Flambit

deleted... sorry for wasting everyone's time!

In my continuing quest resurrecting very interesting but dead threads I'm getting a kick out of reading: What drives you to collect? As with many here - nostalgia is a huge factor. I managed to track down and buy the covers to the first two comics I ever owned; one artist i am a passionate fan of, the other, I don't follow at all. Yet being able to see and hold the OA for both of those covers is thrilling. Do you love the medium and just can't get enough of comic art originals? I love the medium, that's for sure. I go though phases where I am obsessed and just need to chill. Other times - for years - I barely think about it. Are you a "Prestige" collector and only looking to pick up some top pieces? Once, maybe. And then prices just kept climbing and climbing to the point where it felt unreal. When covers crossed the 100-200k threshold, and stuff I remember seeing under 10k was routinely 30-50k, well... Time to re-evaluate the hobby. Are you really just a comic book collector that ran out of stuff to get and this seems the next logical step? No - I encountered OA very early in life by chance. I read a quote somewhere, by someone, that's always stuck with me (forgive me if I butcher it): "A picture of the mouse is a picture of the mouse. But a drawing of the mouse - that is the mouse." Very much how I feel. You can have a 9.8 slab copy of GSXM #1, for example, but if you own a page those characters are on, you possess that moment; you are the caretaker for that moment! Are you interested because of the money aspect and if you're going to invest money, it might as well be something fun you're interested in. Not especially. I think it's been more of a problem. I think David Mandel was saying in a podcast something about it was a fun pastime - you could collect these really neat slices of history, but then the money thing happened and really changed all that (sorry if I butchered his meaning). I really miss being able to maybe own a piece that really, really means something to you. I'm not a McSpidey fan at all, but I do feel bad for those who love his work, and have a connect to it, because a lot of those people will probably just never be able to afford a great page or cover. Are you a full time collector just dabbling? All depends. Right now I'm definitely in the collecting mode. Next year, who knows. What category would you put yourself in? Do you think it's the same category others would put you in? People who know me know I'm interested in it, but I don't know...

not sure if this is what you're looking for, or you've already seen this, but there are a bunch here: http://cadencecomicart.com/artist.php?artist=76

Walt is super nice! I finally met him at SDCC a couple of years ago and he demonstrated how his name is signed in the shape of a dinosaur!

Great interview!

Wow, Marvel Fun and Games. Fond memories there! Do you know of any index of Marvel Cap America coloring books from the 1970's (or Marvel Coloring books in general)? There is one I really, really want to find, circa 1976-7, but I have no idea how many variations there were, or how many were issued!

What a neat thread! I almost started one like this, but found it while having fun going back and reading all the early threads... My first - from my first SDCC in 1983. I think I spent $25 on it - literally my first ever exposure to OA and I recognized the cover having bought the comic (then) recently. My dad had it framed for me that year for Christmas. Unfortunately, they literally glued the art down to the orange board instead of matting it - and I didn't care, this stuff was basically worthless at the time, and I was a kid (I was maybe 11 or 12?)! So, one of these days, resto time! Edit: the art was water damaged before I bought it, not a product of the way it was framed.

My 2 cents: I'd personally place corner box art above panel pages. I'm kind of a 70's Kirby Cap fanatic. So artdealer's Cap corner boxes would have been a great piece for me. Would I have bought them over a Kirby cover (money notwithstanding)? No. And most of the splashes from that era would probably have edged it out. But, I probably would have bought them over just about any panel page. So I think his pricing was pretty fair. Edit: i mean any 70's Kirby Cap stuff, not Kirby covers/pages in general. I don't have any corner box art, but I always loved it. Most of you probably know this, but I'd heard a rumor that there was a Miler DD cover that had the corner box art actually drawn on to it. I believe that turned out to be true - issue 185 (but others could correct me here), wasn't it?

I'd heard he didn't as well. The general rumor I hear is that it doesn't exist anymore, but that's total hearsay. I'd generally go with what you folks here believe because I'm not super well connected.

I literally was just about to email you! Noooooo! Years ago, I saw - I think(!) - the #10 book. I swear, I saw it on Coollines, but I could be mistaken. Whomever it was, they had the entire book, with the cover, and they were offering 2k for the whole thing. I jumped at it. Their response: "Oh, sorry about that - we sold it a while ago, and forgot to take it off our site!" Arrgh! I'd always been hoping to put that book together, or find it complete Sad Panda... Thanks anyway... Keep me in mind if you sell - cheers - Sam

Thanks for the help - not familiar with Simon ... What is his website?

First thing I thought of was Albert, but he never responded to my email, i was a little shocked. Yeah, in '07, he had a binder full of pages. I bought a handful of good ones, but have been wishing I'd bought more. I doubt he still has them, that was 10 years ago, and nothing is listed on his site. Gene Ha - terrific idea! In fact, I just emailed him. Thanks for your help!

Good grief! It's amazing what resto can do now, though! It's funny, about six months ago, someone posted a 70s/80s Flash splash that also had similar resto and it washed off red ink, and i saw some 80s marvel cover that washed off Shooter's signature. I wish i could remember specifically which ones they both were, though! I think that was my first ever X-Men issue I bought off the stands, too! But, back on topic - I totally agree. No Cockrum X-Men cover will ever sell for less than 25k, maybe 30k at this point. Just because of the historical value of the X-Men title from that era alone.

Jeez... what happened to the 162 cover??

That would have been tempting! I don't know how I missed it. I was even there for preview night!

Thanks! In a feeble attempt not to derail the thread, because this technically didn't "get away," here's one last - almost surreal - SDCC OA memory. My second SDCC - i vividly remember it was 1984 - I was at the far back of the dealer's room (if you walked in the room from the double doors right off the main hall, and walked all the way to the far left corner where the load in doors were), there was a booth facing the wall, with an old woman. She had this collection of really random comic related stuff. In the later years, I can only assume it was maybe her husband's, who was a part of the First Fandom, and had passed away, and she was liquidating his collection. I know this sounds totally unbelievable, and I still to this day wonder if I really saw this, but I'll never forget: on her wall - for 10k - was this cover:

Oh man, corner box art is awesome! My big soft spot is Kirby 70s Cap stuff and someone on Caf has the Kirby drawn Cap and Falcon figures (placed in circles on either side of the Captain America and Falcon title logo). Sweetness!

Kirby, Byrne, Miller, Jaime Hernandez Child of the 80s, what's can I say?

I agree that nostalgia is totally subjective, of course. I went back and looked at Cockrum's UXM run, and yeah, it's hard to beat most of those 1st run covers. But I think historical value really props that 1st run stuff up; these are the shoulders that the fame of the X-Men stands on. Of course there's the Byrne stuff - but I think most agree that's on an entirely different level altogether. There are few comic book runs in history that can be compared to, randomly, say issues 133-142. Those sort of transcend "X-Men" history, in a way, or Cockrum pricing. But those 2nd run covers are beautiful! At the time they left me a bit cold - like Miller DD, how can you follow Byrne/Austin X-Men? - but there really ain't a bad one; it's almost like Cockrum was drawing the covers for the OA market! Almost every single one has a pin up quality character front and center in some full body dynamic pose, and most feature the entire team in the background. I have a big soft spot for Alan Moore's Top Ten, because that stuff is modern and reasonably affordable, and really resonated with me, but outside of that, I agree - I'm more interested quality over quantity any day. I think my collection is decent, but it's definitely not like some of the people here who have binders and binders and binders of fantastic art. Do you have stuff up on caf?

I had to look it up, but I definitely remember that cover. That's a good one - great DD image. My problem was my friends and I were SO besotted with Miller - Elektra, the Hand, Kirigi, Stick - that stuff was sort of the center of our comic collecting world when I was a kid (we were just young enough to have JUST missed Byrne's X-Men, but just old enough to come on board with Miller when his stuff was on the stands) that when he left, I just totally lost interest in DD. How can you follow that?? I tried to keep up with it, but I only ever got excited when he came back for that single issue, and then, of course, Born Again....

Yeah, it was pretty awesome. And depressing. Mostly depressing. I've been trying to use my "Vibe" powers and remember what else was on the table. I did forget to mention the covers to 187 and 159 were also there - I know that for a fact. And I do definitely remember seeing the 187 dps (pg 2 and 3), but Albert did tell me - or I overheard - that the entire 187 book was there in a stack. I do seem to remember vaguely flipping though it. That's all I got. But I was such a Miller fanatic at the time, that's all I was paying attention to at that age. Miller had been off DD for a couple of years, and Ronin had sort of come and gone (I loved it - I didn't really understand it, but I loved pouring over the art and trying to draw like that!). I honestly don't remember if DKR was out or not. I suspect this was the summer before - 1985. But the most amazing thing is that this area at the table I'm talking about was maybe a four foot section - two or three stacks. He had a corner space, with tables - remember those old beat up wood tables that SDCC used to provide at the old convention center? - that ran at least eight feet or ten feet, turned, and ran another eight or ten feet. And all of it covered with multiple stacks of art, each one maybe eight inches high. No mylars or binders. Just thumb though and pull stuff out. -Shudder- I was mentioning in another thread, I had a childhood friend - I was probably, maybe 15? at the time, my friend was maybe 14? - and I went over to his house right after that SDCC (or maybe the one after - memory is hazy now haha) and I walked into his room, and he had the covers to UXM 161 and Alpha Flight 7 just propped up on a chair. "That's cool," I remember saying. You could be a kid and own key covers. So, message to the current owners: those two covers sat in a teenager's collection for a long time! Back then, it was like buying a moderately expensive key book, like a GSXM 1 - and VF - not mint. Now it's like buying a brand new Toyota Camry.

Thank you both for the heads up!

Well, I hope you get one! I know all about chasing that nostalgia grail. If it was "only" 10k, I'd probably try and get one myself, but I suspect even the weakest Cockrum 2nd UXM cover would be pushing 20k at this point (at auction - I don't know much about private sales). And I just went and had a look at a gallery of Cockrum 2nd UXMs, and there really isn't a "weak" one among them, honestly! Maybe when he was really pushing the Starjammers, but even those covers are pretty good. I shudder to think, but i suspect the days of the 1st run UXMs for 20k/2nd run UXM for 10k might be gone...!

Those stories are the best! Congrats!

Well, of course I'd love to have a TOS Cap cover lol! But I think the one with the Super Adaptoid just sold on HA a few years ago, for, like, 150k? That pretty much eliminates that as any kind of possibility in my budget! And that cover was good - but I didn't think fantastic! So imagine how much one of those split IM/Cap TOS covers now would go for! 200k+? Yeah, Jack's art was on the wonky side in the 70's, but that was definitely my era. I get the warm fuzzies looking at his 70's stuff -- especially his 70's Cap stuff. Definitely nostalgia driven, but I think a lot of it is just... wonderful! - for lack of a better word. BTW - do you know what cover he won for 9k?