PhilipB2k17

Dude, seriously. You know lots of high end pieces change hands without ever coming up for auction.

I respect that folks may not think HQ is a hot pop culture phenomenon, but have you seen who little girls and tweens dress up as for Halloween? Or College women for that matter? Harley is right up there at the top.

Question about OA Conservation/restoration I recently visited a local art dealer, about a custom framing for one of my pieces using archival materials, museum glass etc. During our conversation the owner and I began talking about art restoration and preservation. The catalyst was that they would get art pieces sent to them for re-framing from all over the country, that were mounted using poor materials, etc. I had a rather old OA piece that has some yellowing glue on it that I showed him via my phone. He said they had the ability to remove that kind of thing, and would document it. My question is whether doing that kind of archival restoration or preservation on OA has any impact on its value, if you document what was done? I would rate reproducing word balloons, for example, as something that reduces the value. But, what about reoving foxing, or yellowed paint? Or, remounting original word balloons with archival safe adhesives?

Do you have daughters? Do you attend Cons? She is the single most popular female character in comics and the genre community. (If the Wonder Woman film is a big hit, though, that may change) And, her extra-sexualization in Suicide Squad has ramped her up into the stratosphere.

"Bigly?" So, Donald Trump collects original comic book art?

I agree with you on NM 98. Not on the Walking Dead #1 cover. I suspect that the BA12 cover is already in the "will likely never come up for auction" category for really prestige pieces, that get traded in the underground high end OA market. Harley Quinn is a much bigger deal in popular culture than Deadpool. I think Walking Dead #1 would probably, right now, command that price, but paying that would also be a mistake because once that show ends, I doubt that the value of that page will stay that sky high. Then again, it is one of the most iconic comic book covers out there at this point.

Harley Quinn (for better or worse) has popular culture currency far outside of comic books. She could, right now, literally carry a solo tentpole big budget movie, let alone all the Comic books she anchors. X-23 does not, her appearance in Logan notwithstanding. BA12 cover would go for an insane amount of money, because the universe of collectors for that piece of artwork goes well outside of comic book and even comic book OA collectors. It is a prestige piece, and consequently will command the attention of the big hitters in the OA collector community. Indeed, it is already probably in the underground private OA art market between millionaires and billionaires that never sees the light of day.

Comic Connect has the first Drax appearance (the Starlin splash from Iron man 55) in their most recent auction. I'm predicting $50,000 for that. I'd say the Harley Quinn BA12 cover would go in the $250,000 range. Then again, is it comparable to the Hulk 180 Wolverine Cameo? It's also a cover. So, it wouldn't shock me if it went up into the half million range.

I think a better thread topic should be which artists do you think is UNDERRATED, and should get more love than they do in the collector world. Asking who you think is "overrated," is not a fair question. Some might say Jack Kirby is "overrated," from a technical standpoint. But, 30 years ago he was most certainly vastly UNDERRATED. And, honestly, there is a qualitative difference between what Kirby was doing in the early to mid 60's and what he was doing in the 70's and 80's. That early to mid-60's Kirby is virtually unmatched as far as storytelling sense and he was probably at the height of his technical prowess. He became much more stylized and abstract as he moved into the 70's and 80's. And, who inked him also made a difference. So, how do you rate an artists? What criteria? An artist who I think is UNDERRATED is Jackson "Butch" Guice. I don't really have as much familiarity with the modern artists, who are all supremely skilled from a technical standpoint, and are clearly influenced heavily in term of action posing, and page composition by people like McFarlane, Miller, Lee and Leifeld. And, I'd say Neal Adams too. But that's the era they grew up in, although Adams' heyday was much earlier. A ton of artists who were influential in the 80's were heavily influenced by Neal Adams. It goes in cycles.

I am eying an otherwise nice looking early 40's Golden Age superhero book that is not from Timely or National. It looks like it is intact except for spine separation for some of the interior from the cover. What would be the max grade on this book?

Yeah. It really ticks me off that these flaws on modern books are given 9.8 scores. I also hate that golden and silver age books -- particularly mid 60's and earlier - are graded on a curve by CGC.

No. Ronin was Miller's first foray at DC. It came out 2 years before TDKR.

I had the original Perez Black Widow Marvel Fanfare run, and just bought up a second set cheap. I recommend picking them up if you can. Rumors abound that if they do a solo Black widow movie, that classic Perez story might be the backbone of it. I would also point out that there was a lot of "collaboration" going on as far as art and story.

Hey. I just got my copy graded out at a 9.2, at it literally looks exactly the same as yours. You even have that little bindery tear on the bottom spine corner.

I have a copy, but I think the book itself is highly overrated.

I have complete sets of a few 1970's runs, such as Nova, Spider-Woman, Micronauts, Champions, and the original New Teen Titans run. I toyed with the idea of getting a complete set of Mystery in Space, just because I love those covers. (and am a fan of Adam Strange). But, its' very cost prohibitive.

It depends. I saw a supposed 9.8 Nyx #3 with spine creases like that. Maybe they developed from the slabbing process? I have no idea. (Ironic if that is what happened). But, I think modern books with that kind of paper and binding do not get downgraded fr it if it is minor. It's very hard to find a modern book that doesn't have some of that. They get shipped in boxes to comic stores, and the ones under pressure will develop those creases.

It's not "possible" trimming, it's probable.

Unless you are going to bump it up into the 7 range, then no. It's not worth the cost. At most you'll go up half a grade, frankly. Your creases are color breaking ones.

The fly in the ointment for this topic is that those who had subscriptions to various titles got a newsstand copy in the mail. So, not all Newsstand copies were sitting around on spinner racks for months, or on newsstand shelves. I was gifted a 2-year subscription to the X-Men, and got a newsstand copy in the mail each months (mid-80;s) that I literally never read. and just bagged up when it came. Why? Because it came out a few weeks after the direct sales copy, and I bought that one the day it came out. So, I have a 2-year run of early 80's X-men with both a direct and newsstand copy. Both sets are in great condition.

Never thought that Blip would send people down a rabbit hole! BTW, nobody answered my question about the 7-11 Marvel Giveaways. I also have some Kool-Aid Man ones, drawn by Dan DeCarlo. I'm guessing there are plenty of them out there, just not in great condition because they were not distributed in the direct market.

I would be stunned if someone won the DD#1. You're paying for 1 panel. Other than that you are just getting a bunch of gangsters sitting around playing poker. I'm not a massive Daredevil fan, but I don't believe that panel/page is considered a classic, it just so happens to be the first panel that the Daredevil appears on. $60-70,000 would be MAYBE what I think it should have gone for. The fact that it's at 90,000 and reserve not met tells me it should not sell. I do enjoy another mess up by Pedigree (can they get anything right?). "Daredevil is considered the first Silver Age solo hero to debut in his own book with issue #1...further increasing the importance and desirability of this art!" Apparently Randy has never heard of The Incredible Hulk, who was a solo hero, that debuted in his own book, with an issue #1.... in 1962! Sure... it's the first appearance if you don't count Kirby's cover or the stet used for the first page made using Kirby's cover. So... it's Bill Everett's first Daredevil I guess? The argument is that it's the first one - still in existence. Don't know if that's true, but if it is, then it's definitely the first appearance of Daredevil, still in existence. But, I see what you mean.

Really deserving of a whole different thread, but yeah the 70s decade of comics and art, mostly sucked @ss. It's only nostalgia for those unlucky enough to be a young teen in those years that props the art up today (of course painting with a big brush here...there are probably a handful of exceptions). Agreed. Every era had a good % of unreadable material, but I always thought the 70's stuff contained a far higher % of it. 70's Marvel stuff, in particular, had a lot of experimentation going on. That's why 70's marvel comics are so hot right now. This is the era of Starlin's Captain Marvel and Warlock, Warewolf by night, Conan, the creation of Ghost Rider, Wolverine and Moon Knight, the introduction of the New X-Men, the Death of Gwen Stacy, etc. Later you had titles like Nova, that fantastic Micronauts book (with highly sought after Michael Golden OA pages), Rom, etc. This was my wheelhouse. The problems with Marvel in the 70's were inconsistent output, that required lots of reprint books, and filler issues, and missed deadlines, etc. Jim Shooter, usually portrayed as a villain, came in and cleaned all that up and got the trains to run on time, and made the place profitable.

It's not just graphic novels. All the Digital purveyors have years of back issues. For example, Marvel is publishing stuff from the Golden Age on Marvel Unlimited right now, let alone the stuff from the early 2000s. I agree with the stratification argument. There will always be a market for the top end stuff. But, you will see values become stratified. I think some of the current stuff (Trimpe IH pages, to take one example) are vastly overpriced for what they are going to be in a few years.

How much is a Blip #1 signed by Matthew Laborteaux worth? He was the US Pac-Man champion in 1982.