PhilipB2k17

There are plenty of small cons in the Detroit area. It almost seems like they go every couple of months now. I was just at one on Saturday

Color v Black & White art. I think it’s an authenticity thing. If there’s a painted cover on your wall, there’s no trade dress that says “this is a comic book cover,” unless the viewer is familiar with it. And even then, is it a print? Recreation? Copy? Is psychological. Unless the painting is great as a stand alone piece of art.

Somebody's cashing out.

If there a Marvel Character that is cooler than Galactus in a color commission/cover/splash, I don't know who that would be.

Looks more like Amy Winehouse to me, but that obviously can't be correct due to the date. Maybe she copied Death's look?

I think the Michael Turner bubble is deflating. Except for maybe Supergirl, or pure cheesecake, stuff.

Theory. The 2021 auction was a year before Thor: Love & Thunder came out. And about a month after rumors started circulating that Hercules would be in the film. So, this page probably benefitted from a bit of speculation at that time. Fast Forward to Wednesday night. Thor: Love & Thunder had been out for more than a year and had been disappointing. The MCU seems to be in crisis mode. Hercules was only a cameo. And this page reverted to a pure aesthetics buy, which dropped its value. This also explains why the owner is flipping it, because it's not a particularly great Kirby Thor example (with Colleta inks to boot), and he/she is probably clearing it out to buy other stuff.

Basically, describes me. I can swing an occasional $4k-5K piece, but that blows my budget for the year. I'm not going after $25K pieces. If a great piece comes along that stretches me above $5K, or I've already expended a couple grand, and a great $5K piece shows up, I might stretch. But otherwise, I have to bargain hunt.

Seems to me that bronze age Kirby Marvel Art does fine if it has desirable Kirby characteristics, like Krakle, complex machinery, and character action. Some of the DC stuff is hot or miss, but New Gods related stuff seems to do a lot better.

A Kamandi page just sold for $3300 on eBay.

I had a similar mental block. I broke it when I realized that the pages I really wanted were out of reach at the price point I set in my head, and that I could probably afford more.

Well, I assume you mean "What keeps you from buying a piece of art you REALLY LIKE, that is 5X your budget, aside from money?" Correct? Because if I don't like the art, then the price is irrelevant. In my case, it would probably be if there is another piece or pieces that I like equally as much, or even more, that I can get for the same money or less. For example, if the piece in question was, say $25,000, and my normal budget is $5000*, would I rather spend the $25,000 on that one piece or on 5 pieces I like just as much, if not more? *Purely for purposes of illustration.

Agree on Jim Lee. But....caveat. I am not a Jim Lee fanboy, or collector, so I think I am approaching this from a more objective point of view. There tends to be a spillover effect on superstar artists, particularly 90's Image guys. In other words, McFarlane Spidey Art s top tier, but that began to spill over to his Hulk Art, and then to Spawn Art, and now it's even spilling over to Infinity Inc. art. I think it's probably fair to guess that eventually Jim Lee superman art will start seeing a spillover effect as well. People who want a good Jim Lee art example may start driving up the price of the Superman stuff because it's nice Jim Lee published art of a major DC character. Maybe this won't happen, but it would not surprise me.

Inflation was caused by supply chain disruptions (the chip shortage that caused a large drop in new auto production -- with thousands of vehicles sitting in lots that could not be sold without their internal logic chips-- being a prime example), a pent-up consumer spending explosion due to the pandemic, a significant labor shortage (see resulting huge pay increases for auto workers, etc), and high (historically) economic growth. We've been expanding the hell out of the money supply for 25 years, and never had inflation issues during that time. My pet theory on this is that the US has been artificially suppressing wage growth for 40 years (through anti-union policies and court decisions, the fed concentrating on the inflation aspect of their mandate rather than employment, and keeping the minimum wage very low, and dramatically reduced resistance to (along with favorable court decisions) leading to greater acceptance and understanding of the Affordable Care Act, which makes it easier for people to change jobs without losing health insurance coverage), and the pandemic finally blew that all up. We are seeing catch up wage growth due to a pronounced labor shortage. I think the recent clamp downs on immigration (yes, even under the current administration) have also added to wage pressure. Ratcheting up the fed rate isn't going to have that dramatic of an impact unless it is sustained for a long time.

Says a comic art collector who is happy that his comic art probably went way up in value due to inflation -- and doesn't think that's phony or a bubble.

I know what you mean. I got caught up in buying Picassos and Matisse's, but came in way to late on the Jackson Pollocks

I never read the original Sandman comics, so I think the death actress was fine.

The Fed raised interest rates to battle inflation. Which, as it apparently turns out, was caused by pretty strong historic economic growth. GDP was increasing about 10% on an annual basis in each of 2021 and 2022. This may be why a rate cut isn't going to presage a market sell-off.

Then all of it evaporated in 2022.

Right. Got my dates wrong. I don't usually follow the market.

Got my dates wrong. It was 2022. Started at 4766, ended 2022 at 3839. It is currently at 4590. So, it still hasn't regained what it lost in 2022. That's using the S&P 500 as the benchmark, of course.

My pure layman's guess is that the stock market will generally start going up when the Fed starts reducing interest rates next year, as people seek the best returns.

The Market nosedived in 2021. It's taken two years to regain what it lost.