Michael Browning

I'm not sure why estimates even matter. I mean, bid what you are willing to (and can) pay if you like a piece well enough. As a buyer, I don't care what the auction house THINKS the piece might sell for. If you're the seller, then I'm sure they've talked it over with you about what they think it might sell for. I know they did me when they tried to get me to put some art into an auction last year (I didn't do it).

I think it's a great story and was my first exposure to the new-style of Mike Mignola (before this, I thought his art looked a bit like Michael Golden's). Starlin does what Starlin does -- epic, metamorphic, cosmic soap opera -- and he does it brilliantly.

2 hours ago, artdealer said:

No Miller pencils on this whole book. Klaus enlarged Frank's 8 x 11 layouts, so there had to be pencil on the board. Just not Frank's in this case. I know this as I was Klaus's agent and remember seeing a lot of Miller's layout on typing paper for Klaus.

Sorry to burst anyone's bubble.

MI

Mitch, according to the info gathered from Klaus in 2014 and as noted in Alex's research, the separate sheets didn't start until 184.

Alex,

On another thread about this very same subject, you asked me to give you specifics about the DD 181 page I own and the pencils that are underneath so you can note them in your research.

I have looked at the DD 181 page I own very closely and pencils are clearly seen under the inks and outside the inks, where Janson hadn't fully erased them. The pencils are most evident in the knee/leg of Bullseye as he runs out of the room in the last panel, in Foggy's hair and in Matt's hand in the next-to-last panel and in Bullseye's hand in the third tier panel. I have attached photos so you can see. My apologies if these are too large. I took them with my iPhone, so I hope that they are viewable.

I do believe these are Miller pencils under the Janson inks as I cannot imagine why Janson would do pencils if he lightboxed this page from Miller pencils drawn on another, smaller sheet.

On 7/22/2016 at 7:10 PM, alxjhnsn said:

Thanks. I really, really want to make sure everyone knows the best that we know so long after the fact. I believe that our results are well documented on the thread and in my summary so I appreciate your changing your reply.

 

 

Michael, would you mind clarifying how you know that pencils were on your board? Did Klaus not erase them? I'd like to add this nugget to the summary that I keep (and to the thread cited above).

 

 

Me, too.

 

 

It is.

 

 

Alex,

I have looked at the DD 181 page I own very closely and pencils are clearly seen under the inks and outside the inks, where they weren't erased. The pencils are most evident in the knee/leg of Bullseye as he runs out of the room in the last panel, in Foggy's hair and in Matt's hand in the next-to-last panel and in Bullseye's hand in the third tier panel.

I do believe these are Miller pencils under the Janson inks.

I cannot imagine why Janson would do pencils if he lightboxed this page.

10 minutes ago, alxjhnsn said:

Hi, Michael,

I was about to post the question for you. I'll record the answer (and update the links) once the Vast Unpaid Research Department speaks!

Thank you, sir! I appreciate the help. I'm also posting some pics of my DD 181 page on another thread that deals with this very same subject and I'll post them here, too.

5 hours ago, Davidone said:

Here's a tough one. Hulk 228 Whitman starburst variant. 

Cool book and hard to find, but not even close to being a Modern Comic.

If I remember correctly, Watchmen original art really skyrocketed when the movie was announced and then dropped considerably after the movie came out and a lot of collectors who bought high, had to sell low and take a pretty hard hit.

But, that was then and this is now and I believe a lot of people learned valuable lessons from that situation, which makes me think the Wonder Woman cover was either fueled by two people who really have a nostalgic feel for that cover or by a couple new collectors who were wanting a piece of art that they believed would get hotter because of the popular WW movie.

I'm a Barreto fan and have owned some nice Barreto art, but I would think $5200 is on the high end of his art sales, so maybe it is the movie hype that's caused this sale to go so high. Congrats to the seller, that's for sure. I can remember several years ago when Barreto sold a lot of his covers to one collector and some of the better covers were put up on art dealers' sites and sat there for years without anyone buying them.

10 hours ago, Nexus said:

You and I have totally different definitions of "A-level":P

Definitely a beneficiary of perfect timing. Congrats to the seller!

 

I just said earlier that I was surprised a Barreto WW cover -- and not an image I think is very dynamic -- sold so high. Aside from the DC Comics Presents cover featuring the first Superboy Prime, I wonder if any other Barreto covers have hit this mark.

The black covers are, indeed, considered error covers and are pretty rare. I sold my copy for $250. I have checked nearly 100 copies of the Edge of Spider-Verse 2s and the only black copies were in the batches from Books-A-Million.

I've owned four copies and they all sold for quite a bit more than the maroon background covers.

4 hours ago, fastballspecial said:

Found a Hulk 340 Variant today. Very nice shape which is rare for this book. I haven't seen one for several years they were in a 3 pack at either Family Dollar or Dollar General years ago. Will attach pic later for some reason keeps failing.

 

That is a nice variant and they don't ever turn up in stores. They were specifically made for Family Dollar stores and were sold in three-packs. The thing is, there are two other comics in that three-pack that are just as rare and three MORE comics in a second three-pack from the same store that are extremely tough to find, too. These are all especially hard to find in high grade because of a printing defect that left many of them with printer roller marks down the center of the cover near the logo.

I found two newsstand copies of Darker Image 1 today at a comic shop in Knoxville and a Cyber Force 29 newsstand. I'd say all of these are tough to find.

55 minutes ago, Dogsupreme said:

Loving this topic. I remember a lot of these books during the whole 1980s independent comic boom.

Here is a suggestion. MEGATON #2 featuring first appearance of SAVAGE DRAGON by Erik Larson. Not expensive but hard to find in high grade.

 

There is another extremely hard to find Dragon comic, but I can't remember what it is. I know it had a tiny print run and, somewhere, I've got an envelope with black and white copies of the entire comic. I'll have to dig it out this weekend and post some pics.

17 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

I've seen that pinup, it's great.  I think a lot of people would love to own that. I think there'd be a fight if it ever went to auction and the end price would be way more than $31 (1/100th your purchase price). So don't beat yourself up over the cost too much.

Another stipulation to the deal was that I make him a print of the comic art and mail it to him to replace what he was losing. I agreed and so that brought the cost to $3112. The guy didn't even collect comic art - nor did he even read comics. He just like DeCarlo art and saw it for sale and bought it. He said numerous people had tried to buy it from him all the years he had it, but none ever made him think it was worth his while. He said he stopped reading my offers around $1500, but might have taken my $2000 offer the year earlier if he'd even opened the email to read it. Arrrgghh!

Sometimes, you have to catch someone at the right time: the guy who owned the Cheryl pinup was needing a new roof and the $3100 went a long way toward getting that taken care of, at the time. He later told me that after he cashed my check, he looked at the cash and decided to store it away in his safe for a later day.

Late last year and earlier this year, I was looking at getting some Dan DeCarlo Betty and Veronica and Cheryl Blossom bikini covers/pinups and found a few that were all NFS. I inquired and made an offer well over the FMV and got several of the ones I was going after.

Here's the one that took me paying 100x its FMV: the Archie's Pals and Gals 161 Cheryl Blossom pinup that was my grail. The guy who owned it bought it for $75 from Anthony Snyder more than a decade ago. I started my offer at $500 right after he bought it and was refused. Every year, I would ask again and increase my offer. Finally, after 10 years, and an offer of $3100, the guy relented and sold me the art.

I wish I could have gotten it far cheaper, but, I didn't want to offend the guy and I knew I had to make it worth his while.

There is actually one page from the Cyblade-Shi crossover issue that featured Bone drawn by Jeff in, if I remember correctly, three panels. I bought it directly from Billy Tucci, who drew the rest of the page. Billy had one other page with Bone on it and the DPS from that issue that had Bone, along with characters from other companies that were drawn by their creators. Billy, after selling me the one page, has said he won't sell the others because it technically is the only Bone published art that isn't in the Ohio State collection.

I ended up trading the page away a couple years ago and I know I saw it pop up on CAF last year.

On 4/17/2017 at 9:39 AM, Doc McCoy said:

Are they guarded by a dragon that will only allow a "dealer" to get access to them?

In all seriousness, if you know that there's a market for these pages, why not attempt to sell them?  Or encourage the owner to do so?  Why does a dealer have to be involved?

I'm the owner, and I'm not actively trying to sell them right now. I offered them to a couple dealers when I got the collection and both told me that it was art and that they weren't interested unless I sold them at prices below what I paid for each page.

On 4/17/2017 at 10:35 AM, Solar said:

@Dealers

 

eBay / CLink certainly don't discriminate against 90s art

While I have bought from C-Link, I do not consign to auctions.

I'm content to hold onto all this great art for awhile longer, unless one of my friends asks me to sell or trade to him/her.

I have sold a few pieces here and there, but privately, instead of at auction.

On 4/17/2017 at 0:51 AM, DeadpoolJr. said:

I'm very curious by what characters from Marvel you found.

Elektra, Punisher, Daredevil, Captain America, Hulk, Ghost Rider and a few others.

I recently found a treasure trove full of 1990s pages that feature some of Marvel's most popular characters, but no dealer will even touch them (I was even told the art was " art"). I'm telling you, the dealers' disregard of this era prevents some prime 1990s pages from ever hitting the market. In turn, collectors won't offer them for sale because they're told they are worthless and no collector wants to be told that their art isn't worth even trying to sell.

But, when dealers start selling stuff that THEY, THEMSELVES, don't collect, and start selling art without bias to decades, then we will see a lot of great stuff hit the market that many of us have been looking for.

A lot of dealers won't sell or deal in anything that they, personally, don't collect. One dealer doesn't want anything newer than 1980, another doesn't want anything that isn't large art and another only buys art that is published by Marvel and DC. Those dealers are focused primarily on selling to help build their collections and disregard anything that isn't in their collecting scope and, a lot of times, miss out on great art that is available for sale -- art that WOULD SELL IF PUT UP ON THEIR SITES.

And that, in my opinion, would cause a lot of the 1990s art to come out of the woodwork and into our collections.

Yes, I was totally misreading that and I sincerely apologize.

No, the GI Joe 63 pictured above is NOT the So Much Fun variant, which has "Classic" written under the logo on the cover and So Much Fun written in the UPC box.

Rather than just buying art of one character or by one artist like I did when I first started collecting, I am trying to find art that has a nostalgic feel to it, so nowadays, my collection is becoming focused on more pieces that are part of my "Permanent Collection." I think my collection is better than ever nowadays and, thank God, I have been blessed to have found some of my personal grails (art from comics I owned as a child or teen).

The Charlton art that I collected when I first started collecting wasn't so hard to get rid of, because they were mostly all cover paintings, so there was a market for those and they weren't by any one artist. I actually traded up with some of those and the others I broke even on when I decided I wanted to move in a different direction with my art collecting.

As for my Jonah Hex collection: At one time, I probably had the largest collection of Jonah Hex art around. I had lots of covers, lots of pages, the pencils preliminary pages to his first appearance and commissions by a large number of artists. But, when I decided I wanted to branch out and explore other comic art collecting, trading away and selling my Jonah Hex-focused art was very difficult. Eventually, I traded or sold off nearly all of the Jonah Hex art (one cover left and I've got only a few commissions that were more personal to me from artist friends like Tim Truman; Dan Parent and the late, great Ernie Chan). I lost a lot of cash on most of those pieces and barely broke even on the rest.

I simply don't do commissions anymore except a cover recreation every now and again from Bob Budiansky, Tim Truman and Jeff Aclin (all three I highly recommend if you're looking to get a commission). Bob is my favorite Marvel artist, Tim is a native West Virginian and a friend, and Jeff is awesome to deal with. He's reliable, very quick and affordable.

I learned a valuable lesson: Focusing on only one character or artist is only good when it's published Spider-Man covers and pages and the artist is someone like Frank Miller or Jack Kirby.

For the first couple of years of collecting, I collected Charlton cover art and I traded all that away.

Then, I focused on just collecting Jonah Hex, but, after getting enough headshots of Hex and, after he'd become popular again through a new series and the potential of a movie coming out, I decided to sell or trade everything away. Trouble was, no matter how popular the character was, no one wanted to give me even what I paid for the pieces and no dealer wanted to trade with me (but, thank God for Anthony Snyder making a trade with me for most of the Hex art a few years later), because they didn't have any faith in a western character and wanted only super heroes. I learned a very valuable lesson from collecting only Hex art: commissions do not sell nearly as well as published art, no matter who the artist is and, rarely, do you ever recoup what you spend for commissions unless they are by super popular artists - and not of Jonah Hex.

Now, my only focus collecting is Bob Budiansky Ghost Rider art - but I don't collect JUST Budiansky GR art. My collection, as many of you have seen, consists of a lot of different artists and characters, ranging from covers to splashes to panel pages and only a few commissions, which are mostly recreations of covers by the same artist.

I'm much happier with my multi-faceted collection and I'm glad I got away from the singular focus art collecting. I think it's made me a better collector and given me a much better collection.