Michael Browning

(I want to preface this by saying I AM NOT A DEALER. I DO NOT WORK FOR ANY DEALERS. I HAVEN’T EVEN SOLD ANY OF MY ART IN A LONG TIME.) True. Dealers aren’t in this to trade dollars for dollars, so, even 25 years ago when I first got into this hobby and dealers were more collectors than dealers, I knew that I had to make it worth their while to do a trade - meaning I had to give the dealer more value for the art I wanted from them. Here’s an example: if I find a piece on a dealer’s website for $5,000, I know that, unless he thinks he can price my $5,000 art at $10,000, then a straight-up trade isn’t going to happen. There’s no incentive for them to go to all that trouble. So, I make them an offer of $7,000 worth of art for their $5,000 piece. There’s no incentive for them to trade a $5,000 piece for a piece that’s going to sell for the same amount. They’ll just keep their $5,000 piece and let it ride, rather than go to all the trouble of taking it down from their website, packing and shipping the art, then getting your art in, scanning it and putting it up for the EXACT SAME AMOUNT. I don’t get why so many people get mad at dealers trying to make money. If you want to do a straight-up deal, sell your piece and buy the art straight up. If your art sells for higher, then you’ve got the piece you want and you’ve made a little extra.

I do think it’s a bit odd how high some prices are - already. I’m interested to see how this auction plays out, after the last few duds.

The thing is, as an art collector, we can save up to buy what we want, but then, after we get the piece we really want, something else pops up that we want even more and we regret spending the cash and missing out on what we REALLY wanted … and then cycle starts all over again. I have been there many times. 🤦‍♂️

I’m glad to hear that about your C-link offerings because I really figured all the sellers except whoever sold the Ghost Rider splash were very regretful.

I added up the premium lots in the C-link auction that ended the other night. In seven and a half pages of “premium” art, the grand total was $231,130. The biggest - and most surprising to me - result in the premium was the Gary Kwapisz Punisher War Journal 57 Ghost Rider splash that sold for $9,855. It was an awesome splash, but, dang, that’s a Saltares/Texeira single-digit issue GR splash price. Several pieces in the first half of the auction sold for two digits and some sold for as low as a buck each in the second half (the non-premium art auctions).

Skottie Young variant covers have no staying power with collectors, in my opinion. They’re the Funko Pops of comic art.

The Quitely result didn't surprise me at all, though I hoped it would go lower so I'd have a shot at it. I agree that Quitely's version is the definitive version. I also wholeheartedly agree that Morrison's run is probably the last great run on the X-Men. And, those early-2000s pages are 20 years old now and readers from that area are now older and are probably looking for art from comics they read during that golden age. I mean, 1993 comics are now 30 years old and look how art from that period is performing.

The second print cover has not been re-inked to my knowledge. Just the first print version.

I don’t own it. Never have. The only page I ever owned still had very solid inks and was one of the few that were not re-inked. It’s up for sale on Mike Burkey’s site for a very reasonable price (I haven’t owned it in nearly a year, but that’s where it is for sale). The inks on that have have only faded in some areas slightly.

It was NOT the Bros. who had it re-inked. It was a private collector, one of the most prominent Starlin collectors of the late-1990s and early-2000s. The collector personally told me he had it re-inked by McLeod.

Ah, it’s the trade paperback reprint. The one I’m talking about is the original graphic novel cover.

The original Marvel Graphic Novel #1 Death of Captain Marvel cover by Jim Starlin was re-inked by Bob McLeod back in the early 2000s due to the fading inks. I hope HA includes that information in the description.

I think people get so wrapped up in enjoying a series that they have to have a piece of the art. They see it and buy it - despite the high price - because they want to own a piece from their favorite series. Then, when their love for that series cools or dies and they look to sell the art to buy something else they now love, they get smacked in the face with the harsh reality that new artists’ high priced art doesn’t hardly ever reap a profit or break even when resold. It is a very hard thing to suffer through, but it happens a lot. Sometimes, it causes new collectors to become soured on the hobby and they leave.

The Dreadstar covers probably won’t reach the level of a Warlock or Captain Marvel cover, but they still will probably bring a pretty penny if any ever make their way out of a collection and up for auction.

This is the problem with new art. Artists nowadays feel like rock stars and charge outrageous prices for their work - hey, it’s theirs and they can price it however high they want - but, when buyers go to resell, they usually lose money or barely break even. I get that artists see art selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that doesn’t mean it’s all worth that and especially not as soon as it’s drawn.

I said the same thing. It seems like it’s bounced around and around and around for all of the two decades-plus that I’ve been collecting. I think that had an effect on it selling so low and I also just don’t think Cardy has the same fan base as he did back in 1996 when everyone wanted a Cardy cover and prices were soaring. This auction result was lower than some of his horror covers sell for. I’ve seen the Cardy art price decrease happening a lot more than I ever thought I would, but I also see the same thing happening to Neal Adams’ DC covers.

I got a sharp message from the seller telling me off for writing that on here, like I didn’t believe he got the offer, but I showed the email he sent me through CAF so everyone can see the proof that he did tell me he turned down an $85,000 offer — and, in that same email, offered it to me for that. I believe (though he says wrongly and that may be the actual case) that since I had just reopened my CAF gallery with a lot of really great art he assumed I was a newbie with lots of cash that didn’t know he was trying to take advantage of my newbie-ness. I believe that was absolutely the case. I’ve been around this hobby for 25 years now and have owned a lot of MM art, including two covers, so I wasn’t as naive as he may have thought. What’s even funnier is that he’s not a member here (that I know of), so someone on the boards ran to him and tattled on me. 😂😂😂

I agree. It’s my least favorite of the entire run.

The Miracleman 3 cover by Chaykin selling for JUST $36,000 had to be a big letdown for the seller. He offered it to me August 29 for $85,000 and said he had turned that amount down a year earlier. He approached me after I started showing some of the art I’d bought this year and offered it to me as bargain art at $85,000. He thought I was loaded. 😂

You’re absolutely correct. I was forgetting the 107 auction. The 98 sold right where it should have, then.

I don’t think it even matters who drew how much on the DD pages now, as we’ve seen some all-Janson pages sell very high over the last couple years. For Miller Daredevil, I do believe it comes down to just being a Miller DD page that sends it so high. I do believe Wolverine being one of Marvel’s top tier characters and being drawn by Miller in a very memorable scene put this one over the top. I really don’t think people even care that it was Claremont who wrote the Wolverine limited series and Miller just did pencils. I truly believe what made the #2 page sell for $156,000 is the fact that it’s a fantastic image of Wolverine BY Miller and the series is a classic.

That’s a question for the Silver Age board.

I remember when this sold and it didn’t shock me at all that it went so high. I can also remember very well how collectors were griping about the anatomy, the positioning of the characters and how they couldn’t believe THIS cover sold for $101,000 because it was so poorly drawn and not nearly of the same quality as other artists’ covers. 😂

These came into my local shop recently. I think the days of dollar boxes are over. These were $3 each, but I bargained down to $2.50 each. It’s more than I like to pay, but these are fun to find and collect.

That's the scarce SoMuchFunInc.! reprint. There was only 5,000 copies of each of those reprints made, so they're very scarce. SoMuchFun reprints were sold only in three packs.