Peter L

Thanks for the advice.

I put the pencil piece in mylar and haven't touched it since so I think it is ok then.  

The artist lives in another state and brought the piece to me personally.  It was still wet and I had to put it somewhere where it wouldn't get smudged for a few weeks because it was drying.  I am going to frame it for protection purposes and not varnish it, based on these responses.

Thanks everyone!

10 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

Honestly, if that were the case for me, I would not buy it. This is just a hobby and I won't go into a long term payment arrangement unless there is something unique at issue. And I literally mean "unique" (I know of one such piece to me but it isn't for sale). This is not a hobby in which there is a long term profit event horzon, like stocks or even rare cars, so I wouldn't bother or be upset about not getting it, and I am not a dealer with the interest in taking the chance of profit.

I agree totally with this.  No hobby is worth getting into big debt over.  No piece of art is worth it.  

Hi all,

What is the purpose of varnish and it is good or bad on original art?

I bought an all pencil piece once and the artist instructed me to spray it to protect it.  I didn't do this because I didn't want to do it wrong.

I bought an all acrylic painted piece and the artist said he would return in one year to put varnish on it.  I didn't know if I needed that or not.  

I recall reading articles about the restoration of famous Italian Renaissance artists and there was the story about having to remove the varnish because it builds up.  

Should I be putting varnish on these things?

Thanks

BTW regarding the art, his family didn't want any money from me.  They just requested that I donate money.  

Thanks for the comments and the many private messages everyone.  

I have not found any Hulk art.

I haven't decided what to do yet but ComicLink does sound appealing.  He bought a good number of things through ComicLink and many of the CGCs have ComicLink stickers on them.

5 hours ago, malvin said:

but that's like any other auction, or am I misunderstanding something?  No auction triggers your max bid, its one increment above the previous bid.

Malvin

I was going to say the same thing.  But if the reserve is not met, it will say reserve not met like this auction:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/223500245593?ul_noapp=true

When the reserve is met, then it will say and the highest bid will win.

The original poster might want to consider making a private offer to the seller and put it on a credit card.

I've overpaid for a lot of stuff.  But if I didn't, I wouldn't have the great art that I like.  They never would have sold it or someone else may have bought it.  In my favorite area of collecting, I think there may be less than 5 people who are willing to spend the money as I have in this niche as I've tried to find out who I am bidding against or if I am bidding against myself.  There are some times I believe I was bidding against myself.  There was a much talked about Hertiage auction lot where I was the underbidder.  I was about to win, there was a third call to close the auction, and I someone other than the person I was bidding against jumped in at the last minute.  I had the gut feeling it was the seller or something fishy was going on so I stopped bidding.   It was telling that only me and perhaps the "winner" thought it was worth that much as no one else in the world did.  

A few years ago I saw a splash page on Heritage that I would want but it was way above the average comps.  They seller usually doesn't sell stuff out of his collection but he put this particular splash page up.  It didn't meet the reserve to he took it back.  I approached him last year and he said he sold it for what he called crazy money.  He admitted that the reserve was unrealistic.  If it was just under the reserve that he sold it for I thought that would have been a fair price.  Today I feel the reserve would have been a fair price.  

I doubt I will ever get that piece now because it is not posted anywhere and in a black hole collection.  I probably should have overpaid for it at the time.  But my guess is that there are less than 5 people who would have spent that much money on it and maybe less because it is out of their collecting sweetspot.  The sellability wouldn't have mattered to me as it would have ended up in my collection and I probably would never have sold it.  

So in regards to the original post, most people would say that splash is great, many would want it, but a very few would pay for it.  Just because the friends of the original poster doesn't value the art as much, doesn't mean it is not worth it.  But if he then tried to sell it later, there might not be that many potential buyers at that price point.

On 4/20/2019 at 8:47 AM, BCarter27 said:

I think it is something you'd have to evaluate in person or with some better natural light closeups. If it is production tape, I'd leave it. If the tape is recently-applied Scotch tape, you can likely heat it up with a hair dryer and gently lift it. You will know right away if it is going to come up easily or is too bonded to the paper and will tear.

If you do lift it, you can use archival rubber cement to put the balloon back down. Then use a white eraser to gently rub off any excess cement or tape residue.

Does anyone know someone who does this thing professionally in the Los Angeles area?  I have a collectible that I want a sticker removed from.

2 hours ago, cstojano said:

Maybe there's a little more to it than just that. The tribal art market is filled with fakes and there is even debate about where the line between fake and real actually exists (not for this forum). The point is that piece X in my hands has less value because I don't have the gallery's reputation behind the piece. But you are correct because even the galleries are lagging the big auction houses. To your last sentence, it was not just one person and 1987 is putting it kindly. There is almost no real web presence for this stuff, no real forum, few Facebook groups. It is all underground. Most dealers that even bother with a website rarely update and certainly don't publish prices. So you end up emailing these people and made to feel like a tool when they tell you some outlandish price. Needless to say, while I still watch the big auctions, I haven't bought a thing in nearly a decade now. 

What is tribal art?

Hi all,

I recall a previous thread where people gave advice on the best places to sell collections.

I was given a collection from a friend who passed away.  He would collect usually lower priced items like from Heritage Sunday auctions or Comic Link.  

I was going to sell most of the items but I am trying to figure out the best way to do this.  I don't really have the time to list every item on ebay and mail them out.  I'm sure some would not get bids.  

I suppose I could bundle a bunch of it up and sell it together. 

Or would it be easier to sell on Comic Link or Heritage?   If it is easier and I don't have to package or mail out the items separately sounds appealing.

If I use Comic Link or Heritage, do I just mail the boxes of items to them?  

There are about six portfolios of art, and 3 boxes of slabbed books and 3 boxes of raw books.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks for sharing this.  This was terrific.  It gave me a lot to think about.

3 minutes ago, malvin said:

Same here in terms of supporting CAF. I think FB and other social media definitely takes away some attention.  Each artist has their own FB group (either official or fan based) and people go there.

The other thing is, I'm speaking more from my point of (and my circle of collecting friends) but my collecting has "matured" so there are less things that I am seeking to buy.  And I hate to say it, I'm also harder to impress now.  Where in the past I would wow at a piece and comment, a similar piece I would look at the thumbnail and not even click.

 

Malvin 

I also recall about 10 years ago at CAF, they didn't have thumbnails, so you had to click on everything to see what the image was.  It was a pain but it did make more clicks.  I suggested that problem back then but was told they didn't want to see all the images.  Fortunately things changed.  I think it is still a great site and love it and the work that has gone into it.  But I can see why it is losing eyeballs.

1 hour ago, stinkininkin said:

It's been brought up before that CAF no longer seems to be a barometer for much of anything anymore.  I still enjoy CAF and still support it, but it gets just a fraction of eyes compared to years past, for reasons that are still unclear to me.  

1 hour ago, Pete Marino said:

CAF needs to update.  Their site is a few generations behind the modern internet that needs to be revamped, and they need an app if they want those eyes again (IMO).

26 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

What improvements do you think would help?

I couldn't figure out why people aren't going as much to CAF but then these comments made it clear to me.  The page is several generations old and not made for a tablet or phone.  As most of the population moved away from desktops except for work and spend more leisure time on tablets or phones, CAF became too difficult to navigate so people just don't go there anymore.  

I'm on my phone most of the day.  I read my news and communicate with friends by phone apps like instagram or facebook or email.  The only way I can access CAF is if I happen to be near a desktop.  If I tried to look at CAF on my phone it would be really small and hard to read.  

A lot of CAF is not intuitive as modern sites.  I had a friend who worked for apple and was a top engineer.  His job was to make sure things flowed well and were intuitive.  It is odd, for example, that on  CAF you can move around your top gallery mainpage images by drag and dropping, but to move around images in an individual gallery you have to use a drop down menu and reorder as if it were 1998.  It becomes so much work and difficult to maintain a CAF gallery that I can see why people give up.  If you could just upload an image like on instagram or facebook with not much hassle than it would get more interaction. 

I think there are a lot out there that maybe even have just a few pieces.  

In my CAF gallery, I have a few pieces I posted about 10 years ago that have 10,000 views.   I never made the top viewed lists.  When I post something today, I get less than 50 for even better pieces.  I don't know if there were really 10,000 collectors back then or they would repeatedly look at things, but I think more people are more disconnected.

At WonderCon I went to artist alley.  I liked a piece of art in a stack.  The artist said it was a Vertigo cover that was published about 10 years ago.  I have never seen or heard about it and it was just sitting in a stack, that the guy next to me knocked over onto the floor.  

I have a question about these art shows.

I have been collecting awhile but still relatively inexperienced.  I go online and if I see something I like then I'll buy it.  

I went to the LAX Torpedo show last year but I didn't really get it.  I mean there were people eagerly waiting for the dealers to put portfolios out and flip though them quickly.  

I'm guessing that this means dealers are showing the new things they are bringing that are not yet on the websites and the collectors want to be the first to get a crack at it?

4 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Off-topic, but...has anyone ever seen a bartender STIR a martini??  I haven't.  Did that used to be a thing before James Bond came along??

I read that stiring your martini is the way you are really supposed to make it and much better than shaking.  That Bond had to ask for it shows how odd it was.  But people order it shaken now because they trust Bond and they don't know better.  

6 hours ago, MIL0S said:

FYI, there's a Sienkiewicz Artifact Edition with a large Warlock sketch currently listed on ebay.

 

I found a copy on the IDW website.

I saw him do a large Warlock in an artist edition at Wondercon for someone he knew.  I don't see the ebay link.  I hope it wasn't the same guy that I saw.

Will CGC or any witnesses be at the NCSFest in Huntington Beach?

On 3/9/2019 at 4:39 PM, Webhead2018 said:

So question for all. I have an original commisson on art board drawing that is 9x12. I originally wanted to frame it. But I have no place to hang art. So I was wondering what is best way to protect the piece still without framing it. Like get some sort of slab like thing, bag and board like a comic etc.....

Depending on how nice and rare a piece, for my best pieces I get a mylar with an acid free backing board.  I put microchamber paper between the art and the board.  I bought all of this stuff from bagsunlimited.  Then I put this in an acid free storage box.  I am going away from the itoya portfolios.

On 2/25/2019 at 8:14 PM, BCarter27 said:

People, keep your art out of the sun... particularly the color stuff--

 

Were these directly in the light?  Was it in a frame?  Do you have more details about how this was stored?

I just bought some microchamber paper from Bags Unlimited.  

Does the paper go between the art and the backing board?

Are you saying is the original art genuine?

Or are you saying is the comic cover a fake, like a scanned image then printed and stapled on the original comic?

Or are you saying, is the artist or forger making some other kind of reproduction and passing it off as the original published art?

If you are a fan of original comic art (which some of you might be), I recommend the latest issues of Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.  Issues #2 and 3 tell the story surrounding a fictional legendary comic artist and an original art theft.   In the background notes at the end, Brubaker says it is not fully based on real people even though he mentions some famous real life people and stories. One of the true stories he mentions is of a famous comic artist who would steal original art from the editors desk and sell them to support his gambling habit.  He said it is an open secret that everyone knew about.  The issues are worth a read.  The story takes place about 20 years ago.
 

Hi all,

Can anyone give me a lead on Steranko's contact info?  He gave me his email address awhile back but he must have a new one now.  

Thanks!

I use a mylar sleeve and a backing board.  I put the art in acid free boxes.  I used to use Itoyas but the pages always bend and don't lie flat, so I thought there was more risk of damage to the art.  Also I thought in case of a leaky roof or bathroom plumbing leak, or to better protect against silverfish, the boxes would afford more protection.

When the microfiber paper arrives, I will put them between the art and the board.

I frame my favorite stuff.

I have one box of art about 9 X 11, and other boxes of different sizes.