Rick2you2

Seems reasonable to keep in mind, but in a sense, it's the same problem cut down to 50%. And let's not forget the issue of timing. A certain dealer, who will go nameless set a price on a 1970's piece of a not well known artist, for $575. It has probably been listed for 6 years or more at that price, and has not moved. Naturally, it is also in a dead part of the market. What the heck is the FMV of that? And if we pretend it was a collector, not a dealer who said make me an offer, how does one make an offer which doesn't sound insulting? I will bet he paid around $250, which is probably only a little less than it should go for now.

I think you should be proud of yourself helping the other collector out. Really.

If memory serves me, he was one of the first to insist that he owned the copyright and the originals. So, his was non-boilerplate. To answer your question about cease and desist letters: free publicity. After Warhol did his famous Tomato Soup Can, Campbell's thanked him for the free publicity (they sent him a letter to that effect). Every time an artist draws a Batman for someone to hang on their wall, it encourage potential buyers to read the stories, see the movie, buy the tchotchkes, etc. And, it helps artists supplement their living. To answer your other last questions, no. The company may also have copyrights in the page, including transfers by contract, which would not affect Neal's rights to reproduce the pages, and I expect that they cannot be asserted forever. There is a 3 year statute of limitations, but it can essentially be broadened by reproduction, or the claim estopped or laches can apply. https://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/05/copyright-preclude-limitations.html

What do you consider a lowball offer, not just by percent, but also by comp.'s? I don't just mean low; I mean lowball. Do you use Heritage/Clink/ComicArtTracker, pricing on CAF, or something else? And given that prices can really vary a lot by subject, artist, and type (splash, action, etc.), as well as dates of artistry as well as prior dates of sale (which on occasion can go down), what qualifies as really low? Yes, $20 for Kirby is low, and I don't care what the piece looks like. But I cannot compare Ross Andru on Spideman to Ross Andru on Brave and the Bold (with Batman/Phantom Stranger) and neither does the market. That's another problem with "make an offer" postings. The requester may consider low as lowball, endangering a snotty response to the potential buyer.

What you suggest is the fairer way for someone to handle it. But at the very least, the response should be something like “I won’t consider offers less than_______”, but it has to exceed that amount.”

It’s a little more complicated. The artist owns the whole work of art, including reproduction rights. The company has copyright and maybe trademark in the trade dress. The company also generally owns the copyright and trademark (if any) in the character. But since the company permitted the artist to use its copyrighted and trademarked material to create the work of art, it should be reproduceable and sellable by the artist, so long as the artist does not try to separate out the components and use or sell them for a different purpose. Let me add that when one gets down into specific details, results can vary from general rules. It is a messy body of law, and I am not an expert. I just wanted to add that DC probably reserved a non-exclusive right to reproduce what Neil did, probably by way of contract. Note all the trade paperbacks out there which otherwise reproduce copyrighted art.

I hope he had on "odor eaters".

He probably didn't have to. He would own the copyrights if he did them after around 1976 under the revised Copyright Act. Even earlier if he had an agreement with DC thta he was not performing "work for hire" under the old law.

Sal's curse.

I know this is kidding around, but the concept doesn’t work in this market because it is too small and market prices vary. Example: someone just listed a page from a particular book for $1,200. I know, in the past year, a similar maybe lesser page, has been sitting unsold for about $600. A 2/3rds page with circulation data sold on Clink for about $350, after not selling privately for about $700, and either the same or a similar page now being offered for $1,200 was previously offered for around $900 by someone else. Now, if someone wrote “make me an offer”, what is a lowball offer? Bottom of the market maybe as low as $500. If the unmotivated seller would be insulted by anything other than around $1,200, then he has too thin a skin. A fair response, I think, should be given.

Honestly, I don’t think you did anything wrong. People have a tendency to overvalue what they own, and some just get huffy when the rest of the world doesn’t see it the same way. I generally don’t respond to a “make me an offer”, but when I have, I generally do so at the lower end of the market, too. In my case, I don’t resell, so I like to point out that what goes into the collection will stay there to be treasured (so the seller won’t think I plan to market the piece). If someone is insulted by an offer, that is his/her problem, not yours. Let’s face it, this stuff is just a bunch of paper for sale—not an attack on someone’s integrity. If it happens again, just point out you weren’t attacking him/ her. It was just what you thought it was worth. If he/she thinks differently, then how much? Maybe that can get you your deal.

...on something else.

Not me, either. Who the hell wants Deadpool on their wall? Maybe a little Bill Ward.

Good question. Who is Wrightson? (“)

Eh. Its not the Phantom Stranger.

Honestly, it isn't bad, and at $300, it can't be terribly overpriced (depending on the name of the artist). It just looks to me like the artist didn't have the feel for the character like you do, and/or didn't think $300 was worth the time to kill himself for something super-special. I once commissioned Howard Chaykin for a Phantom Stranger/Tala pair of images (I have posted before), and while it is workmanlike, it doesn't rock me. A few years later, at a convention, he told me he couldn't get the feel of the character. S***t happens. I would recommend you keep it and put it in your Itoya's as a memory of a past interaction (unless you really, really hate it).

Thank you for your thoughtful response. You are correct that I missed the meaning of "Fuggit", and yes, something doesn't feel right about his description of events. On the other hand, there is a board on Facebook entitled "Comic Art Buyer Beware" naming the names of artists who take money and don't produce. There have also been comments on these boards about bad artistic behavior. I agreed to two commissions at the NYC Comicon. I have yet to get a response to my emails or texts as to timing or details. I did not give an advance, so I haven't lost anything, but none was requested by either artist. Others have not been as lucky. As a side note, what you have described is called a "liquidated damages clause" in contract law. It is not presumed, but must be added to any written agreement. I take the subject a little more fluidly than a flat bar. I have a standing statement to everyone I commission that if they find that to get the piece "just right", it takes more time than they thought, then I volunteer to pay them extra. I want the best of their work in my collection, and a few extra $ won't matter in the long run. NOT ONCE, has any artist asked for the extra. I did volunteer to pay Colleen Doran in full for a commission of a female Phantom Stranger, and did, even though she did not ask, because I figured no one else would want it and I did not want her to be concerned about wasting time. I also paid someone extra after I saw their layout of a ferret version of the Phantom Stranger because it was headed in the wrong direction, and I decided this was my fault instead of hers for failing to give her a proper direction. But for the most part, if I don't know someone, or have a reason to trust them, and unless I am asking for something strange like a femaile Phantom Stranger, I do not believe it is good policy to pay up front. So, on balance I think Fuggit's behavior was awful, unless we see the actual piece at issue and it really is beyond the pale. And if he doesn't like the criticism, tough, he deserves it.

No, I am not the sheriff. He came to these boards looking for justification for what he did. For the most part, he didn’t get it. If the lesson was really learned, then why doesn’t he correct what he did?

I hope you hang around here more often. You clearly have information we would all value.

Just to be clear, I only responded to his snotty comments. I wasn’t planning to continue. That attitude, however, gives hobbyists a bad name. If artists think that sort of behavior is commonplace, prices for commissions will go up as artists have to include the risk of nonpayment in their pricing for commissions or just refuse them without prepayment. With prepayment comes the risk that the commission will get done “eventually”, or maybe never. As to that image, Purple Drank isn’t 100% of anything.

I am not an artist, and have virtually no artistic skills. But, I am a man of my word. Try it sometime. And by the way, where is this piece from hell you keep complaining about? Or maybe you just decided you didn't want to spend $4,000 after ordering it, hmmm...?

Then follow it. Send him the money, and accept what he did. Also, he is probably owed an apology. Bad behavior messes it up for others who may want a commission from him.

I was wondering what the piece actually looked like. Can you post it?

I don’t see that as an artist’s screw up at all. There are way too many stories of artists getting payment up front and then not performing. I don’t offer it, anymore, and would think hard about ever doing it again. I generally don’t get asked, either.

Why did you think it was super ugly? Did you approve preliminaries? I ask this because if it were well done, but you didn’t like the way it was posed or it “just didn’t seem right”, and if I were the artist, I would be pissed off, too. Were you able to articulate specifics to him so that the artist didn’t think he was being hosed? I am a fan, not an artist, but I am still curious about the whole situation.