PhilipB2k17

Fair enough. I thought there was a bit of a premium, but I’ll concede the point as you priced them.

I’m sure there were others. Who offered more for a page. I was lucky to get one.

It was revolutionary....for superhero comics being put out by the Big Two. Underground’s and independents (and non US Comics, especially out of Britain from sources like 2000 a.d. and Manga) had been doing this for years. The gritty, dark, V for Vendetta, to take one example, was published originally in Warrior from 1982 to 1985. TDKR came out in 1986 I’m waiting for the Batman storyline where he’s starting to mentally degenerate thanks to all of the concussions he’s suffered and develops CTE.

I don't disagree. My point was that later runs MAY become as valuable, or close to as valuable. We just don't know yet. In any case, I do think it's not impossible that DKR doesn't retain its lofty value in 20 years. There's a diference between the first run of a character by the artist who co-created it (i.e. Ditko on Spider-Man) and a later artist who did a revolutionary new version of an old character. Why isn't Neal Adams Batman stuff from the late 60s to early 70's as revered as DKR? It was also, in a sense, revolutionary for its time. But, even the "dark, gritty" Batman part of TDKR is more of a reach back to Batman's earliest days than truly innovative. The art style, and storyline were revolutionary, but that aspect of Batman wasn't really "new." Batman as a character came out of the pulp tradition, which had noir undertones, and was much darker.

Yep. I have 3 pages from it.

Until the DKR generation is gone from the collecting scene, we will not know for sure whether the Snyder/Capullo run hits that same height. There's too much nostalgia involved. Later generations of collectors do not hold the DKR in the same regard. They are reading it for the first time in Trades. And, most of the time, it is AFTER getting introduced to a more modern run on Batman, and hearing about how "great" the DKR was, etc. Even if they really like it, it won't have that same impact on them as it did when it first came out. It was pretty revolutionary in many ways. But, a lot of what that story did has been copied so much its a cliché.

It's also important from an historical perspective, as this artform becomes more and more recognized as a classic American art. How the original art actually looked, and its production process, matters when you are examining the history of the publications. What materials and inks people used is relevant to understand their creative process. The fact that certain inks fade, is part of it.

There are 3 factors that drive Original Art sales: 1) Nostalgia; 2) Investment speculation 3) Fandom. Art commissions are heavily driven by 1 and even moreso by 3. There is very little of 2. Published OA collecting is far more heavily influenced than people want to admit by 2. The wealthy nostalgia buyers set the market, and the speculators then seek out pieces that they think will appeal to the wealthy collectors. Eventually, this creates a feedback loop where certain pieces develop a consensus on value that is not necessarily sustainable past the collecting lifetimes of the high end market driving collectors. I think NEW art collecting is heaving driven by 3, with a significant dash of 2. By definition, "nostalgia" plays little role in the collecting of new, fresh to market art mostly direct from the artist, or his or her art rep. As I said earlier, brand new published OA is generally priced at a premium vs most published OA that hasn't been bid up via nostalgia and speculation. This is because (until recently, at least, which is the subject of multiple thread here), NEW art has the POTENTIAL to be highly valuable down the road, whereas the stuff that's been sitting around for several (or even 20) years that people can't sell at $175 BIN auctions on eBay, are probably at their level and the market has decided they are not among the special pieces that go up. So a run of the mill, 80's Defenders panel page is not going to sell for much more than $100 on most days (if that). Whereas a brand new Geoff Shaw Thanos page will sell for several hundred. Felix, in fact, had to adjust the prices for Geoff's second Thanos offering quite a bit upward after he saw the first offering sell out quickly, and he got a lot of secondary offers for pages much higher than the initial sales price point. That's fine. That's how supply and demand works. Will these Shaw Thanos pages be selling for that much in 5 years? Who knows. But, the potential for that is why his pages sell for a premium. (And this can be replicated for many other artists and current runs as well).

Even if the original artist re-inked it, it's still not "original" any longer. It's one thing to add an overlay, or MISSING parts of the art (such as the Title graphic, or word balloons). It's entirely something else to mess with the existing image. Felix's account of Jaimie Hernandez might be the exception, where he's doing touchups of otherwise minor issues. And, I do want to bring up another issue that is only relevant to modern art. That is digital editing AFTER the original pen and ink drawing has been produced. Does anyone think that should be disclosed to the buyer before the sale? The original hand drawn piece may be altered digitally for various reasons. All perfectly legitimate from a comic book production standpoint. Maybe it's to fix a continuity error, or make room for a word balloon, etc. But, this means the published version differs from the OA version, even though the OA version has not been altered. Back in the pre-digital era, these issues would have been fixed with a Stat, or be re-drawn, or with white out. But, the final image on the page would match the published version.

So, just looked at the thing in person. That’s a big boy. I wish you could get a stand alone flat bed scanner of that size for a reasonable price.

The price jumped back up to $249. ? But you can get one via Amazon for $215. ?

There’s also an element of investment mentality. Brand new published pages have the potential to become valuable. But stuff that’s been sitting around for a few years has theoretically reached its level.

I keep most of my art in poly sleeves n a portfolio with acids free backing board. I do have several in top loaders (because they don’t fit in my portfolio), but I sealed them in an acids free polybag first. The Top loaders are good for rigidity

I totally disagree. It’s the bottom end that is cratering right now. New art is selling for more, on average, than older stuff that isn’t otherwise special.

I don’t think the same dynamic applies to comic art. Each piece is unique. What may be “middle tier” to one buyer may be top tier to another.

If it's this one, it sold already. http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1445110

Someone should ask Walt to do a full body Galactus and Silver Surfer commission. It would probably be amazing.

On a separate, but related note, I saw on Twitter than Brian Hitch and Sean G. Murphy were talking about how Brian should break away from The Man (i.e. an OA rep) and sell his stuff directly to "The People."

There's a Staples near my house, so I may stop in to see if they have one in person to check it out. Thanks!

Anyone eyeballing that Neal Adams Batman 232 page with Bats and Ras Al Guhl?

Last couple of years. He inks blue line print outs for his published OA.

Stegman draws digitally, though. OA from Stuart Immonen’s run on ASM sold pretty well.

Oh. It was explicit. That’s literally how he sold it to DC when he was negotiating with them.

There’s a pretty sweet page from Batman 232 featuring Ras Al Guhl, and Batman in the Batcave. I saw the cover to that issue way back in the early 80’s, I think, at a convention. The dealer pulled it out to show off, but said it wasn’t for sale.