Will_K

Listening to the Gene Park (guest starring Andy Robbins) podcast for the 3rd time (so far) today.

The article says Bob Bendetson (the owner and not the artist) "picked up the original art direct from Universal Studios decades ago" You could replace "Universal Studios" with "the Marvel office" and there you go... I wonder if the John Alvin's heirs are following the auction. A similar example may be Roger Kastel's art to Jaws. It is a rare (if not the only example) of the same art being featured on the book and movie poster. However, the original Jaws book cover by a different artist had the same composition except the shark and swimmer were more abstract. Apparently Roger IS the owner of the painting but he's not in possession of it. And they do not know where it is.

The cold press illo board and the fact its unsigned (Joe signed pretty well everything as I recall!) mean I wouldn't touch it, personally. I'd guess its some sort of student work from someone that attended the Kubert school, perhaps? It looks like it has age so I don't think its something done yesterday as a fake but rather someone practicing their own art by looking at Joe's. A cursory Google search indicates Flaxon illustration board may not be readily available unless it's new old stock. Even if you can't lightbox an image onto illustration board, you could always use a projector. The blacks look very flat. Also, lines and figures on the left/right borders appear to be cropped way too evenly. Also, the bottom edge seems to folded over just a little bit. This may be a print that's mounted to the board. Just speculation.

+1 on all the kudos Once, I went to one of those "liquidation" auctions at a hotel. Oriental rugs, furniture, sculpture, paintings, etc. During the bidding for a rug, the auctioneer said something to spur the bidding and has stuck with me ever since... it was something along the lines of "you'll never make a rug but you can always make more money". Once in a while that made me pull the trigger on getting some OA. Sadly, nowadays, I don't have to think of that auctioneer in order to overspend.