delekkerste

It wasn't either of the the X-Men covers!!

I am skeptical that the original painting ever looked like this. I don't think that the purple fades to the rock color on the Heritage scan.

Sienkiewicz Beauty and the Beast #2 cover hammers for $13.5K ($16.2K w/juice). Sold on eBay for $14.3K on November 1. So, roughly a wash for the consignor depending on his deal with Heritage, maybe a slight losing flip if he had to pay sales tax on the purchase.

Well, as someone noted to me today, the #1 is the #1, and there's only so much people will pay for any of the others. I didn't really notice the fading, tbh. It presented well enough to me.

Well, it's the first cover I would go for - my favorite from the run and it's not even close. I remember buying multiples of that issue at Mile High Comics when it came out. I was going to make a run for it if I didn't win the piece I was going for yesterday (and was ready to pounce if it went cheap today). But, I did win that piece yesterday (not disclosing what it was at this time) and the TMNT cover went a little beyond where I was willing to stretch anyway, so, I guess it all worked out in the end.

Yeah, I thought the X-Men #95 cover was a very good deal at the time, especially since it sold for the exact same price as the ASM #151 cover in the same Heritage auction. I know a lot of people like that ASM cover, but, I'm not a fan - Spidey looks like he's 5'6" and 240 pounds of muscle. Not to mention, X-Men #95 is a far more notable issue (Death of Thunderbird) than ASM #151. Just my , I know the Spidey brigade here will inevitably disagree even though this image speaks for itself:

It's a great cover. Can't go wrong with the X-Men vs. the Sentinels. The Cockrum X-Men #106 cover, with far weaker content for a fill-in/inventory issue, went for $144K only 8 months ago. Definitely some major price differentiation based on content.

The Wrightson Frankie plates went for less than some expected. It wasn't long ago that people were trying to turn the "all of the originally published plates are now $100K-up" perception into reality. Hasn't quite worked out that way. I don't know the JRJR/Williamson market at all, but, I'm told that some expected a lot, lot, lot higher on that splash yesterday.

I think the Wolverine Limited Series is important. But Miller's Daredevil run is Important with a capital I. It's what put Miller on the map and is crucial to his legacy as one of the top comics creators of all-time. No one is denying that Miller contributed significantly to his collaboration with Claremont, but, he controlled the creative process fully with Daredevil, established his relationship with his definitive artistic partner (Janson) there, and basically became FRANK MILLER as a result of his first run on that series. No, Daredevil is not Wolverine. But Miller Daredevil is a higher expression of Miller's talents than his work on Wolverine, as great as the latter is. And it is great - I have long defended his work on Wolverine when certain parties were trying to downplay his contribution to the series in the past. And I can fully understand and appreciate that many will like the Wolverine Limited Series more than the Miller Daredevil run - Wolverine in Japan with ninjas...you guys all know that there are few people on the entire planet who appreciate that combination more than I do. But Miller's Daredevil run is simply more important to both comic history and Miller's oeuvre and legacy than Wolverine is. It's his Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, DKR is his Guernica, and everything else is not either one of those two even though people will have other favorites.

I agree, Jason. I know there is a huge mental block to accept some of these outsized prices, but, they make sense - relatively speaking at least - when you look at what the rest of the OA market has done. When $20K pages and covers are now $60K pages and covers, and $50K pieces are now $125-150K pieces, you simply can't expect the covers that used to be $150-250K to still be at that level. No, they will not have tripled in price, because the % price appreciation curve flattens out at higher prices, but, it makes perfect sense that a lot of these pieces are now $300K-something and $400K-something items. $432K for the X-Men #98 cover is probably about 20% more than I was expecting, but, it wasn't 50-100% more. We can argue about whether the absolute level of prices in the market makes sense, but, relatively speaking, a cover like this has to have a 3 or 4-handle in front of it given that many (far) lesser pieces are now routinely hitting the lower 6-figure levels.

I think DD #168-184, where Miller had full creative control (writing & art chores) and where Janson - his definitive inking partner - did all of the inks, and where the best of his first-run stories resides, is the highest regarded. There's definitely been more of an acceptance of the #185-190 pages over the past decade due to the recognition that Miller still largely controlled the creative process with tight layouts on separate sheets (plus the newer generation of collectors, for better or worse, often puts the image above other considerations), but, there's still definitely higher regard and prices for the #168-184 material. There are some great looking pages in the #158-167 part of the run where Roger McKenzie was the writer, but, I think Miller aficionados rightly elevate the material where he did both writing and penciling duties, as it is hard to argue that it isn't a fuller expression of his creativity at work. I meant that, broadly, there's going to be a lot of crossover appeal from people who enjoyed Claremont's run on the X-Men from 1975 to 1991, whether they were a fan of Claremont's writing, or the many great artists who worked on the books during this time, or just enjoyed the versions/portrayal of the characters during that 17-year period. I mean, you're not going to find many Byrne/Cockrum/Paul Smith/JRJR X-Men fans/OA collectors who don't also love the Wolverine Limited Series, while I'm sure most Silvestri/Jim Lee/Kubert etc. X-fans also love it as well.

I think the current pricing structure for Miller's Wolverine Limited Series original art boils down to two main factors: 1. the popularity of Wolverine as a character in Claremont's X-universe - this co-opts a lot of X-fans/collectors who aren't just in it for Miller 2. the much more limited supply of pages versus the Miller DD art that is available. The supply constraints are compounded by the fact that many of the Wolvie pages, including some of the best examples, were colored after-the-fact, which has further constricted the supply of the black & white pages out there As such, now we're seeing really outsized prices on pages from this series, far beyond what I would consider their importance relative to other work in Miller's oeuvre. That said, I think the very, very best Miller Daredevil pages would blow away these results we've seen on Wolvie pages if they were ever to hit the auction block (which looks pretty doubtful). And, yes, the extremely limited supply of great Miller DD pages with Elektra means that the best of those pages would fetch $150K-up type valuations in the current market, IMO. I don't think that's true for Bullseye (aside from certain key pages from DD #181) or Punisher pages from the run, though.

Absolutely, Scott. Miller's Daredevil run is exponentially more important than his work on the Wolverine series. If you took the latter off of Miller's resume completely, it would barely affect Miller's standing in the comic world. On the other hand, if you took away what he did on Daredevil, it would have a profound effect on his legacy. Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil are at the top of his work in comics, IMO (I'd probably put Sin City after that and then it gets a little more debatable). He created the definitive versions and storylines for those characters and both wrote and drew some of the most memorable comics of all-time in doing so. I don't think there are many serious Miller aficionados who would place the work that Miller only drew (but didn't write) on the same level as the material he had full creative control over. In fact, I think you can easily argue that the best of his work that he wrote, but didn't draw (e.g., Batman: Year One, Elektra: Assassin, Daredevil: Born Again) ranks higher in the pantheon of his work to the books where he only had the artist duties (e.g., Wolverine).

Well, it certainly seems to be immune from your attempts to shoeshine boy reverse jinx it into crashing.

True, but, I would add that you can still have value impairment in the absence of transaction volume. Sep 2008-March 2009 is a perfect example of that - the market froze up for the most part during that time, and so many are still laboring under the delusion that somehow original art was immune to the downturn or, even more absurdly, that it was somehow counter-cyclical (narrator: it wasn't, and dissecting the actual data shows that 100% of the alleged "counter-cyclical" gains occurred during the violent reflationary period after March 2009). While some individual pieces may have held their value (because of their unique nature and the willingness of some buyers to have still bought), if you put a diverse collection on the auction block in March 2009 vs. June/July 2008 (at the height of the hard asset bubble with art, collectibles, commodities and the last few, unscathed real estate markets all hitting all-time highs at that time), thus capturing the performance of a broader swath of the market and not just the top pieces, can anybody seriously argue that valuations and liquidity wouldn't have been impaired/diminished during this time period? If demand softens and sellers don't sell, the value impairment may not be readily visible, but, if the buyers are no longer where they were, valuations have still declined even if sellers are willing to stick it out. That said, I reiterate: I am not in any way expecting a "significant collapse".

Eh, sounds to me like we're on the same page, or at least close to it. No question that OA didn't go up 20x in a year like the '86 Jordan PSA 10s and isn't going to crash 80% in 18 months like that card has. But, a 200% average gain in 3 years for OA (on top of a many years-long unbroken string of advances before then*) is still very gaudy, and it would not be surprising to see a bit of a softening at a minimum amidst the current headwind-filled macro environment at some point this year. Which is all I will commit to at this point, and it seems like from the above that you're on board with at least that much as well. * While certainly not the only reason, OA didn't go up as much as some collectibles verticals in 2020 and early 2021 because it had already hugely outperformed other categories for years up to that point.

With @tth2, you never know if he actually means something or if he's just trying to act like the proverbial shoeshine boy spouting nonsense at the top to jinx it so it reverses lower. At the end of the day, I don't see how anyone can argue with a straight face that the OA market didn't benefit greatly from many of the same drivers that affected other collectibles verticals and other asset classes during the pandemic boom: negative real interest rates, force-fed money printing, massive monetary & fiscal stimulus, the unprecedented wealth effect from the Everything Bubble, the once-in-a-lifetime stay-at-home effect (triumph of buying goods online over spending money in the real world on experiences, as well as huge nostalgia looking back at better times during the pandemic), and the enormous tailwind from looking at what other collectibles verticals were doing. Prices aren't up triple or more from pre-pandemic levels just because people all of a sudden decided that comic art was cool. And, since those tailwinds have all since become headwinds, taking down 98% of other asset prices from their all-time highs over the past couple of years, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether there might be some sort of effect on the OA market - perhaps with a lag and a more muted effect to the downside - just as there was to the upside during the boom. I'm not arguing that it definitely will happen, but, the (premature, IMO) football spiking just seems really out of line with a more realistic assessment of the possible range of outcomes going forward.

I agree with much of this. My only caveat is that I think the magnitude of price increases in OA is being downplayed somewhat by some. True, prices didn't go truly parabolic for comics and OA until after the Jan. 2021 Goldin auction (IMO the most significant collectibles auction of all-time - $720K each for two 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan PSA 10s that had been $25-35K a year earlier suddenly made every other collectible on the planet seem dirt cheap; my friend immediately went out and bought an AF #15 CGC 9.4 in the aftermath of this sale for exactly this reason). But, parabolic is exactly where prices went (and prices were still galloping ahead at a gaudy clip even before then, just nowhere near the multiple triple digits that the card market saw in 2020), to the point where we are now talking about prices that are probably triple on average of pre-pandemic levels and a lot more than that for many items. You could easily lop 10-30% off of most current OA prices and most people would barely notice because the prices would still look compared to the price levels most of us were used to not long ago. So, if the argument is that there's no fat to trim in OA prices because they didn't go up that much compared to some other things...that's a banana in the tailpipe that I'm not falling for. Again, the word crash is not in my present vocabulary as relates to OA. I just don't think the market will keep going from strength to strength to strength if the macro environment continues to deteriorate and would not be surprised to see at least a flattening out with some pockets of weakness at a minimum later this year.

There are not many asset prices remaining that are not off of their highs to varying degrees, as more and more assets have gotten caught in the undertow of changing macro and social/behavioral conditions. And, when 98% of asset prices are off their highs, I don't think we're talking so much about correlation anymore as causation. And, as such, I find it difficult to believe that somehow original comic book art is the one asset class in the world that is and will remain immune to all external/macro factors and somehow has an infinite Sharpe ratio with all upside and not even the remotest possibility of ANY downside/pullback whatsoever. And if that sounds ridiculous or like a mischaracterization, just look/ask around and tell me this isn't EXACTLY what the consensus in this hobby now believes. Not saying a crash is coming by any means, but, I do not believe that we will not see ANY negative effect on the OA market in 2023, as some/many here expect, from deteriorating macro conditions. The fact that we haven't seen it yet doesn't mean a lot to me - the dominoes have been slowly toppling for the past 2 1/2 years* and some of the few remaining holdouts have only recently begun rolling over. * Bonds topped in early 2020. Speculative growth stocks and SPACs topped in early 2021. Most sports cards topped in early 2021. The majority of stocks topped in mid-2021. Comics started topping in late summer 2021 in a rolling process where some didn't top until a year or more later. Crypto topped in late 2021. The major stock indexes topped in early 2022. Apple peaked in March 2022. The secondary collectible watch market peaked in March 2022. Tesla peaked in April 2022 is down more than 75% since then. Meme stocks like GameStop and AMC peaked in April 2022. The highest profile NFT projects peaked in April 2022. High-end sports cards mostly topped in 1H22. The previously white-hot L.A. real estate market has been down every month since peaking in May 2022 as measured by the Case-Shiller index (similar stories for much of the U.S. real estate market). Commodities topped in July 2022. Private market company valuations have crumbled in 2H2022. There have been fewer and fewer holdouts with each passing month.

Here's page 15 of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis vol. 1 (2000), one of the most influential graphic novels of all-time, which has gained renewed relevance in light of the social upheaval in Iran over the past year. In this page, Marji tells her parents that she wants to protest against the Shah in the streets with the demonstrators and then, sent to bed, wonders where God (with whom she has periodic imagined conversations in the story) is that evening.

Good to see that Heritage removed this fake Peanuts strip from the January sale: It was listed as 3-22-1956, but, the style is all wrong for that period. Not to mention the line is too thin and scribbly. The forger nailed the overall look of the strip, but, it doesn't hold up to close scrutiny.

The sale of the Daredevil #188 cover was a watershed moment in the hobby - it was the sale smashed the perception that only major/important/key pieces could be valued in the 6-figures. Don't get me wrong, it's a very good cover, but, it's not DD #158, #168 or #181 and the result was considered pretty shocking at the time.

Well, let's rewind 10 years ago and say that you were offered a piece privately for $40K that might be reasonably expected to sell for $25K at auction. One might choose to knowingly overpay for the piece to be sure of securing it rather than risk it getting away (or the owner deciding not to sell it at all). But, I would argue that $40K is not necessarily "market value" in this scenario. To update to 2022 values, multiply both sides of the equation by 5x. But, at least if you "overpaid" back then, the market has more than bailed you out and then some.

Yes, they changed hands all in one shot.