Michael Browning

They’ll make up for it on every other piece, though. 😉

I stand corrected, then, because you have said that before and I truly believe you mean it. But, you are not the norm in this hobby, that's for sure.

Nope. I'm not saying that is anyone's intent when they buy OA; I'm saying that no matter how much we love this stuff and never intend to ever sell it, we all are aware of how much we spend on it and none of us wants or intends to sell below what we paid. We all know that, like comic books, original art goes up in value and we know that going in. Original art isn't a car that we expect to drop in value the minute we get it. No one wants to lose cash. Like a lot of collectors, I buy art because I enjoy owning a piece of a comic that I love, but I also know that whatever I spend, whether it be $50 or $5000, one of these days, I or someone in my family will sell my art and I don't want it given away or sold at a loss. I do hope it brings in some sort of profit one of these days for me in retirement -- or for my family after I'm gone.

Nah, Rich people look at $1000 like I look at my payday. They don't just throw money away with abandon. It's how they stay rich. ;) Believe me, if something happens and you NEED to sell, you are NOT going to want to sell below what you have in it.

If anyone says they buy art and don’t look at it as an investment or say they don’t care if they get their money back when they resell it, they’re lying. Original art costs too much cash to not consider it an investment.

Sorry, repeat post.

As far as investments go, in my opinion, Skottie Young art is the Beanie Babies of OA collecting and Tradd Moore art is the Funko Pops.

Tradd’s art is pretty neat, but I cannot see any of these pages reselling for a profit or at break-even in the future. I’m my opinion, it will take years for the art to mature into what people are paying. I have had this opinion for many years: new art is a bad investment. Once the heat dies on this series, I think people are going to sit back and wonder to themselves “what the heck was I thinking?”. Kudos to Felix for being a great artist rep and helping the art sell out. No one can ever doubt his marketing ability.

How can you say that or even compare Frazetta’s originality with Warhol and Lichtenstein? They didn’t do sword and sorcery/fantasy and he didn’t do work even close to what they did.

Huh. Again, and then there was Lichtenstein. (Look at all that background detail!)

My oil doesn’t have pencils under it. He did a lot of prelims. I have a pencil prelim and a watercolor prelim and it is colored over the pencils.

I have read this a few times and, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I just can’t understand the dislike you have for Frazetta’s art. It seems your dislike is so strong that you do your best to convince others that his art is hack work and all swipes. It’s just not so. In my opinion, and, after having read it numerous times before I decided what to say, it just drips with the “I don’t own a Frazetta so I don’t like Frazetta” sentiment. I understand he’s not everyone’s favorite artist, but I’m sure more people like his art than don’t - and those who don’t usually are in the “I don’t own a Frazetta” camp. I mean no disrespect to you and it’s your opinion, but you attempt to make your case so strongly that it seems like you’re bitter against his art for a reason.

Huh. And then there's Roy Lichtenstein.

In my opinion, C-link running an auction that starts a month early is like putting something on eBay with a Buy It Now price and it sitting there for 30 days. it loses its urgency. It's also like a 10-day auction on eBay versus a seven-day auction. I think an auction that long loses its urgency and collectors forget about it or simply lose interest.

I have always agreed with this sentiment and even argued with people about how "fresh to market" doesn't affect sales prices -- until these auctions started heating up and I saw people getting so excited about art they hadn't seen in year or at all and watching the prices go sky high as a result. I think there is a bit of excitement around a piece that comes up for auction that hasn't been seen in years and it maybe pushes the results a higher.

I feel like there are improvements C-link could make that buyers really want that would help their results, but they either are too stubborn or too lazy to make those changes. I also know a few collectors who said C-link wasn't interested in auctioning their art and then I look at the junk in the second half of their auctions and I am completely confused. The second session of a C-link auction night almost always looks like they raided the amateur stuff on eBay for their listings.

Dang, man, I enjoyed the market research post.

Exactly. I love CAF, but it doesn't have the selling power of HA with its massive audience. I told a guy the other day after he listed a cover on eBay three times -- and putting in the listing that he has an offer for $2500 on it so he listed it as the starting bid -- that I'd almost bet he doesn't have that $2500 offer now that it hasn't sold in a month and three listings. Now, I think he'd be lucky to get $750 out of it because it has sat for weeks UNSOLD at a price he said he had an offer and it creates doubt in collectors' minds and it is about as fresh to market as a month-old salmon at a fish market.

I'd say it hits $15,000. It's a page from a key book by a famous artist and those pages are highly sought after, no matter what.

I think that still nets several thousand.

I thought this went really high and is probably as much a Stan Lee drawing as all the “real” Bob Kanes on eBay.

I haven’t followed Suicide Squad art closely for awhile, but I sure didn’t figure pages were this high. I used to have more SS covers and pages than probably the artists and I don’t think I ever got more than $150-$200 per page. 🤦‍♂️

And here are some I thought went really low. The Destro trade paperback cover was THE bargain of the night, followed by the Tales of the New Teen Titans cover and the William Johnson and Mike Mignola Master of Kung Fu page. The Sonic cover was also a bargain.

It was a typical C-link auction. Here are some pieces I thought went a bit higher than I expected.

Wasn’t me that said it.