New School Fool

On 2/8/2022 at 5:04 AM, modelmaker said:

I should add that I'm a big fan of Phil's work and have commissioned him many times.  I would absolutely buy monoprints of his work; in fact, I already have my wish list ready.

 

Seems as we have similar tastes! I am desperately after work by Phil Noto but don't think I'll ever get the chance to see him at a convention. Nice to know there's some chance of owning a piece, albeit quite slim.

On 2/8/2022 at 5:04 AM, modelmaker said:

 

P.S.  I hope I haven't sidetracked this thread with my monoprint thoughts; I know that topic has been debated nicely in other threads.  If anyone feels that I have, please say so, and I will gladly delete this post. 

Thanks for your views on this. It's nice to know someone shares your thoughts on this subject in the hobby. I'll keep my response brief in an effort to not sideline the thread as you mentioned but I too also have similar criteria regarding the purchase of monoprints. Namely, it has to be an exceptional piece (in my opinion). I am surprised to hear of monoprints going for $3K though, who is selling these?

On 2/3/2022 at 7:49 PM, Race said:

I give Glen credit, though, for saying the quiet part out loud in my other thread: There are collectors/investors with a) bigger wallets and b) less pricing knowledge of the OA world, and he is targeting them vs the regular collecting community. The experiment will be, how large is this new client base? Is it a sustainable model? If it is, then he has made the right choice to inflate prices.

He actually admitted he's an opportunist scumbag!

On 2/5/2022 at 5:48 AM, modelmaker said:

Phil hasn't sold any of his work ever since he went totally digital, which has gotta be at least 10 years by now.  There are definitely pages floating out there from his analog days, but they are usually from less popular titles.  His style has evolved so much since his analog days, that those earlier pieces really aren't that appealing imo.  With each passing day, more and more digital artists are offering monoprints of their work; artists like Pepe Larraz, RB Silva, Pasqual Ferry, and a bunch of other artists that are repped by Chiaroscuro Studios, Artcoholics, and Essential Sequential.  Nice income supplement there!  It would be cool if Phil ever decides to go that route.

Funny I always though Phil painted his pieces - didn't realise he was a digital artist.

I know that digital work and monoprints are generally disliked in this forum. I won't go into it but I disagree with that general consensus. Would you buy a monoprint of Phil's work if he decides to produce them?

Phil Noto...?

On 1/30/2022 at 5:35 PM, Ryan. said:

1986 is when the collected editions were released. I still have my copies that I bought over twenty years ago. 

I had a feeling @gadzukes timeliness was off.

I first came to know about Maus as an eight year old in the late 80s. I had joined my local library which came with a well stocked graphic novel section. I was even  more intrigued as they only let people of 13 years and older borrow graphic novels! 'Comics for adults' I thought,  bring it on! Well, I avoided reading  Maus at that time as it looked way too depressing. Thankfully after 30+ years, I was still into graphic novels and managed to pick up a collected edition.

On 1/26/2022 at 1:35 AM, GotSuperPowers? said:

I'm guessing it's the consigner of the art that is actually doing the crypto bit, but I could be wrong.

They were available for non crypto payments a couple of weeks ago.

I initially logged in to create a post like this I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. An incredibly greedy and isolating move by Glen. He will never get my business in the future.

I fail to see how this move is not motivated by greed. Or the unfounded fear that the market is being flooded by crypto cash. Where did this rumour come from actually and where are the hard cold facts? From what I know, crypto enthusiasts are more likely to put their money into NFTs, urban or contemporary art. A market  which has is far less niche, has a larger following and yields higher returns than comic art.

On 1/20/2022 at 4:30 PM, Rick2you2 said:

One of the comments I have made here on several occasions is whether “the market” should really be considered now as a group of submarkets moving at different rates, and maybe directions. 

Totally agree with this. I feel this forum represents a subset of the comic art hobby as a whole.

There's a ton of art I know to have been sold that isn't even posted on CAF.

On 1/17/2022 at 6:31 PM, Varanis said:

I'm not familiar with this comic, but if it was published after Silver Surfer: Black, Tradd still has the art. He's keeping all of his work for the foreseeable future.

The Comic was published in 2013, way before he was selling his art through Felix (and SS:B). Tradd may have been selling his art independently at the time and may have possibly held onto these as there's no trace of them anywhere. 

I would message Felix on FelixComicArt in the off chance that Tradd would be willing to sell his Zero pages. But I wouldn't get my hope up.

On 1/16/2022 at 1:50 PM, Mickey7 said:

Anything I was mildly interested in, which I thought may be within my budget, went much higher than expected.  Or maybe it is expected at this point.    A Masters of the Universe cover from 1987 by Ron Wilson goes for $10,200?  Dos Bros had it on eBay probably 2-3 years ago for $3,000 with no takers.

Welcome to the wonderful world of (comic) art auctions. Whatever you think the piece is worth, double it, then add another half on top and you'll be close to what is sells for.

I saw some modern comic art recently that was sitting untouched on a reps website for about a year at least. It was then bought and subsequently appeared on ComicLink's auction after about another year.

It ended up selling for four times the price on the reps website!

On 1/15/2022 at 1:25 AM, Timely said:

Apparently this story is getting traction. My dad just called me asking me why anyone would pay over 3 million dollars for a single page from a comic! Lol

Yep, the story is all over the news sites. BBC, Sky News, CNN - even all over social media! Normally you wouldn't hear a peep from past auction sales. This is big news for the hobby. Hold onto your hats - I'd expect to see an influx of new collectors coming soon!

The last time I remember a comic art sale made a splash so big it was noticed outside the hobby was the sale of the McFarlane Spidey cover in 2012. The one where Spider-Man's punching the Hulk. At the time it was the most expensive Comic Art sold at $657,250. I heard about the sale and I wasn't even into collecting comic art at the time.

On 1/14/2022 at 9:35 PM, Ted_L said:

Spencer has been selling some repped art recently on a Facebook group called "Clan McDonald Comics and Signature Witnessing".  It's a private group so you have to request membership.  There's roughly a weekly original art claim post.

The reason a lot of longer term collectors (such as myself) like Spencer is that he's honest, he really cares about the best interests of the artists he's repping as opposed to making $ for himself and up until a few years ago, his website was fairly up-to-date and he had great holiday sales.  I've picked up a ton of art from him over the years.  However, in recent years the site has become useless, it's harder to get responses and the holiday sales have stopped.  I'm really hoping he comes to New York Comic Con in 2022 as convention appearances are by far the easiest way to do business with him now.

Thank you, that's extremely useful information and confirms what I had initially thought.
I'll see if I can get access to his facebook group. I absolutely loathe facebook but I don't think I'll be making it to a US based Comic Con anytime soon!

Thanks once again!

On 1/14/2022 at 8:23 PM, Phill the Governor said:

That's what I thought he was referring to.

 

I stand by my original statement. Unless someone else comes forward, my guess is that the SW8 interior page was bought by that same collector- the one who owns the ASM252 & SW8 cover. Considering the SW8 cover is not posted on CAF, like the 252, they have other pieces we don't know about. It's an assumption that the collector only collects covers and wouldn't go after a complimentary interior page given the content- no matter the price.

I am basing this solely on the budget of the collector, which is.... more than anyone here, for the sake of the conversation. That coupled with the fear of missing out on pieces nowadays when everything just keeps trending upwards.... makes for a piece that can be bid up to 3+mil by someone who has over 1billion dollars. It's not about breaking even.

This is the most likely scenario IMO.

I stand with @Bronty on this. It makes no sense for someone who paid a good price for some great pages to then pay an astronomical price for a page that would be sub par in their collection. I don't understand why you think this is the most likely scenario?

Another scenario, as others have mentioned, is that it's a comic art collector noob with deep pockets. This seems more likely to me.

On 1/14/2022 at 5:23 PM, grapeape said:

Let’s just say depending on who you talk to, trying to communicate with Spencer can be maddening. 
You are going to get more responses here that I hope are helpful. My first time contacting Spencer he was very polite. It was concerning two pages he had listed for sale for a very long time.

• His response came 3 weeks after my inquiry 

• to tell me the pages I had interest in were gone— sold long ago

 Some people love Spencer and swear by him. I found him polite and his site quirky but I like quicker responses and inventory shown to be available for sale or marked sold.

Well I'm still waiting for a response after 5 months!

His website seems to be a remnant of the 90s. Pretty sure he's not using it anymore as it must be a nightmare to update and keep track of stock...

But..I've seen collectors with new pieces from the artists he reps so he must be active to some capacity.

On 1/14/2022 at 4:28 PM, tth2 said:

Why did he pick this particular page of all pages?  It's bizarre to me.

It's like if I knew nothing about baseball or sport cards and decided to suddenly pick a Hall of Famer, but not a GOAT level of Hall of Famer whose name would be known to the general public, from the 1980s and drive his rookie card multiples beyond not just what his card previously sold for, but beyond what any baseball card ever sold for.  

So I guess I'm going to bid up the next 10.0 Robin Yount rookie card to $15-20m.  Would someone volunteer to be the underbidder?

I'm guessing someone told the winner "First appearance of venom blah blah blah" and they just saw dollar signs.

As others have mentioned, it got down to two bidders after 1.2 mil or so. At that point I reckon it was more a pride/d*ck measuring contest rather than actually wanting the art.

The thing is, I see these prices in contemporary art all the time!

I personally feel that recent Comic Art sales prices have been a little too low. The recent sale of the cover to ASM #300 wasn't even $1 million for goodness sake! that really surprised me!!

I've heard a lot of comic art collectors say that comic art prices have room to grow. Isn't this growing room we're seeing then?

On 1/14/2022 at 2:05 PM, delekkerste said:

But, it's only the first appearance of Spider-Man wearing the symbiote costume in continuity. In actual real-time, Amazing Spider-Man #252 came out 7 months earlier (May 1984 cover date, January 1984 release date) than Secret Wars #8 (December 1984 cover date, August 1984 release date).  So there are actually dozens (or more) pages featuring Spidey in that costume that were published prior to Secret Wars #8 across all of his titles (ASM, PPSS, MTU) plus ancillary appearances (e.g., Marvel Age).

I'd be surprised if a Spider-Man comic fan exists that doesn't know these facts...

There's also that Marvel tales Spider-Man and Daredevil book that came out around the same time as ASM #252...competing for 1st appearance.

The cover to ASM #252 should command a hefty price....the others before Secret Wars 8...significantly less I'd imagine due to there not being a 'stand out' page that people identify as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th appearance

On 1/14/2022 at 12:37 PM, namisgr said:

It's been split up, as I recall seeing individual pages for sale in the past.

That's a shame! I had a feeling it was too good to be true. Still I can't believe the entire issue was selling for $700,000. That's an amazing ROI!

On 1/14/2022 at 11:36 AM, namisgr said:

It was 2001, give or take a year.  I'm not an original art buyer, but that lot would be expected top $5 million today, would it not?  Maybe by a wide margin.

Seeing how everyone's estimate for the recent Secret Wars page got blown out of the water, I wouldn't be surprised if The Original art for the complete issue of the 1st X-Men comic went for at least $20 Million!

On 1/14/2022 at 11:20 AM, namisgr said:

I've got a scan of it, from the Jay Parrino catalog in which the art for the entire X-Men #1 was offered for sale as a lot.  Can you imagine what that lot would fetch today?

My goodness! What year was this lot for sale?

On 1/14/2022 at 8:28 AM, tth2 said:

Mostly stat, so unlikely.

The fact that this Secret Wars page sold for so much, probably has a lot to do with historical significance rather than artistic merit.

If a page can sell for over $3 Million, I have a feeling an equally significant cover should do as well if not better, regardless of what it's composed of.

Thank you!

Has anyone dealt with Spencer Beck from theartistschoice recently?

I emailed him about 4-5 months ago and have yet to receive a reply. What's the best way to contact him?

Thanks!

On 1/13/2022 at 5:12 AM, fishbone said:

Here you go :

Thanks for sharing, those are awesome pieces!