Michael Browning

They’ve disappeared from all the Walmarts in my area. I’ve checked all of them in my 10-county travel area and one of the people who stocks that aisle in a local Walmart said at least that store no longer carries them.

This sold this weekend. I don’t think it did as well as some people thought it would. In a better art market, I think it could have hit $5,000, but things are a bit down at the moment. I hope the seller made a profit on it.

I found this one for $5 in an antique mall.

I have one of the better pages from Rom #1.

Yes. I saw it. He put it up on the second day, but it was twice the price it should have been.

Fisch is a good guy.

Just to be clear, I have no problem with people buying art at low prices and then putting it up for sale at higher prices, but I hate it when someone buys art for $750, says its their "holy grail" - and I'm happy for them! - and then puts it up for sale for $5,000 right around a year after acquiring that so-called "holy grail." The prices are very high in this CAL, but, hey, it's your art, so price it as high as you want. I don't begrudge anyone for trying to maximize their profits and I will never blast someone in that sour-grapes-from-bitter-old-jealous-collectors thread about the flip of the day. It is funny to see people post in that thread and then put art up on CAL for multiples what they just paid for it recently in some auction or that they snagged in a bargain eBay sale. ;)

One guy has a page up that he bought from one of the dealers over the last year for $750 and he proclaimed that it was so great to finally own a page from this great storyline … but he has it up for sale for $5K on CAL (I do see that happen quite often from other collectors in my FB original art buy, sell, trade art group, so it should never surprise me at all).

I took a look. Yikes. Extremely aspirational pricing for the most part, though I did see a few bargains. Too many retreads. Again. Discounts, in many cases, aren’t real because prices are so jacked-up. I really wanted to buy something, but there was no Crystar, Team America or U.S. 1. No Rom, either. I did see a lot of great art, but the pricing made it appear that the owners want to keep it in their collections. Don’t get me wrong — There were a few sellers who offered good art at very fair prices, but there were more who were trying to get rich by selling a single piece.

I found this for a dollar.

Before yesterday, I didn’t even know this comic existed. It’s the super rare newsstand edition, too.

I picked these up for less than a Buck apiece. The Power Rangers is a newsstand and I had never seen the photo cover in a newsstand edition before today. 😳

I totally get that, but, the artists shouldn't accept or solicit commissions if they don't have the time to do them. It would be like me working my day job, then being offered/getting a second job only to not show up for my second job's shifts for a month or two and not calling in because of my "paying work" (the day job).

My money is worth the same as what an artist is making from his “paying work,” despite how some artists have tried to make it seem worth less.

I have a vision when I ask for a commission. I know what I want and I'm very good at describing that scene. As an editor, I was a newspaper designer for the front page and laid out everything in the paper except sports, and I've always had a God-given talent to know what I want and how I want it to look on a page. I am also a pretty good photographer and know how to frame photos to tell a story. Again, another God-given talent for which I'm very thankful and that has benefited me greatly in my careers. I had one artist question my vision once and he went with what he wanted to draw and it was terrible. He told me to trust him and that I was going to love it. I did not. Another artist said he didn't see how my vision would work, so he went with what he wanted to draw and it, too, was pretty bad. Ernie Chan liked when I would commission him, because I always had a specific vision for what I wanted and he liked working with me on them. He a commission while we chatted on the phone -- with the first five minutes being the time I described the commission. One of the best inkers to ever work in the business told me to trust him on what he was going to draw for me. He was, after all, a longtime penciler and inker and he had designed and drawn many covers. It was one of the absolute worst commissions I ever paid for and he didn't even ink it. He said he just wasn't excited about drawing the character (Jonah Hex) and, if I really wanted it inked, just to mail it to him later and he would. I declined. I don't think it's wrong for a person spending their cash on a piece to ask for what they want. It's my hard-earned money and, if the artist doesn't want to draw what I want, then I just find another artist who will. And, don't even get me started on the "you have to pay in advance, but I have to finish my paying work, first..."

I picked these up at a local show. The guy said he bought them in a pack at Walmart in 1994.

The problem is that people keep going back to buy from them even after they’ve had communication problems or even after they’ve read this thread. I have a bad experience with a seller, I don’t go back at all. There’s too much good art out there for me to waste my time and money on problem dealers and to have to put up with all the hassle and frustration.

None of that really matters, though, unless you want to sit around and agonize about a loss, thinking “what if I’d only bid another $1,000?”, right? If you don’t go big as you can, that question might always linger in your mind. Not my mind, though, because I go big when I really want something that badly and I’ve never lost doing that. Yes, I might jack up prices on all future Ambush Bug, US 1, Team America and Crystar covers, but that’s a natural progression in this very young collecting community of ours for all original art. Like Overstreet always told collectors, your comics increase in value every year. It’s the same with OA. I will take the blame for setting the bar high on those Ambush Bug covers, so anyone who goes after the next one needs to know I always go big on those and you’d better bid as high as you can to beat me. 😉

“Unfortunately for the hobby…” I love how so many collectors are so selflessly always looking out for our hobby. Collectors have always gone big on things they want. It’s how fine art paintings sell for millions of dollars. It’s how comics went from being throw-away entertainment to valuable commodities. I went big on a cover a few years ago. I sold enough art pre-auction to have 3X what I thought I needed and I bid every penny with one bid. I won the cover at twice what it was supposed to sell for, so I was glad I went big. You win some, you lose some. It’s life. But, it sucks to finish second especially when you want something that brings you great pleasure and you lose out because you didn’t go big.

Sorry, and with all due respect, but the editor in me must say this: It’s LED, not “lead.” Lead is a metal. Now, back to the great conversation you all are having.

Thank you for selling it to me! The original art was fairly cheap and I got it for my wife a few years ago. She was a big fan of the show and we always watched it together. I love to match up my art with the comics, so I’d been searching for this issue for YEARS. I also appreciate you giving me a great deal on it. It really pleased my wife to finally see a copy. 😊

Here’s one that I have never found in the wild and probably never will. Chuck #2 Convention Exclusive. After many years of searching everywhere, I bought my copy on eBay and paid a huge price for it - almost as much as I did for the original art. The only copy I’d ever seen before the one I bought recently was one on Amazon for $1,000 and I sure wasn’t paying that.

I have never seen the Stridex issues in the wild, but I’ve picked up the bottom issue in collections a few times.

That’s what this entire thread is.

I had the winning bids on the DKR piece for five minutes and then the Calvin and Hobbes for an hour. 🤷🏼‍♂️ There are some great pieces in this auction and I’m watching a lot.