Artboy99

arguably my favorite cover from the Savage Sword run. Fantastic pick up!

nice look! Reminds me of the writing by the alien creatures from the movie Arrival. A 3 dimensional representation of it.

it is unfortunate that the book was given color touch. The CT does nothing to improve the book's grade in my opinion. Yes it would get purple label, as I would not call that amount of color touch minor.

that book sat on the walls of a comic store for years exposed to the sun to get that badly faded. I think 3.0-4.0 range is correct. Send it in, see what they say!

or sad to learn that it will likely cost him $10,000 to get his story made into a comic and then he will have only 1000 copies to try to sell to recoup his costs and compensate himself for the writing.

I am not sure, all I know is the better the cover the more likely the book will sell. Getting someone like Adam Hughes, or Campbell or Finch to do your cover may not be a terrible idea. Easily more marketable - new book with cover drawn by Hughes! will sell more.

well said, and thank you for adding your experiences to this discussion.

Are you hoping to get a cover done by a high end guy like Hughes?

awesome, it pays to shop around and have discussions like this on the boards. My prices were in CDN, so I am not off at all on the art. 150US -$250US + $75 is the same rate I quoted. So 1000 copies is now $1450 US printing and your art cost is $275-325 US

most would prefer to do lettering in computer editing the art. Some will do it manually on the pages.

depends on the artist but yes your numbers are reasonable for a single page pencilled. You need to hire an inker and a letterer as well. How about for simplicity we say you can get a single page completed: drawn in pencils then inked and with lettering added for $400 per page.

Contact a local printer for price quotes to print 11 pages front and back. 1000 copies of full color for the cover on a paper stock that is adequate for a comic book, then 1000 copies x 10 pages front and back in black and white. I am assuming you would do all the layout so the printer doesn't have to do any setup work to minimize your costs. My quote for 1000 copies was $5000.00 CDN That would include folding and binding ( staples x2 per copy ) If I sell each copy at $5.00 I break even on my printing costs.

Therein lies the challenge. Becoming an artist that can expect to be paid for their work takes many years of training and development. Being an Artist is like being in a trade: if you hire a plumber you expect to compensate the professional to complete the work by paying an hourly rate and paying for the materials and supplies. A professional artist has spent many years training and learning their trade. If you want your comic that you have written to be successful you have to hire an artist that has the skills. The art needs to be good enough to catch the eyes of the publisher/ distributor. If the art looks amateur they won't give it a second. Trust me, I have been through it myself. I had the president of Avatar Press in my booth a few years ago and I asked if he would look at my comic / art. He reluctantly said ok after a rather audible sigh and took 1 second to look at my pages and didn't give me any feedback at all. He couldn't be bothered. Rather humbling for someone that has drawn professionally for over 30 years.

we did operate alone previously. We became a joint venture when I found a "large" collection through my full time day job. He was a client of mine and was selling mostly because his wife was sick of the comics in the basement. It was 37 longs. No, not really that large but I live in a small one bedroom condo and really have no place to put 37 longs. I approached Dave asking if he was interested in the collection. The partnership was born after that and has developed ever since. We have learned a lot over the years and we are always evolving. One of the best decisions we made was to make the collection mostly jointly owned.

I agree. At the same time I always put myself out there as you never know. I have been approached several times on the boards to be involved in producing a comic by writers, but in the end the compensation is always lacking. I am just not in a position to "take a chance". I had a former board member send me a very well done ---script. I thought the story would go places but the writer could offer nothing up front for compensation other than a percentage of book sales. I have a mortgage to pay so I need to focus my time on jobs that I know earn. I have my own book I am creating. I am doing the writing as well as the drawing. I think it is a very good story, but in the end even my own creation waits on the shelf. FYI: Getting your comic picked by a publisher/ distributor ( like IMAGE ) is like becoming a Hollywood actor. It is lightning in a bottle: they get thousands of submissions a month and pick one. Offering a percentage of ownership is not likely to entice a professional artist as they know the likelihood of getting return is very low. Also consider the volume of comics selling per month of any particular title. That number is rather low. I have a friend who is local to me that draws comics for a living. His art has been published in titles for IMAGE. There was a story in a local newspaper about him last year, in the story it discussed his time working on the art from coffee shops and out on the street because he lost his apartment as he earned nothing for the previous 6 months of work on a title that didn't sell well. He earned nothing and became homeless! http://www.vueweekly.com/roche-limit-took-illustrator-kyle-charles-to-some-weird-places/ “Life just got flipped upside down for me,” he says. “I had to go through getting over a loved one’s death and mild bouts of homelessness while I was drawing the book. Some of that book was drawn on the streets. Some of it was drawn on road trips, friend’s places or random people’s kitchen tables while I was looking for sleep. It was a really weird and wild time.” - Kyle Charles

I have a sedan Dave owns a Honda SUV. After many years and many shows I have become rather good at packing my car. I can get 18 longs into it and the 2 bags of tools and supplies. In the future I plan to buy an SUV.

your answer lies within his date joined and total post count: 293 posts Joined: October 31, 2003

Yes he is always buying. We did a show several years ago where a fellow vendor wanted OUT at the end of the show and we went over and bought him out for relatively cheap. If I recall it was $20 a longbox. It wasn't great stuff but for dollar book stock it was good. Then there was the guy at a Calgary Expo who was selling books from the estate of his friend. Tons of good stuff for relatively cheap. Of course by the time we hear about it all the great stuff is gone but we still bought quite a few books from that guy. Got this gem for $100 Canadian: At our last show at the end of September, the last hour he was gone from the booth off buying. The show is over and I have some person I have never met come to our booth: "Hi, are you Karl?" Yes "I need to borrow your cart." Ummm.... I am going to be using it right away. "No, you don't understand. Your partner Dave is over at our booth and he bought a whole bunch of comics. Several longs so we need your cart." Friend vendor right beside me at hearing this: We are already going to be over packed in our cars trying to get home what we already have at the show and now we have several longs to contend with???? My car usually looks like this when we pack up at the end of a show: In the end, you have to support your partner, and Dave has a good eye for sellable books. I trust his decisions.

It fit.

also consider if you buy anything at the show that it needs to fit in the vehicles.

Batman Adventures 12 is the first appearance of Harley Quinn in comics and has a lot of value. The Mad Love issue is Harley's origin and also has some value. the rest; not so much.

Unless you intend to press the book. Having spine ticks in the white area

NVM I see it is gone already

while it doesn't affect CGC grading, as a buyer/ collector I dislike miswrap. I do not like the top book, the bottom book is preferable of the 2 shown. That said I would prefer to find a copy that has no white showing . or Of the 2 books I have shown, I prefer the bottom one. Great colors, and perfectly centered. On the CGC 7.0 the top of the book the Marvel Comics group lettering banner is slightly crooked.