Rick2you2

Did the artist know the character, or have a portfolio of character experience which was similar? At $7k, I guess it wasn’t by Jim Lee.

I have generally lived with it and become more cautious about who I hire, along with the directions I give. Start by looking carefully at his work. Has he done the character before? (That is, a him or a her. I am not in the mood for grammatical niceties). If not, has he done something roughly similar? If so, you are likely to get your character the same way even if not that similar to yours. It would be helpful to refer him to what he has done before as guidance. I also like to give artists reference material to make sure they give me the version I want and not the version they find on their own.

They have dropped in price lately.

Artists who say of course they will do a commission for you—and then ignore your follow-up emails and/or texts about starting work, doing work, and everything else.

How would you view Neil Adams? Frankly, I think his sequential work is outstanding; he had a major impact on the way stories are paced. But, his covers can be magnificent.

Uh, folks, they are still covers. For those who want to display art, as compared to studying it, they generally give more bang for the buck. And, this is from someone who loves his panel pages—mostly to study them.

Like VD.

There is a bit of an anomaly with this subject. Covers are a bit like fine art in the sense that what you see is what you get. If you look at a Rembrandt, for example, the only story it tells is the one staring you in the face. You might think about the subject, it’s past or it’s future, but it is what it is. Internal pages are designed to tell a continuing story (except for those 1 page stories of old). What you see is not what you get, because there is more to the subject than the 1 page. The artist is confined by the story, and he/she is entrusted with moving it along. Now, think of how we usually value art: we love our splash pages— even though they rarely move the story along very much as compared to highlighting an aspect of it. That is more of what covers do. Yet, how rare is it for anyone to refer to a page and comment how well the artist moves the story? Most buyers of art don’t care much about the story. So, while the topic is a fair one, it highlights how the market, us, is not evaluating pages very well because they are fundamentally different.

The one with the back seat.

Spectre: Mandrake Phantom Stranger: Adams, Guillem March (covers), Aparo and DeZuniga (which I still can't get).

As in: "Want to come over and see my etchings?"

Finally, the third of three DPS's, this is for those who have a sense of humor. Here we have the Phantom Stranger singing rap to someone suffering the DT's. Art by John McCrea.

Second of three DPS's, for the modernist. This is a Philip Tan ink over Anderson blue line. The image is nice, but the facial detailing of the Stranger leaves something to be desired.

First of three DPS's. This is for the traditionalist from Veitch and Alcala's run on Swamp Thing. Alex should, in particular, enjoy the arm wrestling which I believe he collects in commission form. If any of you are wondering how powerful the Phantom Stranger is, look no further than the image of him in the lower right where he seems to wear a mask. The Stranger's hat creates a shadow over his face which acts like a mask. Here, he can actually have the shadow mask without a hat.

Trust laws vary by state, but in general, putting the property in trust means that legal title was transferred to the trustee of the trust, with equitable title in possession of the beneficiaries (which can include the donor). So, the beneficiary can presumably still look at it. Not sure that changes anything; the property can't be sold to settle the trust since all the trustee can do, if permitted by the trust instrument, is sell naked legal title without possession. You could just as easily give it to someone as a gift. Also, not sure you can always split up legal and equitable title in the case of objects like this.

He is also right.

Cash. If the art could never be sold, then that is really expensive wallpaper.

Actually, if you look to the earliest comments to this thread, they tended to emphasize how high the prices for his commissions were. If someone wants to spend a million dollars to buy a "pig in a poke", that is their business. But to my mind, the way to evaluate the subject is to compare it to similar pigs and see what the market is. And, I do not consider published pages to be similar for the most part. I have seen resales of his unpublished work, and frankly, they seem significantly lower. Also, there are other artists who have similar styles which I think are significantly less. But as I said, it is their money. I am not trying to say this in a demeaning way, that's just my thought on the subject.

I think that is circular reasoning. It assumes someone wants a commission from Jim Lee. I am not enamored by his art enough to want a commission because these days, I don’t care for that style. I like something more stylized. I recognize it is good for what it is, but I will pass.

Compared to Blastar's $150 commission to Guichet, I don't think paying that much for a Lee commission is sensible. But, if that's the kind of experience which floats their boat, so be it.

I wish his work on "Trinity of Sin" had been that good (as well as some decent plotting).

I recently upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy S10. While CamScanner worked terrifically on my old Samsung, it does not work properly on the new one. The lines are hard to adjust. I think it has to do with the different glass, not the program, but I don't know. If anyone is using the S10 without difficulty, please let me know.

"Further, the human liver actually combines cocaine and alcohol to produce a third substance called cocaethylene. This new substance greatly intensifies the euphoric effects of crack cocaine and significantly increases the risk of sudden death." https://www.alcohol.org/mixing-with/crack-cocaine/

That was a comic book? And here I thought it was a short story; perhaps the inspiration for the Heap given its age.

I thought the precursor to Swamp Thing was The Heap from Hillman’s old line (Wikipedia indicates it as Air Fighters from 1942).