OrangeCrush

I am pretty much done with the modern comic market. Way too many titles being produced, way too many variants being produced, the really popular artists pretty much only do variant covers these days, the quality of storytelling has really been mediocre at best (speaking in regards to DC & Marvel) and its just become way too expensive especially if your buying a lot of variants, which I was for awhile there. The last couple years I have shifted most of the money I was spending on modern comics into the 1:3 and 1:4 statue market and I am really happy I decided to go that route as the last couple years have been absolutely amazing years for the statue market. IMO 2016 was Sideshow's best year to date and both XM and Prime 1 are making amazing pieces. If I am going to spend a lot of money on comic related merchendise, I would much rather have a beautiful 1:3 or 1:4 statue than a stack of modern comics, but as always to each thier own. If I do wind up buying any modern comics from here on out, it will likely be in omnibus or TPB format as opposed to individual issues. Personally, I think the modern variant market is headed full steam towards a major crash so I am circling high overhead like a vulture waiting for that day to come.

I'm as big of a Michael Turner fan as I have ever been and I have a MASSIVE Turner collection, but I just cannot continue supporting Aspen given everything that has gone down the last 4-5 years. Its such a shame as Turner's legacy deserved better. I will continue to collect older Turner stuff, but anything created by Aspen post 2014 is a no go for me. Thier a morally bankrupt company and I just cant support thier actions no matter how much I love Turner's artwork. I keep hoping Top Cow will go into thier archives and start producing some really high quality lithographs for a lot of Turner's Top Cow work. Thier really my only hope at buying anything new dealing with Michael Turner. As for his work, there are so many Turner pieces that I absolutely love that its almost impossible for me to narrow them all down to even a top 10 list. His work had such a sense of kinetic energy. 3 of my personal favorites are his Spider Woman piece, his Ms. Marvel piece, and his Batman Superman #4 German variant but I could easily list another 40-50 covers that I absolutely love.

A massive understatement!

I know this thread is roughly a year old, but I wound up stumbling across it and simply had to make a post. Anyone suggesting that Aspen is honoring Michael Turner in any way whatsoever is living in la la land. This is a company that has been completely unsuccessful in creating any new IP's since Turners death and has milked Turner's work for every last penny that they could. Frank Mastromauro has done the exact opposite of honoring Michael Turner's legacy and if anything, has in fact tarnished it. Aspen's Michael Turner prints used to be highly sought after and quite valuable. At the height of thier popularity (early 2011 into 2012) many signed Turner prints were fetching as much as $250-$350. A few of his most popular pieces could easily fetch over $400. And up until that time, Aspen was really the most successful comic company producing prints. Most would sell out in 24-48 hours and the SDCC daily prints they put up for sale on the Aspen store would sell out in a matter of minutes. Most 2nd hand ebay auctions sold within 48 hours of being posted. Then Aspen decided to start reprinting and boy they didnt hold back on that front at all and they were extremely devious in how they went about it as right before they started reprinting, Frank decided to sell all of the #1 prints, which Aspen was still in possession of. Most of the signed #1 prints sold for $400-$600, with some going as high at $700-$800. I myself purchased around 25 of the #1 prints and I guarantee Aspen made at least a couple hundred thousand in total off of selling those #1 prints. Aspen also raised the prices on a few on thier newer prints from $39.99 to $49.99 and looking back that was done to soften people up to the idea of a price hike. Right after Aspen sold the last batch of #1 prints, the big reprint'a'thon began and they raised thier print prices from $39.99 to $59.99. In 2013 alone they released over 80 reprints and they just continued on from there. They even produced like 20 anniversary prints, which were made up of most of Turner's most popular pieces. I have been a big Aspen print collector from the very beginning and emailed Frank on multiple occassions regarding the reprinting Aspen was doing. I told him the end result would be a major devaluation of the original prints and Aspen would wind up losing most of thier best customers. Both of those things wound up being 100% accurate. Most of Aspens prints have lost 70%+ of thier original value since that time. Most unsigned Aspen prints sell for $20-$30 now and your lucky if you get $60-75 for the signed Turner prints. The few exceptions are his most sought after pieces and with those, if your lucky, you might break $100. And of course you have the whole DC/Marvel fiasco. For over 10 years Aspen sold thier Marvel and DC Michael Turner prints as limited editions. I started inquiring about the edition sizes of those prints as early as 2011 as California law states that any limited edition print must have a stated edition size and Aspen's main office that they do all of thier eBay auctions out of is in California. And I purchased all of my Marvel & DC Turner prints from Aspen over eBay. Even without the law, its just didnt make sense why Aspen would not release the edition sizes on those prints when they did so with all of thier non DC/Marvel prints. Something just didn't feel right to me, so again I started inquiring about it. I wound up speaking with pretty much everyone who worked at Aspen and all of them ensured me that they were in fact limited editions, but nobody could actually give me an actual edition size for a particular print. Erick, one of the people who used to work on Aspen's auctions, went as far as telling me that each of them was limited to 50 or less but like everyone else, he couldn't give me a stated edition size for any particular print. At that time Marvel and DC prints were selling in the $200 range with some going as high as $250 (like the Supergirl print where she has supermans cape draped around her). I continued to press Aspen for them to publically release the edition sizes for those prints and there was a thread on Statue Forum which was dedicated to Aspen prints and as I pressed the issue publically, more and more people started questioning those prints. It got to a point where everyone on that forum was pressing Aspen to release the edition sizes. All in all, it wound up taking me over a year and a half to get Frank to finally address the whole Marvel/DC edition size issue. He finally made a public statement on Statue Forum, no doubt due to the fact that this issue was only continuing to gain momentum and clearly wasnt just going to go away, which is what I think he was hoping for all along. I have no doubt that if I continued to be the only one asking for Aspen to release that information, Frank would have continued to ignore those requests to this day. Anyways, in his pubiic statement on Statue Forum he admitted that the DC/Marvel prints weren't limited editions at all, but were in fact open edition prints and that Aspen printed up new batched before each new Comic Con. That really didnt shock most people as its what most people suspected was the case at that point, including myself, as there was no other logical reason why Aspen would be so reistant to releasing the edition sizes for those prints. So to sum this all up, Aspen fraudulently sold Marvel/DC prints as limited editions for over 10 years and when the news finally broke that those prints were actually open editions, the value on those prints plummeted. Almost overnight those prints lost roughly 50% of thier value and the values continued to decline as time went on. You can now get most DC/Marvel prints in the $40-$70. I will regret to my final day on this planet not suing Aspen in open court over those prints. I had all the evidence I needed as I saved all of my eBay emails for all of the Marvel/DC prints I won from Aspen on Ebay and all of those emails CLEARLY show that Aspen was listing DC and Marvel prints as limited editions. I estimate I lost around $5000 alone just from Aspen's Marvel and DC prints as I never would have paid more than $50 a print had I known they were open editions and on average, I wound up paying around $175-$200 per print. Again, I will regret not suing Aspen over this for as long as I live and not just for the money, but also to bring to light the devious sales tactis Aspen used in regards to thier print sales. Had someone sued Aspen and won, I guarantee it would have been covered by at least some of the comic related websites out there and it could have prevented other people from investing in such a morally bankrupt company. I could literally go on and on about Aspen. How they sold new Marvel/DC prints one at a time on eBay, as opposed to putting like 40-50 up for sale at one time for a set price, so everyone who wanted one could get one right away for the same price. The first 5-10 prints would always sell in the $300 range. The next 5-10 would sell in the $250 range. The next 5-10 prints would sell in the $200 range until the prices finally settled in the $150-$200 range. 99.9% of the companies out there are more than happy to sell thier products to customers for the same price, but not Aspen. They had thier print sales tactics down to a science and they wound up making a significant amount more using those tactics, which included selling thier new Marvel/DC prints one at a time. I have been collecting limited edition prints and lithographs for over 30 years and Aspen is the only print company I have ever seen sell prints in such a manner. Then you have the whole table copy BS. Aspen started selling the prints that they used at comic cons to show people what prints they had for sale and they called them table copies, lol. There is no such thing as a table copy in the world of limited edition prints. Your only allowed to print the stated edition size plus a few artist proofs. Every table copy Aspen sold was a print that was sold above and beyond a stated edition size, which is also 100% fraudulent. Were now a couple years past the implosion of the Aspen print market and Aspen has had to cut back on print production by like 80%+ and the VAST majority of thier prints dont even come close to selling out. They wound up having to increase the starting price on thier eBay auctions as most auctions were only getting 1 or 2 bidders and the prints were selling for ridiculously low prices. So Aspen had to increase the starting price. They have also lowere the price on the prints sold at the Aspen store back to the $39.99 price level they were at before the whole reprint'a'thon began. Even when thier prints go on sale, like right now many of thier prints are just $12.99, they wind up selling very few prints. The Aspen print market is a shadow of its former self and it was pure greed that brought the market to where it is today. Michael Turner's artwork and the company he left behind deserved better. Frank Mastromauro has stood on the shoulders of amazing artists like Michael Turner his entire career and he has no clue how to make money with Aspen without Michael Turner's artwork being involved. Frank openly stated that they were beginning to run out f new michael turner artwork to make into prints, like 6 months before the whole reprint'a'thon began. I have absolutely zero doubt that Frank did the math and realized that without the print money from Turner coming in, Aspen would be in big trouble, which is why he hatched the whole reprint idea. The man has no respect whatsoever for what limited edition means, has no respect for the fans that made Aspen successful in the first place and was willing to go as far as breaking the law to sell as many Michael Turner prints as he could, for as much as he could. Aspen has broken the california limited edition print laws twice thus far. First selling Marvel and DC prints as limited editions when they were in fact open editions and second, when they sold table copies. And Frank has never once apologized to fans for selling Marvel/DC prints as limited editions or his actions that wound up tanking the entire Aspen print market. I even emailed him and suggested giving out some free prints to the people that purchased the Marvel/DC prints thinking they were limited editions, which would have cost Aspen next to nothing as those prints cost roughly $3 apiece to produce, and he wasn't even willing to do that. And just when you think Aspen couldn't do anymore damage to the Aspen print line, or the company in general, Frank had one last big FU to all of the Aspen limited edition print collectors out there, that being the start of the 11x17 open edition print line. People can now buy 11x17 open edition prints of Michael Turner's artwork for $9.99 a print, or even less if you buy 3 or more. That has only taken that much more demand away from the more expensive 13x19 prints and caused prices of thier limited edition prints to drop even lower. Its important to note that this 11x17 move by Aspen was 100% legal. Since its a new print size, its considered a completely new edition, but producing this line of prints on the backend of everything else that had already happened, when the Aspen limited edition print market had already suffered significant decreases in value, was just the final FU to everyone that has ever purchased Aspen's limited edition prints. And these new limited edition covers that Aspen is producing for DC, its just the latest move by Aspen to continue milking the Michael turner well for as much as humanely possible. And there is plenty more I could cover, as if this wasnt enough, but this post is already way too long. The bottom line is that Aspen, especially with Frank Mastromauro at the helm, is a morally bankrupt company, one that will do anything to keep that Michael Turner well flowing. So again, anyone out there who thinks Aspen is actually honoring Michael Turner's legacy is either living in la la land, or are just completely oblivious to everything that has occurred with Aspen these last 5-6 years. This isn't honoring an artist. This is nothing more than the continuation of Aspen milking Michael Turner's artwork for every last penny that they can. Even roughly 10 years after Michael Turner passed away, Aspen is still literally nothing without him. No matter how badly you may want something from Aspen, I would think long and hard about giving this company any support whatsoever. Michael Turner is one of my all time favorite comic artists and I own 99% of the Aspen prints that were brought to market before the whole reprint'a'thon began, but this company literally doesnt deserve to stay in buisness given what they have done. As sad as it would be to see Michael Turner's store go out of business, it simply doesnt deserve to stay in business given everything that has happened. I have no doubt if Michael were alive today and could see what has become of Aspen, he would be thoroughly and utterly disgusted.