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The Shoveler

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Posts posted by The Shoveler

    Why is it harder to collect art from the 90s than it should be?

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    Patience was certainly the biggest part of the puzzle, as well as the luck of being at the right place and/or paying attention to auctions and dealers to spot the rare art, and most importantly knowing when to drop serious money on something special and either take on some debt or sell off some lesser pieces to fund it.

     

    The biggest thing I often stress to 90s collectors is that they need to understand how little of this art there really was. This isn't like Kirby or Romita or Byrne where there are long runs and thousands of pages of art. For many, they did a small number of issues, 10-30, of which there were a lot of talking head pages and strange inkers or any number of reasons why there isn't a constant stream of A-list pages filtering out - they simply don't exist.

     

     

    x2.

     

    For a brief period, there was a score of Jim Lee X-Men pages available from wildstormfinearts.com back in the day. I still remember agonizing over whether to buy two Jim Lee UXM pages from my want list. The good pages could set you back ~$225-$300 iirc. Some serious coin. Finally, I bit the bullet and pulled the trigger and sent my e-mail or clicked on the link or whatever the site instructed.

     

    And waited. And waited. And waited.

     

    And wsfa.com promptly shut down within days of my attempted purchase, with no alternative to appeal, beg or bargain for the pages. This must've been in '98 right when Wildstorm merged their ops into DC.

     

    Getting to a con wasn't an option for me. However, in retrospect, I probably should've bought a copy of WildCATS to get the letters page address and tried to contact Jim Lee's handlers that way. doh! . I didn't even think of that at the time. I blame it on myopia...possibly induced by repeatedly slapping my left eye over & over with a white-gloved Mickey Mouse hand.

     

    Years later, both pages were eventually sold on ebay for even more ridiculously serious coin, much more than I could possibly justify for those pages at that time.

     

    However, by following your strategy quoted above, I eventually acquired some alternatives to fill those gaps during some mini-surges...at the cost of even still more ludicrous coinage.

     

    That WSFA fumble still burns. :pullhair: But at least I never had to buy a copy of WildCATS ;) .

     

    So remember, kids:

     

    - Timing is everything

    - Patience can pay off

    - It's better to be lucky than good

    - Save your missiles for MIGs...don't waste your ammo on weather balloons

     

     

    ART DAY - Movie Poster original paintings!

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted · Edited by The Shoveler

    This Pancho Villa art is my favorite of your Chantrell pieces so far! It reminds me of, and is far superior to, Criterion's art for "The Battle of Algiers."

     

    Also, the Robert Mitchum + Peter Fonda/Jerry Reed double-bill is very well-done too. Film noir meets demolition derby. High-Ballin' never looked so good!

     

    And Matthew's Terminator piece is very cool. I'll have to look for more work by Tongdee (Hey! I found some here from the Swank Modern Design Gallery event referenced in Matt's CAF: http://www.swankmoderndesign.com/eyegasm.htm)

     

    Well done, gents! (thumbs u