PhilipB2k17

Stock market analogy? So, wouldn’t buying a lot of different art, some small caps etc., some foreign stocks, some fast growth, constitute diversifying your portfolio rather than rolling all of your funds into one or two blue chips?

I'd say 90% of the Kirby JIM & Thor covers are better than ASM #59, IMHO. You go through these and tell me with a straight face that I'm wrong. http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/thor/2 http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/thor/3 http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/thor/4 While I agree that Spidey is > Thor, the ASM 59 cover is a big giant Doc Ock with a tiny Spidey reflected in his glasses. Not feeling it. UPDATE: Whoops, we're talking about ASM #59. Mush better than #55, but still not as good as the Kirby 2x Thor covers, IMHO. Spidey punching some nondescript hoodlum, with Mary Jane gogo dancing on the side? I guess. But I like the Kirby Thor stuff better.

Honestly looks more like Sal. Did Sal do the inking? UPDATE: Yeesh. And then Scott Williams calls the inking job amateurish, and I look like a insufficiently_thoughtful_person.

Yep. Because I’d much rather have a 60’s Kirby Thor cover in the long run than the Romita ASM 59. Have a feeling that will hold its value much better

A Ham & Egger can only build up a super collection over time if they guess right on their entry level pages (or get lucky) and some decent portion of them become valuable. Then they have trade bait, or can sell them to finance bigger trade up purchases. If you don't get lucky, you don't get to do that.

Story Link

This dynamic doesn't apply very much to OA, I think. A 9.8 copy of Hulk 181 is virtually identical to a 7.5 copy (except for some minor wear and tear). People who collect COMICS may want to have a copy of Hulk 181 and are not that picky about it being a 9.8. Thus, the demand for it in lower grades explodes, and you see price compression. Because OA is unique, I'm not sure how this dynamic would play out. But, you could see people who just want a Byrne X-Men page start to bid up the talking head, out of costume stuff from the lesser storylines, just because they want an example. But the very reason why the vast majority of collectors WANT a Byrne X-Men page in the first place is for the costumed action, and/or important storylines. But, I guess the recent Killing Joke p. 1 sale kind of cuts against that thesis. Even the lesser pages from such books are starting to get bid up astronomically.

The person who wrote the article contacted Ditko for a comment. He said “I couldn’t care less” or something like that.

Dive in now on the Lee cover.

Those junkies sure do get around. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-iron-man-suit-theft-20180509-story.html

And the Marvel Warehouse just kept getting broken into day, after. day, after day, with nobody noticing, no cops being called, and no insurance claims being filed. Almost as if someone had a Key to the place, and knew what to look for and where.

And they did. But, the Junkies who were desperate for cash and to fence their stolen goods, turned down 80% of what they asked for. Junkie: "Hey Fence. I stole this Rolex off a guy on 25th street. I want $10K for it." Fence: "I'll give you $5K. Take it, or I call the cops." Junkie: "Sold."

"You ask too many questions." - The Cabal

Or, how about THIS page, which is from a different seller. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Todd-McFarlane-Spider-Man-9-pg-22-Original-Comic-Art-Wolverine-Twice-Up/173182199287?_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D52885%26meid%3De3e023931758415f8a776c0ce50a832f%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D153147266962%26itm%3D173182199287&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982

"[Sara W. Duke, a curator of popular and applied graphic art at the Library of Congress] said the ['Amazing Fantasy' #15 art] donor wrote to Ditko offering to return the 'Amazing Fantasy' pages or give them to the Library of Congress. Ditko declined to receive them, Duke said. 'Acquiring almost any comic book art is controversial,' said Duke. 'And I was told by the donor that provenance could be traced if necessary. It's not been an issue. There's a lot of artwork out there, and how it was dispersed is controversial.' http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-09-02/features/0809010104_1_artwork-comic-book-steve-ditko

Pretty blatant, though.

Why are you looking at Moon Knight art there when all those beautiful New Mutants pages are available for less money?!? (Granted, its also vastly overpriced, but still)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/153147266962 No Spidey, though.

So, what's the verdict? Junkies? http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-iron-man-suit-theft-20180509-story.html

The "much, much larger" ransacking of the more secure Marvel warehouse in the early 80's that Jim Shooter never heard of?

If Ditko disclaimed any interest in it, they may not have been concerned.

Shooter's blog: "Around about early 1978, Marvel’s warehouse got broken into and ransacked. Other than scattering artwork all over the floor–they apparently hadn’t taken any of it that we could tell–but this warehouse was a dump! It was completely unsafe; anybody could break in there. I went to the people that ran the warehouse and said, “I want that artwork all moved to my office.” So it was. You should’ve seen it. It was me in a little corner, and wall-to-wall files full of art, because my office was the safest place in the building. You had to go through three doors to get to my office: The front door, the door to the editorial suite, and then my door, and I was the only one who had a key. It was safer there than it was in the warehouse. Then when Marvel moved, around the end of 1979, we got a brand new state-of-the-art safe warehouse, so the stuff was moved from my office to the new warehouse; except for one box, which for some reason was moved to the Marvel lunchroom. When I was made aware of that, I went to get Bernie, the office manager, and said, “That box goes to the warehouse right now!” I went back to my office, then Bernie came in a few minutes later and said he went to get the box and it wasn’t there. Somebody had obviously grabbed the box, went straight out to the freight elevator–which was near there–and was gone. I have no idea what it contained. There was probably Jack Kirby’s stuff in it among other things. To this day I have no idea who took it." http://jimshooter.com/2011/03/mystery-of-missing-box-of-marve.html/

Or was it? Vis-à-vis the large cache of DC art that was ripped off: "An anonymous art collector said at the time, also in the fanzine, "The plan was simple. Have a friend on the moving crew 'misplace' a flat of artwork. Later, if it was discovered missing, it could easily be found without getting in trouble. If no one noticed it was missing, it was just taken away later. Certain staff members had decided to rip-off some of the pages, and it was an inside job. [...] According to an inventory done later, a reported 1928 pages of original art and covers were stolen and soon made their way onto the open market. The first time the art appeared is when the thief attended a New York convention and began selling pages to dealers, most of whom have since sold that art for very large profits." https://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2012/05/joe-simon-fbi-and-strange-case-of.html

I mentioned the "embarrassment," and "legal headache" part of the Marvel motivation for not taking action. But, I tend to think that this art was not stolen contemporaneous to when it was shopped. I think it went missing many years before that, and someone was trying to dump it at that time for whatever reason. Maybe right at the time Marvel was looking for it (to give it back to artists), and started wondering where it all went.

This is why I generally buy my art directly from the artist themselves, or their representative. That said, I have looked at some older pieces, and have been tempted. Lord knows I understand the temptation. And I did buy a few lower end things on eBay when I first started collecting. But, in those cases, it was well after the era when the artists got their pages back and you knew that the pages were almost certainly put into the stream of commerce originally by the artist. Doesn't rule out that it may be stolen, but it's far less likely. I just don't like the hypocrisy.