17 illustration of a character who was going to appear in a Netflix show drawn by an up and coming artist. I thought it was something someone might want later. I put in a bid for $25 and it ended at $20 plus change. When that Netflix show aired, I resold it for $100...over a year later. So to me, flipping doesn't have a short timeline, but rather it needs two criteria: 1) intention to resell 2) for profit. Now I concede 6 years is something else. That's not a flip, that's an investment. i think you can flip auctions, but you need prescience and patience. $20 isn't anything, but $200+? If you're already a budget collector that's a lot of money to lock up for the long term.

Very nice piece! Congrats! Mike still has it...

Ha! Of course! Like Michael wrote, I used it to build my collection. Every once in a while I run into something under priced at a show that I can flip, usually from a comic dealer who doesn't know the OA market, but that's the only way to make the flip worthwhile, buying low and selling high(er). If there is an absurdly low BIN on eBay and you're the first to see it, then you can probably make some profit from it later. Generally, flipping is quite hard because you're likely to sell on an auction site and the fees will kill your margin. If you started now, you'd be paying a lot in "tuition" figuring out what sells and what doesn't. When you get it right you'll see that the returns are okay, but not life changing, and that you were better off just saving the money for the piece you really want. That's why I left that game. It's break-even. Maybe in the end, as I got better, I was 10-15% in the black? You might be better off digging through comic long boxes at a show looking for overlooked gems if you're thinking of flipping. A comic already has a market--an ASM 300 already has a line of buyers with cash in their hands. An original page from the Green Team, not so much.

You're speaking of Jae's work as a group and not really focusing on this one, unique, impossible to replace page such as most of the rest of the people here are. Sure, there are a lot of pages out there unclaimed (their list price may have something to do with that, just saying, but that's another conversation), but it doesn't change the fact that this page, that someone did buy, has been modified beyond repair. Yes, it's impossible to replace that page, but it's not the only "Batman vs. Catwoman" Lee piece created, and if a collector is looking for an example, he or she can find another. I think Gene's point is that if you're looking for an example by Jae Lee, there's plenty out there with more than 60 pages available on Albert's site (albeit no A+ examples). Realistically, altering one Jae Lee page isn't going to cause ripples in the supply. Similarly, if I can add to my previous point, objections are raised because collectors entered the hobby on the premise that each page is unique and one-of-a-kind. In this respect, yes, what the OP did was sacrilege. But to Gene's point, this is one altered one-of-a-kind piece among a million one-of-a-kind pieces in the hobby. Is it really that special?

Yeah, I'm reading two different conversations (like most threads). One is the ethics of altering original art; the second is how must is the value affected by the alteration. Like eeewnuk pointed out, the market for Jae Lee's work is strong and this is a strong piece. If the owner decided to auction the page off tomorrow and I had to place a bet as to whether is would make money or lose money, I'd play it conservatively and bet that it'll lose a little bit of money because that's what modern art (art created in the last month to three years) does. But fifteen years from now...or fifteen years after death...I don't think the alteration will matter and the piece would end on a hammer price higher than the original "investment." I feel that the reason so many objections are raised is because the OP had so many options to go with than to alter the original. I agree with this and thus why I would err on this side. But like Vodou pointed out, I'm not sure if I care so much to embellish something I already own. If I bought that pencil page, it's because I liked the pencil work on it. And I would certainly put the brakes on anyone trying to ink an original Kirby pencil piece; but this isn't Kirby we're talking about.

Great discussion. I choose not to be a hater and agree with Gene below. For the record, I, for one, care about resell value, so I would rather err on the side of not touching the "original." I think 99% of collectors--the "Purists"-- fall in this camp. In his recent Felix Comic Art podcast, David Mandel stated that he hates it when original art is messed with. On the other hand, Andy Robbins, another respected collector in the hobby, retouched this page from Five Ghosts and I think it's an improvement. FIVE GHOSTS has its followers, but I hardly doubt this title, much less this page, is worth the tizzy over altering the original. I'm a fan of Jae Lee and I'm waiting for the right Jae Lee piece to come along. I read his run on Batman/Superman. I saw when Albert Moy debuted those pages. When he did, the asking price of the choice pieces were $700-$800 (excluding splashes). That's a lot of money for a pencil-only piece. I can imagine what the price would be if they were published as inked pieces. $1200-$1500? If you read that run then you know that book was done in mostly silhouette or shadow and pure pencils just doesn't do justice for the collector. So I don't blame the OP for wanting it inked, especially if it only cost him $200 on top of the original price (would be curious to know what Jae charged to ink it). Again, if you're a Jae Lee fan, you know how masterful his brush strokes are...I really don't see how this page would lose value; and if it did, it wouldn't lose anymore value than any modern art sold at auction. If I were bidding on this piece, I'd be thanking the seller for doing something I couldn't bear to do myself. Most of us here are familiar with the "penciled page/inks only" debate. The more liberal collectors argue that the "inks-only page" has value because that's the published image. The Purists will retort that it's not that valuable because the penciler never touched the page. Then the liberal collector will counter that you can't see the pencils on a vintage page anyway. For which the Purist will rebut, "But the original pencils are underneath the inks!" In the case of this Jae Lee piece, are the original pencils not underneath the inks?

These ads always make me want to cry. Especially when I see my personal Grail for sale for $125 Thank you for posting though. It's a great resource.

$10k is a pie in the sky price, I think it's closer to $2-3k probably, in part due to the general valuation of trading card art coupled by the major damages (the missing COA isn't a factor). I was a little stumped as to why you wrote $10K, but I see now the seller bumped the price from $7K or $8K that he originally had. I'd like to learn more about the GPK OS market but $10K seems really high just as $7K seemed high as well (for something that's been shredded to pieces And are those missing pieces?). I get that when you sell on eBay you already have to pony up 15%, but $10K seems like a nonstarter. If he really wants to get rid of it, then maybe $1K starting bid. EDIT: I see now that those aren't pieces missing, but rather the reflection on the glass.

I agree; it's probably one of the top three in the series. It's a nice cover reinterpretation with a nice twist to it. If I had the money for it I would've done cartwheels knowing that it's on Pedigree and no one wants to bid on principle. For anyone who has the money, it's there for the taking. But alas, I don't have that kind of cash to spend

Plus one! I think Eduardo Barreto uses it to great effect for the grip on a pistol's handle on this Batman page John Severin use adds to the comedic effect on this Punisher satire