Michaeld

Here's mine by Dave Stevens .

This Schultz piece has been haunting me for years. Schultz

Recently I purchased a page with misplaced word bubbles. In time they must have fallen off and a previous owner did a horrible job gluing them back on. Not only did he miss align them but two were glued to the wrong panels. I had Robert Dennis correct this issue. He sent me a picture of the page with all the panels removed and I saw that in the last panel under two narrative balloons there was a building. After the narrative was added on top of the image the inker just blacked it out what little of the building would have been seen. I guess there just wasn't enough of it showing behind the balloons to make it recognizable to the reader. I love having these little peeks of the artistic process in a page. anyone else find something interesting behind a word balloon?    

I'm in.

So some silly person decided to divide the panels of an original Peanuts Sunday strip. HOORAY!!!!! A complete Sunday Peanuts strip sells in the tens of thousands. If you don't happen to have that kind of disposable cash this is your chance at owning a part of the greatest contribution to the American newspaper funnies. The auction ends tonight on Comiclink. Check it out Peanuts

Just now, Bird said:

robert dennis, he was aces and did a great job for me

Did he do for you the kind of job I need done?

I just got a piece that needs work. Word balloons were were re-attached and placed wrong with an unknown glue. I've been given one name of an art restorer. Who would you recommend?

1 hour ago, First Upgrade said:

No. I was not the original owner...

Well I know his first name was Mike but that's about it.

On 3/22/2019 at 5:54 PM, First Upgrade said:

Did You Know: You are only the second person to own the page after it was created by Bill Willingham.

 

Am I to assume you were the original owner?

3 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I don't see it? I still have that comic, so I was interested.

Click where it says "Willingham" underlined at the end of what I've written.

An early page from the very first appearance of the Elementals in Justice Machine Annual #1 published by Texas Comics in 1983. Take a gander. Willingham

If you're a Steve Mannion fan you'll like this splash page he drew for issue 3 of Galaktikon. What's better than tentacles and a hot chick? Have a look. Mannion

Did the OP give the money back before the art was returned?

I would much rather see the "Batpole" getting publicity then watch one more hero grabbing headlines by getting killed. For years DC and Marvel have tried to get attention by killing off a popular character. I find it painful to hear about another overblown death because you know that in about a year they just come back to life. Seams to me that publicity stunts are the new comic crutch.   

This is a lovely work from an artist who I feel best captured the spirit of the original Dave Stevens piece. Gerhard is brilliant. Here is the proof. Gerhard

On 7/29/2018 at 4:47 AM, Catwoman_Fan said:

 

I thought it looked familiar!

Did you get the piece directly from Welz? 

No. I got it from Albert Moy at SDCC.

11 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

First, it is "work for hire". By analogy, it is like working for a company which has "hired" you and you developed something of value. As an employee, they own it. For artwork, it is a little more complicated.

Second, copyright law changed in 1976. Even if the artist worked for a company and the company claimed it was performed as "work for hire", it shouldn't stand up in court. What the artist drew was his--unless he/she deliberately "assigns" it to someone else. So, if you wanted to hire an artist to design a costume, for example, it is his to do with, duplicate and reprint, unless he signs something giving up all right, title and interest in it. You are just buying the title to a hand-drawn copy of the created work. I recall one poster who mentioned having seen reprints of art he bought (and being annoyed about it). Well, for reprint purposes, that's almost certainly not the poster's art, either. At least for works after 1976, those rights still reside with the artist.

Third, there is no statute of limitations on stolen art--there can't be. When a buyer buys from a thief, the buyer only gets possession, not title. That's because the thief had no title to sell. So, the actual, original title holder can sue to get possession back. 

If the artist claims that found "stolen art" is his but he had never reported theft to the police how does he have the legal standing to claim ownership? If I have a commission made and I do not receive a receipt can the artist later claim it was stolen and should be returned to him?  

7 hours ago, georgefhagenauer2 said:

I did a long article on the legal issues on stolen art for the CFA APA years ago that was also published serially in CBG.  The headache here is what is defined as stolen . If art was originally done under a work for hire law (and I wrote under those rules i n the 1960s for Warren) The publisher owns the art . That was the case until both Marvel and DC began doing different contracts in the 1970s. At that point both companies began giving art back based on their own formulas for division between inkers and pencillers and for a while in some cases to writers. Art that left before that point can be under a cloud unless there is good provenance ie Dc giveaway art often on their weekend tours . Artists periodically would request or even remove their own art from the company storage. In most cases the documentation comes from the artist or who received the art as a gift not from the company.  Realistically the companies did not keep good records though Marvel later did an inventory on what they had (though some art appeared years later after all of it should have been given back). Note in addition to DC and Marvel (both of which have had documented thefts) warren also had some early art removed especially done by Neal Adams.

Because of weak records the companies who legally owned the earlier Golden age and silver age art have not pursued art that may well have been illegally removed from their storage areas. Some artists over time have raised the issue or harassed owners of art the artists felt should have been returned to them . To date to my knowledge none of this nor the type of documentation often used for art that is in contentions (i.e. artist signatures or dedications on the art that may signify transfer of title) has ever been tested in court. The issue of course being that when the art was removed it had little or no value and now it can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Note also in cases where it is determined that art is stolen there is I believe no statute of limitations on recovering the art providing due process is followed - I had a friend who lost an expensive Mucha painting back to the artist's descendants  because it's provenance had problems. In those cases you can collect from whoever sold you the stolen piece of art what you paid for it. As such it is good to keep track of where art came from in the unlikely case any claims are made as on art that is determined to be stolen of having provenance problems you can be liable for art you traded or sold off long after it is gone.

I was reading what Unca Ben linked but there was so much info I missed a few things. Was the art that was under "work for higher law" (legally own by the company) ordered to go back to the artists?

4 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

It's a long story.  You can Google "Marvel stolen art" and other similar phrases for the details.

You can also start here http://www.twomorrows.com/kirby/articles/19stolen.html

and here http://jimshooter.com/2011/03/mystery-of-missing-box-of-marve.html/

There's a master list of all the art cataloged in the Marvel warehouse in the late '60s early '70s (?) floating around somewhere.

there's also lots of information on comicart-l Yahoo forum, and this very forum,  but I don't have the time to dig it up.  Search around and you may find it.

I can't say that artists like Kirby and Ditko expected to get their art back; most artists were work-for-hire back then and the art was considered to be the property of the company.  (This may be a simplified version of the situation - but hey, I'm a simple man).  I suspect when Joe Simon and Kirby himself had their publishing company in the 1950's they kept the original art produced by other artists.
It was in the mid / late '60s when artists like Steranko started stipulating that their art be returned to them.  Up until then, comic book art was perceived by some (many?) to be worthless.  Companies likely wanted to keep the art for copyright reasons and many artists seemed not to care.  Once comic fandom got going and art started showing up at conventions & comic shops, things changed.  Money does that.

And yeah, lots of art walked away from the Marvel offices and warehouse before art began to be returned to the artists.  Kirby in particular got screwed.  And by extension, so did his contemporaries like Ditko, Ayers, Heck, et al. (though not as much)

Thank you.

When you read this keep in mind that I didn't read up on any aspect of went on behind the scenes of the comic world. When the great artists of years past (Kirby, Ditko, ect.) spoke of their art being stolen I assumed what happened was that they gave their pieces to the publishers (Marvel, DC, ect,) fully expecting to get it back but never did because someone ran off with it or the companies kept it for themselves. If this is the case then why did the artists continue to work for them for so many years? Was there a contract that stated the art was to belong to the company they worked for or was the contract not clear on the subject? Please fill in the blanks for me.  

Turns out my Larry Welz Cherry image was published. See the new info and pics here Welz

I scored two Larrys at this last SDCC. The first is a drawing of Baron Munchausen by Larry Todd seen here Todd. The next is by Larry Welz (graphic sex warning) Welz. 

Here is one bright spot to what was a very weak SDCC.  For the past few years I've been trying to get Stanley Lau to do an homage piece but it never came to fruition until this SDCC 2018. Have a look. Stanley