Flambit

ha - loved the Buscema Avengers cover for $200 or whatever it was...  Keep up the good work!

I could not possibly disagree with you more.  I have been going for 30 years, and it's extremely frustrating dealing with all the nonsense about the tickets every year, thinking I might not get in.  There is absolutely no "thrill of the hunt" going on for me.  I have people I want to see and things I want to do, plans I need to make, but - oh, maybe I can't get tickets this year so screw all that.  Yeah, there's a lot of nostalgia there for me - 30 years worth! - but I would love to see it move to Vegas or some place that could actually handle the volume and give everyone a shot to attend.  I love SDCC, but as a long time attendee, this whole thing has become absolutely pathetic.  

Totally forgot about #176 being all Miller.  Cheers!

Just to be clear: Miller did pencil all the covers, correct?  

And Janson inked all but 158 and 191?  

Since the topic is relevant: I always had a question about Mike Wieringo's pages.  His Marvel work, from what I've seen, was all pencils on one page, and I guess blueline inks on another (but I've never seen a blueline Marvel page for sale).  I was/am a huge fan, and got a couple of pieces back in the day, and the pencils are perfect!  There are no sketch lines, no erase ghost lines, nothing.   So perfect, in fact, that I wonder, did he possibly lay out his art on an even different prelim page and then lightbox the pencils to the artboard for some reason?  

(RIP Mike - he was my favorite "new" artist.  Still miss not having new Mike art on the stands )

I'll be there.  I'd like to attend the dinner if there is one...  

Does anyone know if Comic Connect allows access to their archives the way Heritage does?  I forgot about this auction and I really want to go though the highlights....

Any ideas what this might be worth?

I believe I read something about it here a few months ago.  If I recall correctly, someone here said they saw it in person, it's still in Miller's possession(?) and it was actually a painted piece and pretty large (I had always believed it was a production piece with no appreciable original art).

I did manage to wade though the Berk collection there recently.  A testament to how impressive that collection was, that I was able to make it all the way to the end without giving up like I normally do.  

I would never consign to this site, personally.

The sad thing is it seems they are SO close to getting it right.  It's not as if the site needs a complete overhaul - it just needs an infusion of common sense search functions and layout corrects.  But, nope.

Terrible site design for original art.  It why I never take them seriously when I'm looking to buy because it is so totally off-putting to navigate.  

Quick question: when did Heritage start including sales tax?  I haven't won anything on Heritage for a few years, but I don't remember it before.  

Those Mignola covers for 2.7k - is that about right for covers with no Hellboy image?

I was thinking they would go for more...

Just say, "Buy my stuff.  Or don't.  Who cares."  People respond to indifference. 

This thread totally made me think of Boris the Bear!  

What a seriously bizarre shift in tone that comic took!  It started as a satire piece to make fun of, and then slaughter all of the popular characters and trends in comics of the time, and then turned this humorless, depressing book.

I remember as a kid buying it month after month thinking, "Okay, surely THIS month he's going to get back to killing TMNT clones.  Nope, this is the one where it turns out his best friend was molested."

I go though phases.  Discovering this board, an actual community I could interact with about something I'm pretty nuts about has definitely kicked it up a notch or two recently. I hit Most Comments on caf almost daily to see what's new.  But it comes and goes.  I thought I would ease out as I got older, but this last year I have spent, by far, more money on the hobby than I ever have.  I need therapy.  

12 hours ago, vodou said:

These things traded back and forth behind the scenes all along. Not my market, to my mind previously a very specialists market with rather high prices (except to specialists!) but I do remember occasional whiffs of Starlin bubbling up public as either art days or 'need really quick money to fix the car or pay off something even bigger' scenarios. This over the last twenty years, though thinking about it now...may have been ten or more years since I last saw posted publicly like that. It may just be that sellers are now asking so much privately (based on movie stuff or ??) that the quiet buyers are backing off (in shock?) and so the art goes public auction instead?

Exactly.  Then they trickle out to that secondary general collector market though broader channels.  I admit, there was a split second when I saw that Drax splash, that I really considered bidding on it (I didn't, because ultimately I'm not passionate about cosmic Marvel).  So if not someone like me - and I'm certainly nothing special - then there are a bunch of people who will, I'm sure.

But I can't help but think it might not be a bad deal in the long run: characters like Groot, Gamora, Drax, they aren't going away for a long time.  They are now embedded into the public consciousness as A list Marvel heroes of this generation.  I grew up in the 80's so if you had told me Groot or Drax was going to be an A list character, I would have laughed.  Groot?  

It's amazing how things change.  In the 1960's, the FF was Marvel's flagship book.  Today, it is a B or C-list property with no ongoing title, its brand damaged by a succession of terrible films.  And since films are generally the main source of exposure to Marvel products for a lot of kids, it likely won't hold any real nostalgic value to the adults of tomorrow.  Heartbreaking.  What universe am I living in when Ant Man and Starlord has a successful film franchise and the FF doesn't? 

8 hours ago, Bill C said:

Just my opinion-

I don't think any uptick/increased interest is really due to movie/TV viewers who then come over to OA collecting.

I think it's people in the hobby that are speculating and trying to flip. So, kind of a false increased demand.

I'm sure some smaller percentage of new interest is due to current comic/OA fans who may have thought about picking something up, then got motivated to once a movie/TV show was announced (but once again, some of this is likely due to their fear of not being able to get something at a reasonable price once speculators charge in).

I agree that it does seem like there is probably no real new blood entering the hobby though seeing a movie or television show based on certain characters, making them hot.  As someone pointed out somewhere, why would a person introduced to these characters though film or tv buy OA, of all things, which is such a niche hobby?  Especially since it's so nostalgia driven for a lot of us.

But is it possible there's this huge fresh to market aspect that is creating, maybe, a false positive uptick?  I mean prices are getting driven up because new pieces are being pulled out of collections though the promise of higher sales from movie/tv visibility that have been unseen by the general collecting public.

(I count myself among the general public: that is, I'm not part of any inner OA circles, and the only OA I see for sale is at the quarterly auctions and SDCC, maybe caf now and then, maybe the list now and then.  And I'm really only ever aware of new, big pieces emerging into our public collecting consciousness though the Most Comment page on caf, which I check almost daily.)

But prior to the Infinity War rumors, I never remember seeing so many Starlin pages for sale!  Now, maybe they were and I just wasn't aware.  Nor do I remember seeing so many IM 55 pages show up.  It seems like there's one or more every quarter now.  And now that they are so visible, is it driving people into a frenzy to be a must-own page?  

I'd never seen that Drax IM 55 splash before, for example, although I'm sure some of you probably have, so perhaps other general collectors who have deep pockets are going to impulse buy?  Golden age of Marvel Studios + certain unseen pieces + $?

And then add to that fresh to market pieces from black holes that most everyone hasn't seen?  $$$?

7 minutes ago, Bill C said:

I don't think they did keep it (?)

Apparently all the published interiors and two of the covers (#428 and 429) were on the market (unless I'm reading it wrong?)

From the 1991 Sotheby's catalogue:

Someone recently posted a tour of the DC Archives and the archivist pulled the alternate "alive Robin" page out of a flat file, so DC kept at least that one page...

On ‎5‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 6:14 AM, Sideshow Bob said:

 TMNT cover by Zach Howard. Detail on this is stunning...

I'm not a TMNT fan, but that's a great piece!

Hugely Under appreciated, I think: Alex Robinson.  In the early 2000s, he did an incredible slice of life series for Antarctic Press called Box Office Poison, and then later a sort-of spin off called Tricked.  He's not terribly prolific - I think he's only been involved in a  couple of other series since then, but I will always buy anything he produces.

I bought this cover from him around 2000 (I don't have the OA scanned, apologies).  Great piece, but unfortunately, when he packed it, he just stuck it in a manila folder and sent it.  Of course, it got a little mashed in the mail (someone set something like a brick on top of it and there is a rectangle shaped indent, luckily, over the negative space - title dress is all digital).  But I still love it.

Posted in the wrong thread!

1 hour ago, The Shoveler said:

Avengers #168 by George Pérez and Terry Austin sold for $59,750 on Heritage in the 17-19 November 2016 auction: https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/george-perez-and-terry-austin-avengers-168-cover-original-art-marvel-1978-/a/7141-93187.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515.  This cover is Henry Peter Gyrich's NYX #3 equivalent.

 

Is this the Ron Wilson cover you saw? https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/ron-wilson-and-john-romita-avengers-123-cover-original-art-marvel-1974-/ae/7147-92243.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515.  This #123 cover with Mantis sold for $35.8K in Aug 2015 and currently has a Buy-It-Now for $55K.

The cover to Avengers #118 also sold for big bucks ($65K?) on Heritage within the last few years.  That cover is full of Avengers, Defenders, Loki & Dormammu!  But alas, there is no Gyrich on it to justify the auction price.

It just seems like this is a huge spike; these pages are now next level pages.  And yes, most people want a Perez Avengers cover, but I would have placed it in the 40k range.  Even most Miller DD covers and most Byrne FF covers still hit around 40k (obviously there are exceptions to both).  But when the Ron Wilson cover is hitting at almost 36k, and that 118 is hitting at 65k (admittedly, by Romita) Avengers-movie mania is here for the duration, I think.  

But as an Prime Avenger, The low hammer price for that Cap 211 cover still perplexes me (I wasn't the seller btw). I blame fresh to market on this one for its low sales. But Kirby CA should be hot now!  Perhaps seller should have waited until closer to the first Avengers movie, or next year some time.  Also on Clink there was an amazing Romita CA cover a couple of years ago that had Panther and Falcon in pinup poses running across a rooftop - only 25k I believe.  And I think it was sold to coincide with Civil War, so it should have done as well as it possibly could!  I would have said 40k easy for that one.  If it wasn't for the couple of instances recently in 30-40k sales for Kirby Cap covers, I'd say maybe this is the time to invest in prime Cap material?  He doesn't have another movie coming out anytime soon, and he may not even survive the Avengers films, if rumors are true. 

Totally agree about Starlin values skyrocketing; five or ten years ago, I can never really recall seeing this much Thanos, Groot, Drax (etc) at an auction, but now it's insane: the Drax IM 55 splash is sitting at $18.5 right now on clink with 10 days left.  First appearance and all, I get it, but still...  Granted, I have no real attachment to any of the characters, so I could be way off base as I've never really tracked those particular values.  But if I had a good Warlock cover that I didn't want, I'd probably put it up right before the upcoming film.  

But, the other thing I've seen make a huge jump is vintage Avengers material, since the release of the first Avengers film.  There was a recent Ron Wilson Avengers cover in the early 100s on Heritage I think, that went for, I thought, a great deal more money than I had anticipated.  I can't imagine what a prime 70s Perez Avengers cover would go for now, vs five or ten years ago, and I don't think that's just a case of rising values.   It seems like I can vaguely recall one being sold that had them all busting though though a wall recently, but I can't recall what it sold for...  But there's a Perez Avengers cover on the Most Comments section of caf right now that prominently features Wasp and Ant Man - if this was fresh to market and appeared on Heritage right before the Wasp/Ant-Man sequel film, I would imagine it might set a record for a certain vintage of Avengers covers (Wasp/Ant-Man/Avengers/movie momentum).  

The other nice thing about properties that get announced is it seems to bring all sorts of neat and unseen artwork out of the cracks.  Before the Iron Fist Netflix series, it seemed like there was a higher than usual amount of Iron Fist themed OA on the market.  Always great to see some of this stuff.  

On 5/23/2017 at 3:52 PM, Jeffro. said:

Me too. Definitely didn't appreciate Kirby until later

I certainly don't have the best eye or the most refined taste, but one thing I can give myself credit for early on: I loved Kirby from the first moment I saw his work.  He was the reason I fell in love with comics.  My first comic was one of his 70s Marvel books, and even at six or seven, he the was the only artist I could distinguish art by even if I didn't know his name or understand the process of comic production.  I followed him though Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur and then on to Captain Victory and Silver Star.  I don't think I really understood the stories, but the pictures, the lines, it was all so perfect.  Like Toth or Jaime Hernandez, not a wasted line or image that was non essential to telling his story.

ironically, I didn't get around to reading his FF run for another 30 years...