Michael Browning

Please let us know when they arrive. As much trouble as people have had with the site, I wouldn’t consider it a success until the pages are in-hand.

I don’t think anyone is saying they would step aside or withhold bids to hurt or help an auction, but I do believe they are saying they would let a friend go after a piece if they wanted it badly.

I do appreciate that and I would gladly do the same for you! But, it just never occurred to me to ever do that. I was just kidding about the secret cabal and their sinister pact (except for that Legion group, which is very real… 😬 😉). On a serious note, I have stepped aside for a few collector friends who wanted art before, but that was because I knew it was what they collected and I just messaged and said “hey, if you want that piece, go for it.” Now, if DeCarlo Smurfs art ever comes up at auction, I might start asking for some favors. 🤔

I didn’t know about the comic art cabals that made backroom deals to let Collector X have the shot at the next piece and then another collector gets a shot at the next piece and so on, until a friend explained the Legion of Super Heroes secret society and their acquisition rules and regulations. I can honestly say no one collector or group of collectors has ever backed off of an auction for me.

Peach art is pretty and there are a lot of her fans out there, but I cannot see that cover ever making a profit when it gets resold (and it sure will get resold one of these days, when the owner moves on to other art he likes more). The new owner may have to let it grow into its value over a long period of time, I believe.

Team America 1 far exceeded my expectations and I got crushed and lost big time. I had the high bid for all of two whole seconds. 😢

I still don’t trust the guy posting nor the websites. He hasn’t been on here since posting this and the website link taking me to a link and to another link doesn’t make me confident that it’s not a scam.

This seems to me to be a scam. I clicked on the link, too, and questioned why it took me to other sites and then to nowhere and the OP sent the same link that took me to the same places all over again.

Everything that's been offered to you, you have refused or have some excuse, so this is some kind of fishing expedition and you never had any intention of buying any Doom Patrol art.

I tried to view the results only a few minutes after it ended. They've always been available before, so this is a new change to the site. And, honestly, why hide the results?

Instead of making the changes that buyers ask for repeatedly, the C-link crew probably figured it would be better to hide sales results because THAT might make us stop complaining.

I keep getting this when I try to see what the McGuinness sold for. Have I been blocked for my criticisms of the past auctions?

Doesn’t matter what you offer or tell him about, he doesn’t really want to buy any Doom Patrol art. I offered him mine and he said he was ONLY buying Case art, despite the fact that he says in his original post that he will buy any artists’ work.

Yes. I totally missed the first two.

I'm not saying they're the same, I'm saying that Mitch's statement - not being able to afford art they want - is the cause of a lot of the hate and doomsday prophecies that many collectors spew. I read a lot of comments on social media about how people hope the bubble finally bursts and how evil dealers are for artificially inflating prices -- and how so many people are priced out of the hobby by the shill bidding that they say is going on. So, I stand by what I said: Mitch's statement is accurate and the cause of a lot of the hate and doomsday prophecies that are said by many collectors.

I've been selling TPBs and HCs for years and do pretty well with them. Many comic collectors like them because they can build a library filled with their favorite stories on shelves. They're all I collect now, as far as comics go. As far as modern comics, modern trade paperbacks have such tiny print runs now and if a shop doesn't order an extra copy, there are NO extra copies to go around. That's why we've not been seeing the cutouts at Books-A-Million and the shelves of Marvel and DC trade paperbacks have thinned out considerably at Ollie's discount stores. The trade paperbacks of today are like the Marvels of the early-2000s when print runs were kept to a minimum.

That exact statement is so true. The same could also be said about a lot of the other hate and doomsday prophecies in this hobby/community.

I was just being a bit of a smart aleck, because there are naysayers who don’t believe Miller’s post-DKR art is in demand due to his drastic style change.

I, too, thought that the Superman 301 would have benefitted from being in a North American auction and was one of the biggest bargains of the entire auction. There were a lot of strong prices. He-Man art continues to climb higher and higher and, although it didn't set the world on fire, I see jumps in prices for He-Man art happening more and more. The Mazzucchelli DD page sold a bit higher than I thought it would, but it shouldn't have surprised me at all, knowing how rare and in demand those pages are. The Miller 300 DPS did very well at $62,500, showing there IS a very strong market for post-Dark Knight Miller art. The Bingham/Layton Iron Man 132 page overachieved. It was a good page, but, man, I didn't think it was an $11,250 page. I didn't think a Paul Gulacy Slash Maraud page would ever hit $375, but I was wrong. The two Sal Buscema Nova pages went for twice what I thought they would. There were also a few bargains. Frazetta art sold cheap in this auction. I thought there were some very good Frazettas in this auction, but none really hit the numbers I thought they would. I thought the Sienkiewicz Elektra Assassin pages sold very low. Starlin art severely underperformed. The Infantino Star Wars Annual page sold a bit lower than I figured it would. I was expecting a last-second burst of bids that would have put it over $5,000, but that didn't happen. As a side note, I really wish I would have made a run for the Miller Daredevil cover and, after that, the Barks Uncle Scrooge page. I thought both of those would sell much higher and I didn't even throw my hat into the ring on either. Oh well.

Of course. Modern art is overpriced and about as good of an investment as a new automobile.

In 25 years of collecting and, during that time, living through several financial downturns, I’ve never seen original comic art fall with other markets. Matter of fact, I’ve seen people invest heavier into OA during those times.

That’s a new take on the state of the market. I don’t see a whole lot of people “tightening up,” especially not on good art. The bids on that cover painting didn’t move much after your earlier post. I mean, $450 from February 27 to the end of the auction meant there were two people who cared about it and even they didn’t care enough to go to $2,000. I think, like the DC cover artist who draws covers like Where’s Waldo, many of these “hot” new artists are flashes in the pan and will be gone quicker than fidget spinners.

No way that’s Caniff. Looks like an amateur artist that’s trying hard to copy John Romita Sr on the nurse and another artist altogether on the brunette.

That Celina cover didn’t reach $2,000, just as I knew it wouldn’t. I wonder if someone ran the price up when no one else cared and then they either bought it back or got stuck with it. 😉

I think a lot of Dr. Strange fans consider Rogers’ brief run as one of the high points of the series.