Michael Browning

On 10/28/2023 at 3:29 PM, fastballspecial said:

Couple of books I dont see much and one I never see. 

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

On 10/26/2023 at 12:34 PM, Fischb1 said:

So you bought a page for 900, then, by your own admission, flipped it within a year or two for more than double (2k), and this happened before the Covid run-up....then, soon after, all the pieces went up in value and now the buyer is trying to do what you did (flip it for more) and you're resentful? Sounds like sour grapes to me. 

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.

On 10/13/2023 at 11:40 PM, tth2 said:

Has anyone seen these or other DOCM pages in person, and if so, can they comment on whether the scans accurately depict the pages or do they crank up the image to make the lines look darker than they actually look in person?

I have seen pages and the scans are pretty accurate. 

A cross section of the Sunday International HA with a few notes.

Mazzucchelli DD sold high.

Infantino Star Wars UK art is still solid.

Perkins Swamp Thing art is new and has some value.

The Adam Strange prelim probably should have been listed as a cover, since those were done with very sparse lines and everything else was done by computer. Whoever got that got the deal of the auction - maybe the year.

Jae Lee Namor art is hot.

I thought the LaRocque Web of Spider-Man #2 page would sell higher.

Wrightson Batman sketch sold fairly high, in my opinion.

Hannigan Spectacular Spider-Man art keeps climbing higher and higher.

That Giarrano Batman splash sold much higher than I figured. Azbats might be more popular than I imagined.

Byrne Martian Manhunter sold fairly cheap. It isn’t a great piece, but I think it was a bit of a bargain and the commissioner of that piece paid more for it.

Falcon Marvel Premiere page, Infantino Ms. Marvel page, Ron Wilson Spectacular Annual page and Kupperberg MTIO pages all sold very cheap.

Highs and lows, thus far.

On 10/7/2023 at 1:14 PM, cstojano said:

So far the few lots I had on watch seem light today, the Gimenez pages, the Moebius page. I suspect consigning the entire first Metabarons book had to drag on prices a bit. The Segrelles also seemed very cheap. 

I, too, thought the Segrelles went VERY cheap. I was expecting those to hit much higher numbers.

I didn't bid on a thing, but I've watched off and on throughout the day. A lot of the big pieces underperformed, I thought.

On 10/6/2023 at 8:13 PM, Twanj said:

That's the feeling I had too but couldn't remember exactly. Was this at Black Line Fever? I thought I'd seen it before and it was more clear...

I spoke with Jim Halperin last night and he and his team agreed that it is Dan Adkins AFTER John Buscema and they will be making the change today.

I did just send Heritage an email about the Silver Surfer. Another thing that makes me believe there's no JB pencils under the Adkins inks: If you notice, that's NOT John Buscema's signature style at all.

On 10/6/2023 at 8:13 PM, Twanj said:

That's the feeling I had too but couldn't remember exactly. Was this at Black Line Fever? I thought I'd seen it before and it was more clear...

I'm not sure.I just remember there was a bit of confusion about some of the commissions Adkins did late in his life, where he signed his name and the artist who he was swiping. Too many of those have been sold and resold over the years as being by "pencils by Artist X and inks by Dan Adkins," when, in reality, the penciler never even touched the art. I'm just wondering if this is one of those (I think it is).

Does anyone believe that there are any John Buscema pencils underneath the Dan Adkins inks? Wasn't this around the time Adkins was doing those look-alike drawings for collectors where he would draw a commission in the style of, say, Buscema? Am I misremembering?

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/illustrations/john-buscema-and-dan-adkins-silver-surfer-illustration-original-art-1999-/a/7345-52060.s?type=bidnotice-tracked-dailystatus

On 10/5/2023 at 10:00 AM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

I don't think so; I think that's sun fade. You can see a hint of yellow if you compare Ghost Rider's head to the front wheel (or, in the corner box, compare the flames on the head to the skull).

I looked at it very closely and the blue and black are both very vibrant and don't appear to be sun faded, which is why I believe it's a spoilage copy. It may be a case of the printing press not having the right amount of the Y color which would leave a hint of yellow, but the red is definitely not there at all. I think the yellow is just from the paper, though.

On 10/1/2023 at 2:08 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

happy accident...! Creepy Cool.

 

The Magenta and Yellow plates are missing from the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) printing process in that cover. It's a book that should have been tossed in the trash as part of the spoilage, which are test copies printed at the start of the run to get the colors correct. Some of these slip through every now and again, but they are very rare and can be very valuable.

On 9/30/2023 at 5:49 AM, Overthetopinc said:

What do you guys think this will go for?

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/covers/frank-miller-dark-knight-comics-interview-31-original-cover-art-david-anthony-kraft-198/p/7342-214001.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

Well, now, I was wondering when that was ever going to pop up again.

On 9/21/2023 at 11:59 PM, Terry E. Gibbs said:

Are you talking modern DC or SA, and higher value pieces ??

Almost all DC art, except Batman, Sandman and Alan Moore-written series. It really hurts when a movie is announced.

On 9/20/2023 at 5:18 PM, barneythecantankerous said:

Agreed, and it's just the same recycled points made over and over again

I like reading other people’s thoughts and opinions on the market. It’s good to discuss it. I avoid posts I don’t want to read. 🤷🏼‍♂️

On 9/20/2023 at 5:17 PM, the blob said:

I'm not sure if the art market for $75,000 abstract or pop artists is really running in line with OA. Maybe a few of the same people, but not likely. Yes, a sense of "I have extra money" permeated both groups

 

I understand folks like to show off their OA collection on line and stuff, but at the end of the day is it just a lot easier to have "enough" OA? I've bought my fair share but at the end of the day the good stuff should be displayed and how many of us have unlimited wall space? So I have 50, 75 pages of OA and almost nowhere to display it so I stopped looking. I sold my kirby and steranko pages because I needed money, I'll never be able to afford those again. I've always wanted a decent John Buscema Conan page and now the most lame ones are like $800 from his "I don't care anymore" later work. i guess that isn't happening except via trade.

To your first point, you directed it to me, but I don’t think you meant to do that. My comments haven’t referenced pop art.

On 9/20/2023 at 7:59 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Agree with what you’ve said, but counter to it is that a lot of affordable art (under $300) has tanked.  Xmen pages, Spidey pages, captain America, etc by decent artists have lost 50% of their value over the past 4 months.

You might be right. I follow a cross-section in each auction and take notes on the end results and I haven’t seen it to a large extent, but I might be missing those pages.

I think that, for the 2020-2021 period, ALL art was going up and I am seeing that settle down. I see values dropping severely in the main DC titles, but then art from series like Vigilante are soaring. With Marvel, I have noticed common pages have settled a bit, but I attribute the 50% drop to people just paying crazy-high prices for those pages when they were trying to grab everything that seemed even remotely affordable. Those buyers were never going to see a return on investment for several years and a lot are selling now and losing money.

Are we seeing a softening of the market or is it really a shift? I see some art sell really high, for example the Nick Cardy Brave and the Bold page for $28,000 and the Veronica 28 cover for nearly $16K — and, to a lesser extent, a Zot! page that sold for $811 on eBay this week. I’m seeing 1990s Ghost Rider art sell in the thousands most every time a page comes up for sale.

Some prices have leveled off, but, mainly, that’s art that was purchased at 2020-2021 COVID cash prices and now the owners are selling at losses, which was inevitable in a lot of cases.

But, the original art market is still very strong, overall. I see the recent auction results as proof backing up what I said the last two years - it’s going to take YEARS to break even on art bought in the COVID-era at sky-high prices because people - in their stay-at-home boredom and their excitement over having extra cash to throw at art - paid way too much.

On 9/19/2023 at 9:57 AM, AlexG_art said:

It was original pencils by Bagley. Now, it's considered a commission piece IMO. But congrats to the seller. I thought it would go half of the 11k price tag.   

I thought it would go for HALF of that! I mean, the original, published cover and video game art is all covered under the inks, so they're basically destroyed, gone. It's a commission now, so I was surprised at the high price that it sold for. I would almost bet the current buyer won't be able to get his money back if he decides to resell anytime in the next decade.

On 9/18/2023 at 6:11 PM, cstojano said:

I think it looks ok. My first impression of this piece was that YES it was babes and barbarians but all things considered it wa spretty tasteful. I was also drawn to the way the back was painted more the bikini in this picture.

Looks a bit blown out though, perhaps flash? Some surface abrasion as well, not that it mattered much.

This caused me to go back and study the picture of the Veronica cover and I was wondering what the heck you were seeing that I wasn’t. 😳

On 9/17/2023 at 9:58 PM, Xatari said:

This issue was pretty highly sought after for a while.  One of the best modern Archie covers.

On 9/17/2023 at 9:58 PM, Xatari said:

This issue was pretty highly sought after for a while.  One of the best modern Archie covers.

I agree, but I figured it MIGHT hit $7000. I was the high bidder for a second or two early on and knew it would go very high, but that's a HUGE amount for a modern Archie cover.