PhilipB2k17

This goes to my point in an earlier thread, people are consuming this stuff in a much different way than previously. 12 Million graphic novels sold, doesn't include all the people who read them online, or in libraries, or borrow them, etc. When a new film comes out, people buy the graphic novel to check out the source material. It's only a matter of connecting these readers to the OA world, and you will see an influx of some percentage of them becoming collectors.

Jack Kirby has at least 10X the cultural and historical significance - and influence - of any contemporary artist, alive or dead. The ONLY reason he's not held in higher regard by the FA community is intellectual snobbery. Plain and simple.

I think art reps (Hi Felix!) should hire an attorney to draw up commission contracts. One pagers that put the terms of the commission into writing, so that both sides have a written understanding of them. Maybe you put into the agreement that the piece has to be delivered within 12 months, and that you need to see a rough of it after 6 months. When you are talking about thousands of dollars it makes no sense to do this all verbally. The responsible artists will have no problem with this, as the terms are negotiable. It's the unreliable ones who will complain.

This is a rather inexpensive idea, but you could put your art into a thin polybag, then insert it into a rigid toploader. Then, use an art frame tri-pod to display it. It's much cheaper than framing.

The Wrightson Frankenstein page is already over $18K.

That Infinity Gauntlet page is already at $5,055. Any guesses on where it ends up?

Well, a 1:20 variant cover on a comic with a 15,000 print run means that there are only 750 copies of that variant. Keep in mind that GA print runs for comics were pretty enormous. Especially the funny animal or Dell books. The only reason they are scarce at all is due to age, storage practices and because few people valued them as much. Although, I suspect a lot of those kiddie type books got kept more often than the sperhero ones, and were handed down to each new generation of kids. In any case, I don't think a lot of the modern hot variant books will retain their inflated values in the longer term.

Keep in mind the original print runs on comics has declined significantly. So, where there used to be 200,000 copies of a book, more than half of which were stored in a bag and comic box,' now there may only be 10-15K copies of that book. So, it's possible the more recent lower print run stuff might pick up value at some point. But, I still see multiple copies of X-Men #1 in every long Box I look through. There were like 5 million+ copies of that printed.

Well, I'm glad you took a nap! Like I said, I've been looking for one of these pages for over a year. I talked with a couple of different collectors who had pages, and either they were not ones I was that interested in, or they would not sell them. So, I was happy when this one popped up. And it's such an awesome example. It is almost like a comic strip in that it is pretty self-contained, and has two setup/joke sequences. You don't need to know the story or context to get the jokes, or wonder what's going on. Phil Foglio and Tim Sale did a fantastic job, and this piece stuns in person. Neither was I until much later. I always wanted Phil Foglio (The original cover and interior illustration artist for the Myth Adventures books) to do a comic of this series, and when I found out about it - and saw the art for it - I wanted a page really badly.

I'd also add to this thread that maybe looking at Magic the Gatheting card art, or game card art,in general, might not be a bad investment.

Just won this in the most recent HA. Full on nostalgia play for me. I've been looking for one of these pages for over a year. And this is a great example.

I don't think the tech kids WANT that stuff. That why they aren't buying it.

I'd also hazard a guess that a lot of these supposedly elusive tech Titans DO collect art. But I bet they are more likely to own a Ditko or Kirby than a Rothko or De Kooning

I don't think Millennials are into the abstract. They want grounded things. That's why I think Comic OA would be far more appealing to them than contemporary art, generally.

It may or may not be happening. I can give you a pretty good rationale for why its not necessarily helping individual comic book sales. Millennials generally wait until the Trades come out and would rather read complete story arcs, rather than buy books month-to-month. They buy them second hand. They borrow them from friends. They read them at the library. They read them online. As I said, the only way to know is to do a comprehensive market study. How many Millennials who like to read comics even KNOW they can buy the OA to the books they like? I bet the percentage is quite small. I think OA is the kind of thing that would appeal very strongly to Millennials. So, what I expect to happen is that the middle and lower end of the secondary market will go down quite a bit, which will then make the barrier to entry easier, and it will draw in more collectors. As I pointed out, the best bet for the future of OA collecting is modern OA that is from well-regarded comic titles. The nostalgia driven boomer stuff is in for a major correction. Except, as our young OA collector pointed out, the truly classic stuff like Kirby.

I don't know. But, there would be a market opportunity for someone to really target Millennials.

I don't think higher end Frazetta is going to collapse. With the popularity of Game of Thrones, sword and sorcery stuff is as popular as it's ever been. Hell, even Dungeons and Dragons is making a comeback.

Yep. This comes back to the age old adage: Buy what you like. If you love the stuff you have, it's market value is mostly irrelevant.

Id also add that the MIX of Millennial collectors is more gender balanced relative to the Baby Boom and Gen Ex collectors. It's still Male dominated, but that will become much less so over the next 20 years.

Yep. And that is growing. Add in free online reading, and there is a lot of exposure to the source material and the art. So, you have a generation (Millennials) that is consuming this stuff, likes the movies and TV shows, and is increasingly exposed to the art. Eventually, a certain percentage of them will have money to spend. And they are the largest generation in the country. And will be for the next 50 years. They also have a taste for authenticity, and things that are "artisanal." That points directly to OA as a hobby that could benefit. But, you have a huge OA collecting generation leaving the scene during this same tume frame (the Boomers), who also had a lot of disposable income. So, you could very well see a drop, or a levelling off in the hobby.

Again, we can go back and forth on these things all we want. But, unless we have a comprehensive market study done, I don't think it matters. What I do think is going to happens is that a lot of the speculative boom that is buoying run of the mill lowe end OA stuff will cool off significantly over the next few years, and that will ironically lower the barrier of entry.

That's possible. But, Frazetta also has the benefit of rarity on his side. There are not a lot of Frazetta fantasy covers out there. So, you don't NEED the universe of buyers to be large. You just need a few dozen rich people who want to pay for this stuff. Exactly like the modern art market.

Well, that's because there has been no publicly released comprehensive market study done. People are speculating based on sales figures. But, how many people are going to these comic book films, or watching these TV shows? A whole lot. It seems logic that at least SOME percentage of them would be converted to reading the source material, and then collecting the OA. And not all of them are necessarily lapsed comic readers from the 70's, 80's or 90's.

One additional point. Gene points out what I think is a problem with marketing, not so much lack of interest. The dealers are marketing to boomers and Gen Exers (But, mostly boomers) at Pop Culture cons which has a heavy Millennial attendance.

The problem is, people can read graphic novels at a public library, or online, and it would never show up in sales figures. Yes. You can read comics for free, if you know where to look online. Millennials do that. That's why I think a comprehensive market study should be done. And, I suspect it HAS been done by savvy investment guys or hedge funders, which is one reason why you are seeing speculator/investor money starting to enter the hobby.