PhilipB2k17

A couple of fun pieces. One is from Leviathan by Nick Pitarra... The other is the best page from Nicola Scott’s ink wash masterpiece, Black Magick.

Welp... https://gizmodo.com/the-nft-art-heists-may-have-begun-1846476077?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&utm_content=algorithm

Someone was (half) joking about turning tweets into NFT’s the other day. And that’s when I knew these were a joke.

It’s sad news, indeed. But Frank lived a full & interesting, long life. RIP.

Here’s how to think of an NFT. Let’s say there’s a webhosr for a message board. soneone writes an original joke, or posts an original digital image on the web message board. That message with the joke or image is time and date stamped in tvat message board. It’s frozen in time. People can copy the joke of image a d post them a million times in a million different places. But the original list with the joke and image are still accessible as a reference. Now imagine that the original post is encrypted and can only be accessed by the current owner of the encryption key.

Stuart is a big OA collector too. Good dude. I had a nice long conversation with him about OA at a con a couple of years ago. He doesn’t sell his published stuff, though. So that’s why he does his commissions, etc.

As I understand NFT’s, there’s nothing inherent to the blockchain that guarantees royalties. That’s specific to the forum where the tokens are created and sold. So, there’s no guarantee that an artist will continue to get a single penny in royalties if the NFT is sold on a different market forum than where its first sold.

Here’s a great explainer of NFT’s and cryptoart for dummies like me. https://justincone.com/posts/nft-skeptics-guide/

I’m not even sure how that’s supposed to work. Classic OA is already unique. And the same risk of forgery applies to a piece of art “tied” to an NFT as a stand alone piece of OA. Someone could just fake it later, if they wanted. And if it’s hard to fake OA, the point of an NFT tied to it makes no sense except for “royalties.”

That’s why crypto is not a currency. It’s like gold or platinum. It’s an asset that gets taxed for capital gains. And I know a lot of OA collectors like to hide their OA Capital gains from the tax man through trades or private cash deals.

NFT guarantees chain of custody and ownership of a specific digital image. But it doesn’t prevent the original artists from issuing another NFT token for the same digital image at a later date. You’d have to still get an exclusivity guarantee of some kind, which would be in the form of a contract and subject to litigation. An NFT would be better if it could be paired with physical OA.

There are no “free” markets. There are only a range of efficient markets to inefficient markets.

Dealers are also restocking inventory with trades. People turning over pieces to offset the cost of higher end stuff.

One downside of this hobby in terms of valuation are all the tax dodging private sales.

It’s a character that clicked. He’s a great character. Lots of “diverse” characters are flops. Are you one of those people who think Black Panther only made a ton of money because of guilty white people going to see it? Why was Michinne a break out character from Walking Dead? Just because she’s a black woman and Robert Kirkman was trying to be all woke?

Miles Morales is a great character. He’s going to become a huge pop culture icon. That’s why this sold for so much. This isn’t just about diversity. That’s kind of ridiculous.

Have yet to see any of this big inflationary pressure significantly effect any of my art. So....

It’s Ice Cream Man. I get that older Collectors aren’t reading new stuff, except for Felix’s customers. He gets them interested in those newer books. And don’t get me started on Tradd Moore. I was eying those Loki covers, especially the Cap #1 homage, for a while, but the large blank space on the top half bugged me. Now I wish I bought one of them when I had the chance.

God help us if monoprints take off. Fine art limited edition prints or lithographs aren’t comparable, IMHO. Also, stay away from anything blockchain. You want to know what a bubble is? That’s it. The energy consumption blockchain equation solving requires will eventually kill that tech.

Unless the comic they are drawing gets turned into a big TV show or movie that reaches pop culture phenom status, It’s unlikely. Just because it’s a TV show isn’t enough. It gives a short term bump to the art, but unless it’s a pop culture phenomenon like Walking Dead, it’s not going to elevate the art all that much. And even most Walking Dead art is fading, IMHO. I use the art from Ice Cream Man as an example. Tons of buzz from comic fans. Rated in the top ten comics. Martin Marazzo is a very interesting stylist as an artist. Yet, you can still buy most pages - plenty are available - for less than $200. Partly it’s because the comic is an anthology with very few recurring characters. And the pages with the Ice Cream Man on them fo tend to carry a premium. But it’s not a Marvel or DC book, nor does it have a buzz worthy TV show or movie propping it up. (Although rumors are that’ll change in the next couple of years).

It’s not just dealers. Art reps and artists have tons of unsold material that’s just sitting there for, in some cases, months or years without selling. With the exception of a few “hot” modern books, most modern art just sits there. And I’d argue that other than maybe Tradd Moore, there are no modern artists whose stuff just sells no matter what the subject matter. It’s all dependent on what they’re drawing. As for Sal, he’s a great sequential storyteller. One of the best ever. He also drew some iconic stuff, and really was the Marvel house stylist in the late 70’s to mid 80’s. Much like Kirby, a lot of people who thought Sal was pedestrian back in the day have now come to appreciate him. Also, if you show a Sal Marvel superhero page to a lay person, they’ll get it. The characters are now well known to everyone, and even panel pages from that era can be viewed as pop art. I do not think a lot of the overpriced modern stuff is going to hold its value over time.

Wasn’t that Rude Batman painting used as an alternative cover for Defective Comics #1000? Or am I wrong about that?

It does make me wonder how much that blown Dark Knight recreation page commission might go for now. Rude still has it on his site for $5k.

All published:

All of this is academic to me as I do not have any of these pages, and am very unlikely to ever own one at these prices.