Michael Browning

It's definitely not Don Simpson.

On 9/15/2023 at 10:47 PM, tth2 said:

Why are they selling?

That’s a great question! At one point, when everything was going so high, I thought about selling and then the Secret Wars 8 page hit $3M and I got a feeling that every auction thereafter  was going to be a big letdown and I put those thoughts out of my head.

Now, I’d like to hold off for another 10 years until I’m close to retirement before I sell.

I thought all of the Wally Wood art sold fairly high. But, the huge gap between prices of his Daredevil pages and his Thunder Agents art shows how he is an artist whose popularity is fading with the dying group that has loved his art for so long.

On 9/15/2023 at 4:11 PM, PhilipB2k17 said:

I thought some of the Kirby Marvel pieces went low. 

Kirby collectors are all old. New money don’t care about Kirby. 😉

On 9/15/2023 at 3:40 PM, jjonahjameson11 said:

Michael, the ‘naysayers’ did not state that this page wouldn’t sell for a high price ( go back and re-read the posts).

what the ‘naysayers’ stated was that this page wouldn’t sell for nearly the same amount of the page had Miller pencils on the same board.  I am one of the folks who still stand by this statement 

I’m talking about the people who talked to me off the boards who were naysayers. I understand and respect your point of view on it, totally, so no offense was meant to you.

On 9/15/2023 at 3:24 PM, NinjaSealed said:

This did not sell high lol.

Compared to what all the naysayers were predicting, it sold pretty high.

Non-Miller Miller/Janson DD page sold high like I knew it would.

On 9/15/2023 at 3:11 PM, delekkerste said:

Great page, right in my nostalgic wheelhouse.

That said, I don't know if I want to live in a world where this page sells for $6K more than the Neal Adams Action #399 cover...  

Adams art has been flat for awhile and selling quite low, considering it was priced as high 15 years ago on dealers’ sites.

I got rid of all my Adams art a few years ago after he pulled that stunt with the Batman 251 cover art auction, saying it might be a recreation and he would only authenticate it for a portion of the final sale price.

This one really shocked me.

On 9/15/2023 at 3:04 PM, jjonahjameson11 said:

I was the underbidder on the Perez NTT cover.

Seller took a loss on it.

Yikes. Before the auction, I said NTT covers were going to slow down and I was right.

On 9/15/2023 at 2:15 PM, All-Star Squadman said:

I'm in Total agreement especially with the paragraph in bold.   I can get still get 5%+ compounded and guaranteed for 5 years with 20k and I'm not so sure if paying current FMV on many art pieces will yield as well. most of the last 12 years i woudl never had even considered going that route now it's most appealing.

For around 18 years now I've followed an amalgam of advice I received from Will G and Jon M; If it's piece that has special meaning for you, spend what you think it will cost in 5 years so it doesn't get away.

The combined advice has mostly served me well, however as of this point in time paying where i think it will be in 5 years means not overpaying/paying less and if it gets away then it gets away.  I've been blessed to acquire my Grail of Grail's so it's an easier statement to make than it might have been many years back.

 

Yeah, I’m pretty sure Will gave me the same advice years ago. But, things have really changed in the last three years. I don’t think I could now pay what I think it will be worth in five years — ANYMORE. I used to do that. Heck, I’ve overpaid for quite a few pieces and have been pleasantly surprised at how fast they exceeded what I paid, but I just don’t see that happening anymore with auction results still so high. Do I think the Secret Wars 8 page that sold for $3M+ would sell for more than that in five years? No way. I think that about a lot of the art selling for $20,000+. There’s just no way to break even on most of the pieces I want and I’m satisfied with what I have, so I’m good to just sit on the sidelines nowadays. (Full disclosure: I am by no means priced out of the game. I’ve bought over 100 pieces so far this year, but none have been very expensive. I’m way below what I bought last year, pricewise, and I’m okay with that. I did buy around 220 pieces last year, so I’m on track to surpass that number by 2024.)

On 9/15/2023 at 10:27 AM, delekkerste said:

I can tell you that the Heritage catalog did no justice to this piece. Not that it's Heritage's fault, it's just that, in person, it has a presence/wall power that just cannot be captured in a photo. It is just stunning, easily the most beautiful piece of comic art that I have seen in years. I kept coming back to look at it over and over and over again at SDCC.  

I had initially planned to make a serious run at this, but, I am an example of what I said above - I'm not as confident at the moment that the art I would need to sell is going to get the prices I would need to swing a purchase like this. So, I revised my limit lower, and we've blown past that limit at this point. That said, it might have been a moot point anyway as it looks like it could blast even higher in the live session. My initial instinct when I saw this was this could easily be a Lucas Museum target (very likely the inspiration for Princess Leia's Episode IV hair-do) and that it could have just been unwinnable from the start. 

I’m sort of in that category, but it’s more of a feeling that if I buy a cover for $20,000 today, I might not live long enough to sell at break-even or see a profit years from now. I don’t primarily buy for resale purposes, but I don’t make/have a lot of extra cash like many collectors on this thread have and I make sure event penny counts - and that, if I need to sell, I could at least make my money back fairly quickly. I always have my eye on the resale, even if I plan to never sell. It comes from growing up poor and with Depression-era parents who raked and scraped and saved and taught me to keep my comics and Star Wars action figures in good condition in case I need to sell them one day.

I have steered clear of a lot of great art auctions because the prices have just gone so high that I don’t have the confidence I once had that I could get my cash back if and when I need to sell. There are lots of pieces I’d love to own, but I have to rethink sometimes and say to myself “Do I want it and enough that if I’m in a pinch and need to sell, I could recoup 100% of what I spent?”

That keeps me out of a lot of auctions these days.

The Ragman splash was actually by Broderick and Tanghal with breakdowns by Giffen and has almost no visible Giffen art at all. Breakdowns they may be, but that art is almost entirely by Broderick and Tanghal and anyone who knows anything about Giffen and Broderick art can see that.

Archie OA collectors are as notoriously cheap as Thor and Hulk and DC art collectors, so it didn't surprise me at the low results on some pieces that I thought would sell really high.

On 9/2/2023 at 3:15 PM, grapeape said:

The drawings good, but you rarely see a Stan Lee signature. Should bring about spirited bidding. 

Careful. You'll bring out the "Stan Lee Didn't Create Spider-Man - Jack Kirby Did - So Stan Shouldn't Have Signed It" group.

On 8/31/2023 at 4:20 PM, buttock said:

Does it really matter?  I know the underlying rationale, but does it really matter?  You're getting the published image.  Would you rather have that or the original Miller pencils?  

That's what I've been saying this entire time.

On 8/30/2023 at 4:32 PM, J.Sid said:

 

Miller-drawn Elektra pages with Ninjas and swords go for much, much more than this (exponentially more)

15 days to go. The auction ain't over yet. That page may sell lower than a "pure" Miller page, but I just don't believe that that matters to most of the Miller DD collectors these days like it did five years ago.

$9500 this morning, $20,000 this afternoon - with 15 days to go. Someone wants that page with the same passion that the old guys want “pure” Miller DD pages.

On 8/29/2023 at 12:12 PM, Dr. Balls said:

He's pretty active and has a lot of listings on CAF. I can't really fathom the attitude - and it looks like it's a pretty classic attitude since he was acting that way six years ago. How he can be such a sourpuss when he clearly is able to sell art. I guess that if you pay his ask and everything goes smooth, you'd never know. The minute you have a question or a shipping issue, he freaks out like a 12 year old after you take away his Playstation.

I know a lot of people forgive-and-forget when it comes to COOL BOOKS, but I've got a big fat note to myself in my CAF to not buy from this guy, regardless of whatever he posts up.

I asked a question about some art many years ago and he flipped out on me and went on a rampage. I don’t even remember what it was that I asked. Maybe it was on one of his pages he put up for sale and I made an offer and he got really nasty about me asking for a cheaper price. And, I’m not sure he sells THAT much art. I’ve seen some of the artists he reps/repped selling their art through other people.

Kevin is autographing every piece of art. Even the Frank Miller DD page that he had nothing to do with. Won’t that make them just like the J. Scott Campbell covers autographed (marred) by Stan Lee? At least each piece comes with a COA. That and the autograph should really add value! 🤦‍♂️

On 8/25/2023 at 12:57 AM, *paull* said:

I wouldn't waste your time with that.

Oh, there will be quite a few collecting doofuses who will want this service and there will also be those who won't buy unless it's a 9.8 page... of that I'm sure.

True story. I was in a comic shop about a month ago and the shop owner asked me to sell him some key comics from my collection, so I had them there and the guy came over and was snooping to see what I had. He asked me if he could buy some -- but he wanted me to put them on hold for him while he made payments. I'm talking about $100-$300 keys, not AF 15s. I told him no, I would not do that.

He then told the comic shop owner that he doesn't buy anything that's not CGC graded and slabbed because ordinary collectors aren't capable of giving correct grades on comics, only CGC was able to do that and he won't buy anything that's not graded, which surprised me since he was asking to buy my comics and none of them were graded. Doofuses. So many doofuses. I'm certain this will happen with comic art collectors when CGC starts grading and slabbing original art.

On 8/24/2023 at 12:20 PM, glendgold said:

For people who tracked the revelations over time better than I did - is this a page Miller touched or not? https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/story-page/frank-miller-and-klaus-janson-daredevil-190-story-page-32-original-art-marvel-1983-/a/7341-93080.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515 

With results for these pages hitting high numbers, I don't think it matters much anymore whether Miller actually touched the paper or not. It used to be a thing, but nowadays, no so much, as evidenced by the super high prices pages from these issues have gotten.

On 8/17/2023 at 11:25 AM, SpineTic said:

Seems legit?

After watching this, I feel like Chuck Bartowski and now I may have the intersect in my head and can now be a super spy.

On 8/13/2023 at 9:40 PM, Rick2you2 said:

It was one of three Dominguez covers sold from a private collector many years ago. The other one was the voodou doll. 

I remember them all well.

On 8/13/2023 at 9:26 PM, Rick2you2 said:

No worries. I've been following that one around by Dominquez since it was $3K. I've got a better one:

 

Wow, that one is MUCH better and I'm so glad you have it. I was honestly worried when I saw someone else bought it.