Michael Browning

This Carl Barks art just sold recently at Heritage for $6,600: https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/carl-barks-uncle-scrooge-71-cover-preliminary-original-art-gold-key-1967-/a/7236-95021.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515 Now, it's back up for sale for a little bit more: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Carl-Barks-Money-Bin-1st-King-Scrooge-Original-Comic-Cover-1967-Signed-Barks/233798692726?hash=item366f7cef76:g:ExoAAOSwnNVfwKFY And, as an aside, the same eBay seller has this up as a Romita Spider-Man splash and that splash is actually by Luke Ross: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Art-Spectular-Spiderman-259-Romita-Spiderman-Splash/333804177984?hash=item4db8478a40:g:UkIAAOSweXhfwKXq

There are also a couple of the published jam pages out there from the Shi/Cyblade crossover that feature Bone. I used to own one of them.

That's pretty cool. I have a Swamp Thing splash 3M color separation that I bought when I first started collecting hardcore back in 1999.

The Batman Blind Justice Retailer Seminar Edition was given away as a retailer gift at the 1992 Diamond Retailer Summit along with the Todd McFarlane Spider-Man Torment retailer trade paperback and it and the Torment qualify as the first Retailer Response Program giveaways. I was the person who found a copy in a comic shop, then was so curious about it that I researched it and the Man of Steel raffle edition for Comics Buyers Guide and the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. These are very scarce and they reportedly only printed enough for the retailers who registered and paid for the seminar. It's basically the actual, individual comics bound under one trade paperback cover. Finding them in good shape is another problem, as trade paperbacks were not really regarded as collectible at that time and most retailers didn't treat them the same as they would have treated a collectible comic. They came in a very loose-fitting, clear plastic bag. My first copy was still sealed in the bag. When I first started researching these, I asked Paul Levitz for help with information about them and the DC library didn't even have a copy so they weren't sure if it was a real DC publication or not. However, I discovered through a lot of research that these were RRPs for retailers put together by the DC production staff as gifts for the retailers at the seminar. It took me years to get it listed in Overstreet, despite me being an advisor for the Guide and showing sales information. I purchased the very first copy I ever found at Comic World in Huntington, WV, for $15. I sold my copy to Ian Levine for his complete DC collection that was just recently put up for sale (Ian sold it years ago, but it is still called The Ian Levine Collection). I'm sure the copy I sold Ian was still in that collection unless it has all been sold now. I rarely ever see these for sale. I have owned three copies and currently have one. Only one of my copies was in VF and that was the first copy I bought. The other two were damaged in some way or another and were both Fine/Fine+. The comics inside are the direct editions with the 50th anniversary bat-logo and the bars on top of the comic pages are are blue and only on the last two issues.

Yes, then there’s that. 😂😂😂

I saw that Marvel now has the licenses to Aliens and Predator and I’ve seen the spikes in sales of the Dark Horse omnibus trade paperbacks and I’m wondering: has anyone noticed that Video Jack #4 by Cary Bates and Keith Giffen (Aliens segment drawn by Joe Barney and Dave Hunt) features the first appearance in a Marvel comic of Aliens. The title character goes into the movie Aliens and encounters an Alien queen from which he has to escape. I haven’t really seen much on this, but the Video Jack 1st appearance was released the exact same month and year as Dark Horse’s Aliens #1 - May, 1988.

Were the covers to Marvel Zombies done with traditional paint or are they done digitally?

I’m pleased that Bill has kept the dormant galleries and I’m not sure why it bothers so many people that they’re there. The art is still there to look at and isn’t that what a gallery is for?

I agree. It defeats the whole purpose of the thread if it goes over $1. I could post a lot of $5 finds, but I don't, because that's not the title nor purpose of the thread. You can start your own "Over $1" thread, if you want.

I thought that Amazing Spider-Man #266 cover by Cowan and Rubenstein sold really low at $13,000 ($16,200 with BP). What caused it to sell so low?

Sorry, but I have NEVER read that on his forums nor have I seen that in his interviews. Can you show some screenshots of said comments or provide a link?

I’ve never seen where Byrne has EVER said anything of this sort. Are you sure you’re not thinking of Barry Windsor Smith?

Again, you’re taking up a cause where there might not be one. You don’t know what Kirby’s heirs have gotten paid - or are getting paid - but you want to take the up the fight to get them what you believe is rightfully theirs (I disagree) and that’s fine, but don’t try to throw copyright laws into your argument that it’s bad that Marvel is still using Kirby images after all these years - and all these lawsuits lawsuits - when you don’t have any idea if they’re getting paid or not. You also swerve away from the Kirby argument to take up the fight for other artists and use Neal Adams as the patron saint of the poor, mistreated comic book artists and the moral standard in the comic book industry. Ha. That’s kind of funny and made me laugh. You ain’t changing my mind, and I ain’t changing yours. That’s the one fact on which we both agree.

Yeah, you must live by the mantra “don’t confuse me with the facts because I’ve already made up my mind.” Yes, they were well paid. And how much more money does the Kirby heirs need? I mean, didn’t Jack settle his lawsuit and get a lot of money, and then the heirs have sued how many times to get more cash from Marvel? I do not believe Jack was living hand-to-mouth and having to exist on commodity foods and the local soup kitchen, living in Thousand Oaks, California, the way you might imagine. Like one former Marvel writer from the old Bullpen days told me a few years ago when I interviewed him, the artists, writers and editors were paid very well and they all knew what the deal was. It was up to them whether or not they saved and invested that money so they could enjoy retirement; if they didn’t, that was on them. It wasn’t like they were working for minimum wage at the local burger joint. Maybe Marvel does pay the Kirby heirs a fees when they use Jack’s work. Who knows? You’re taking up a cause and have no idea if Marvel sent them a check or not.

Why wouldn't it be fair to the artists? The images are Marvel's to use as they please. I'm not sure what is unfair about that. Jack Kirby got paid to draw this for Marvel. He got paid well. He knew that it could be used in other publications. Why is it unfair to him?

I didn't know that, but I definitely wouldn't give that for it now.

The least he could do is drop the price a bit. He didn't even lower it a penny after finding all that out. Come on, Bechara, that thing is way overpriced now that everyone knows it is a badly butchered piece of art. I wouldn't give $3000 for it now.

Wow, that would have to seriously devalue the cover. The damage is irreversible.

In 2016, I was offered the Flash 297 cover art in trade by a dealer for some art that I had just bought. I'm a big Infantino Flash fan and I loved this cover, so I was excited to get it and the dealer seemed eager to trade it to me. When the dealer, who used to sell Kirby art but no longer has a website, sent me the scan, it was the Heritage cover scan from when it sold in 2014. I saw that it had been hand colored and the letters from Heritage between Mark Hanerfield and the owner who had it colored by Carmine Infantino from 1989 proved to me that Infantino, himself had colored it, so I was okay with the cover in that shape. The scan the dealer sent me is shown below. It had a black and white logo in that scan. I asked another dealer who, at the time, I had no idea was in a sort of partnership with the dealer who was offering me the cover, and he said that if the cover wasn't colored, it would be worth $15,000 at least, so the asking price of $7,500 was half of what it was really worth and a very fair deal. So, after a long, grueling back-and-forth trade process, I made the trade for the cover, giving up way more than I wanted (by allowing the dealer to convince me he was my friend and I should give him some of my best art in the trade because we were such good friends and he needed a win). When the cover arrived, it was in a crystal clear bag and I could see that it had a color logo, which looked great, and two word balloons, which were not shown in the Heritage scan. From looking at it in the bag, I thought it was all on an acetate overlay. When I took it out of the bag, I discovered that the Flash logo was a color xerox logo that had been GLUED onto the cover art, while the word balloons were added on the acetate overlay. The dealer never disclosed any of this to me at all in our dealings. Never once did he disclose that information and I had asked time after time about the condition and the logo, but, I let it slide because I didn't think he would try to burn me (wow, was I wrong). He also refused to answer my question: Were you the person who glued the logo onto the cover? It ended our "friendship" (but allowed me to see that a lot of dealers are in cahoots with one another and many are NOT trustworthy, no matter how nice they act). He cut off all communications with me after that, because he'd gotten what he wanted and dumped a cover (which you can see in the scan below) that was hard for him to get rid of, no matter how much he dressed it up.

Many of the sketches Carmine Infantino drew in his autobiography were cut out and resold. I’ve seen a few for sale, myself.

That piece is DEFINITELY by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. Every single line is his style and anyone who says different doesn't know a thing about art.

Gosh, I remember when I started digging around for information on these probably 15 years ago because I was trying my best to get Overstreet to fix the listing in the Price Guide and they wouldn’t. I found a guy in the Pacific Northwest who sold a single-digit copy for $1,500 and wrote an article for CBG that got a lot of attention for the golds and blues and Overstreet (for whom I was, at that time, a longtime advisor) still didn’t want to put in the correct information. They had them listed as a gold and a silver variant, if I recall correctly. They said there wasn’t enough sales data to update the listing (with only 51 known, is there still enough sales data by their stands?). I owned two golds and two blues and paid quite a bit for them because there was a small pocket of the Miracleman collecting community who knew about these and when they bid on them, they bid high and often. Not many MM collectors would acknowledge their existence because once they did and others knew these were real, then the prices would go up and their chances of getting one would be hindered. Once that CBG article hit the streets, the golds and blues started coming out of the woodwork and prices dropped for awhile. One of the golds I bought from eBay appeared in the CBG article and the seller of the comic was so enraged that I bought it from him and used it in the article (and after he saw what the other copy had sold for), that he emailed CBG’s offices and accused me of stealing it from him. He said I bought it on eBay from him and didn’t pay. How in the heck could I have gotten it if I hadn’t paid for it? He wouldn’t have shipped it until I paid, so that and the fact that I had all the receipts and correspondence was proof that I didn’t steal it. The editor of CBG emailed me and accused me of stealing it because he was taking the word of this unscrupulous eBay seller before he even asked me about the transaction and I produced all of the correspondence and receipts to show that I had paid and the seller had left me good feedback. (As a side note, I only wrote one more article for CBG afterwards and that was the obituary for my friend John Albano, who was the co-creator of Jonah Hex.) I was so disenchanted with the whole situation that I got rid of just about every MM piece I owned. I traded a set of my golds and blues with a page from MM 16, some John Totleben sketches and two pages of Miracleman Triumphant to a collector in Seattle for some Jonah Hex original artwork and my second set of golds and blues were sold to Lone Star Comics so I could buy more original art and I believe they had them graded. I know both sets of golds and blues had those little creases on the front cover that a lot of them had. It’s hard to imagine that, after all these years, there are only 51 known copies of the gold #1. I don’t actively collect MM anymore and haven’t for years, except that I did help with getting original art for the Marvel reprint of MM #12 and the volume 3 hardcover and I still have the John Totleben cover art to a British fanzine that featured MM. It was fun shining the spotlight on these truly rare comics and I’m glad to see this thread still going.

A lot of really nice art and it's a great setup, so thanks to Bill Cox, but the prices are outrageous in a lot of cases. And, a lot of the art is art from dealer's sites that has sat for years. I was afraid that I was going to miss out on something by spending all my cash a week ago, but I made the right decision.

A new cover in my collection: Marvel Two-In-One 98 by Ed Hannigan and John Byrne.

As long as I've been around the hobby, just over the last couple years have I started seeing art I used to own show up in these auctions as major pieces.