Michael Browning

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.

On 9/17/2023 at 8:42 PM, Twanj said:

This was surprising to me. It sold on HA in the last few years for about 4k(?) but was not properly described as being inked after publication. The buyer canceled the sale after he learned that.

I watched that one just to see how it would perform and I was very surprised at the end result. I hope the buyer knew what he was getting.

On 9/17/2023 at 10:06 AM, KirbyCollector said:

This auction is being manipulated or I'll eat my hat... the heavy hand of Heritage at work to protect a friend

What makes you think that? First appearance page with both characters on it, so I don’t think it’s gone too high. I know at least one collector who was willing to go big for it and I’m sure there are at least a couple more, so $12,000 doesn’t seem that high to me.

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.)