The Voord

I have consigned a total of 9 original artworks to Russ's December 28 auction. http://russcochranauction.auctionanything.com/ First up . . . MARINES IN ACTION # 14 (1957) cover by John Severin A rare surviving cover example by the great John Severin from the time Marvel Comics was known as Atlas. Artwork has not been trimmed as most of these covers were created as edge-to-edge artworks with no border surrounds. The two speech balloons are replacement stats and there is a missing caption box at bottom right. General condition is very good. 20" height x 13½" width

Is it the Stilt-Man's daughter?

Finder's fee paid not to find it!

The offer of a refund by Howard is a fair one. The poorly executed foot paste-up can be corrected without involving the artist directly. If you get that foot fixed, it ought to make a huge improvement on the overall look of the piece. The loose jaw paste-up edge can be re-attached properly. If it was me, I'd seriously consider having the designer stubble eliminated. A professional paper conservasionist would be my route on this one.

Any use of white-out would be problematic unless you can get an even blend of colour that matches the illustration board shade, so difficult to determine. Really, this should have been a flawlessly executed piece of work, ready for framing, without the need for glaringly obvious production artwork type corrections. Working for printed comic-book pages (and the tricks-of-the-trade it involves) vs. artwork specifically designed to be showcased (as drawn) are not quite the same in my book. If corrections were needed on your commission, they should have been more seamlessly performed. I understand both sides of the argument on this scenario, but at $1,500 I personally would have expected a higher degree of finish as , to my mind, what you got looks a bit of a mess in parts.

Falling asleep for parts of the movie are like a reduced director's-cut version for me and probably brought the viewing time down to around 110 minutes . . .

I was thinking the same thing myself. Only problem here is that you need to know the exact placement of what artwork lies underneath the paste-up , otherwise you might end up with a revealed overspill of a first-attempt foot extending outside of the corrected version. I'd definitely want the designer stubble removed (white-out?), as no self-respecting PS should ever bee seen in public like that.

Blade Runner 2049. Definitely going to have to give that one a second viewing. Not to convince myself I liked it. Just to catch up on all the parts I fell asleep to . . . seriously.

Sorted . . . end of thread.

Jeff Hawke is great; you should also check out the story reprints as they're really well-written and entertaining. My favourite JH story is 'Survival'. The artwork's especially good on that one, for example:

Or PS with or without the designer stubble?

No self-respecting Phantom Stranger should ever be without his shaving kit . . .

Sadly, that's the long term problem you now have should you let things stand.

Me too.

Not so sure about the highlighted point you make, Scott. If you were employing a tradesperson to perform work on your home, you'd have every right to scrutinize and challenge the end-result if it didn't meet desired expectations.

At first glance I thought the PS was supposed to be wearing some kind of metal jaw appliance (then I read your descriptive text). The foot paste-up is oddly-shaped and intrusive. He should have cut around the shape of the foot, making more of an effort to make it blend in. Nice enough commission, but the above observations would irritate and detract for me. Sorry, you did ask . . .

The FF 40, THOR 122 and STRANGE TALES 138 certainly exist (no idea about the AVENGERS 23), but not in the photograph, so I guess you're taking into account known existing covers from this time-frame to imagine what else might have been up there on display?

The cover to ASM # 30 certainly still exists and was up on CAF at one time.

Far as I'm aware Bruce's current waiting list extends well into the new year. Price range was pretty solid during the time-frame of about 18 months when he was performing re-creations for me. He's on CAF, so all you really need to do is shoot him a message of enquiry. He's a well-disciplined artist and will usually keep to any time-frame he advises. A small deposit will likely be requested from new clients. Link to my CAF cover re-creation gallery by Bruce McCorkindale featuring a total of 27 covers: http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=169364 Here's Bruce doing Ditko (in which I requested the splash page 1 art transposed as a cover image):

I think most collectors are purists . . . in the sense they want to see things like cover artworks complete with all the logo and text elements present . . . just as they remember from seeing on the comic-books. I can see how artists doing re-creations would probably be irritated by the need to take on the additional skills of a letterer (and, in most cases, failing badly with their efforts, for obvious reasons). Absolutely. Nothing worse than seeing a nicely re-created cover illustration with badly-lettered text elements. Totally ruins the piece for me. I hate to say this . . . and apologies to anyone on this forum who owns such things . . . but some of the later re-created covers by Kirby (whose involvement as the actual penciler is now open to question) . . . and inked by D**k Ayers (at a time in his twilight years when the ravages of old age had taken a toll on his abilities to successfully re-visit the prime work of younger years) are painful to look at. You get very shaky inking coupled with less-than-satisfactory attempts at lettering. They're not the 'original' originals, yet they command big bucks (sure, I get the reasons why collectors would want them, even if they don't appeal to me)? To my mind, they're even worse than nicely re-created cover illustrations let down by poor lettering, as here you're getting serviceable pencils + shaky inking + lousy lettering. For me, I'd want to compare the re-creation against the actual published cover . . . and if it didn't stack-up, I'd be hugely disappointed. Would I want to own such things? Probably not.

Tom Chantrell's double-bill movie poster painting for THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS & BARRACUDA (1978) . . .

Currently at 91 members and growing! Lots of previously unseen (by me) original paintings now being posted on my FB group, so worth joining to see what's out there in collector circles! I'm encouraging For Sale posts and already a few items have been made available to group members. Link to my FB group (anyone here welcome, even if you don't actually collect movie art . . . it should all prove interesting as most of us collect OA and like movies): https://www.facebook.com/groups/131047770909401/

The lettering is mostly printed directly onto the artboards (with touch-ups where necessary). For me, that's the best way to go as hand-lettering is a real skill in its own right that few artists appear to possess. Bruce is never short of work and has a long waiting list. Yeah, totally agree about the prices, though complaining about them being too low is not a route most of us want to go I was never much of a recreation fan myself until I discovered Bruce's work. No real substitute for the original originals, of course, but I doubt that a lot of the early Marvel silver age covers still exist . . . and if they did, they'd be out of the price range of us mere mortals.

Prices you've quoted on those signed giclee prints are insane . . . sounds like pure extortion to most of us here. If you're interested in commissioning someone to "reproduce" covers of comics in your possession, I'd recommend Bruce McCorkindale or Doug Hazelwood - who excel at that sort of thing. I had Bruce recreate for me a series of classic Marvel covers. You'd be looking at a ball-park figure of around $200 - 250 per recreation, which can vary slightly (depending on the level of detail). Here's an example of Bruce's work from my collection:

No intention of stopping my posts here! The FB group is just a project to reach out to other collectors that are unlikely to frequent these forums.