Rick2you2

I felt that; good to have company.

The subject reminds me of something in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations where he discusses the difference between rarity and desireability. It may be rare, but that doesn’t make it something you would want. Desireability is what affects price, not rarity. And let’s not forget good old fashioned dumb salesmanship—like the car dealer who says the latest Belchfire Supersport is the best one yet. Gee, and I was afraid the manufacturer was now trying to make worse ones now. Bottom line: laugh it off. And don’t buy an old Trabant.

You can’t make a baby without the egg and the sperm. I have seen a good deal of creation attributable to the inks. Not the overall layout, but the part where you want artistry to make it stand out.

A lot less. Internet prices are $50,000 for a dog, $35,000 for a cat, and $100,000 for a horse.

Why not? I have one piece signed by the writer, plotter, pencilled and inker. Two were at the same show together, one was on the piece, and the actual inker is from whom I bought it. It’s a nice memory.

Add me to the list of “likes”, but with a proviso: I can find better places to park my play money. The cover has a very good sense of balance: right and wrong divided by a color scheme which actually does call a ruthless anti-hero to mind, and with an an update from black and white. A clarity of purpose, even if the purpose has gotten long in the tooth, very sparing, no wasted lines. But $1,000,000? Or more? This is where the hobby loses it for me.

Awful disease. It killed my mother. At the end, the doctors think she knocked away the breathing tube because she knew it wouldn’t get better and didn’t want to go on that way.

I would probably divide the market into at least 4 groups: high end, middle, and lower end bidding items, plus the "average guy" collectible. I don't think you will see much of a change at the high end, but at the lower end bidding items, the shrinkage in discretionary Bitcoin-type available funds will likely shrink the buyer's pool. Average guy collectibles, which are at the bottom, won't change much, but they can't really drop much further than where they are (e.g., I don't see $100 pages going to $35). So prices won't really move, but sales will drop.

McFarlane’s style includes exaggeration; it has a warmth to it so it isn’t mistaken.Drawing a hand with too many fingers is a mistake. But don’t ignore the dynamism in Kirby’s style.

While this is a stunningly vibrant page, which any collector would be happy to own, it also contains some of the elements of his work that bother and distract me. Take a look at that left leg of Cap’s. Did he dislocate it? And, why does it seem to be longer than his other leg? Then, there’s the window angle compared to Cap. From a composition perspective, it’s tilted shape makes sense. But then why is Cap jumping almost straight out? Was the floor crooked? Now, none of this changes the fact that it is a great piece, but I really don’t like these types of mistakes.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what the next page says?

Just that they look nicely done.

So, you have no preference? Or perhaps it depends, that’s fine too.

It can depend upon where it is coming from, and what may be the continuing impact of COVID. I think mine was about 10 weeks, when Brazil was basically in lockdown.

Who do you like better, not who is more significant. I generally prefer Adams, but it also depends on the subject matter of the work.

I think that part of what you are seeing is the difference between DC style and Marvel style. My understanding is that DC traditionally gives scripts to the artists with panels and pages laid out (presumably, with some room for modifications). Marvel gives a plot summary which the artists then draw as the story, with dialogue coming after from the writers. Since Kirby was as Marvel as you are going to get, your experiment would confirm that. Also, it was Adams who fought for creators rights, getting them the right to their artwork before the Copyright Act of 1975 essentially destroyed the presumption of work-for-hire. I think he did more than that, including the setting up of defense funds of some sort, but I don’t know the details. Kirby got some of his artwork back after Marvel was essentially shamed into giving it back.

Grapey, I carefully phrased my first question; I don't think either artist is "superior" since they do come from different sylistic directions. Historically, I preferred Adams' style because it had an air of realism in circumstances where realism, IMO, was more appropriate to the subject matter. Batman, for example, is supposed to be gritty. So, life-like people and circumstances make sense. But take something like the Silver Surfer, a fundimentally bizarre concept, which I think is much better suited to flights of fancy. Kirby would be better suited to that, again, IMO. These days, with my taste leaning towards the supernatural, I favor art that has a darker line with a lighter, airier brush, almost impressionistic--which is neither of these two giants. But in terms of impact--what followed these artists--how many artists can attribute their training to studying Jack vs. Neal? Sal was mostly at Marvel, do you think he studied Jack's work on his path to becoming a god (cough, cough)?

How many professional artists developed their style based on Kirby’s work vs. Adams work? And then there are the layouts: Kirby could be inventive, but I think on that one, you also have to give it to Adams.

Two separate questions: (1) Who do you prefer as an artist, and if you have reasons, so much the better; and (2) Who do you consider the more impactful artist in terms of OA, as a whole? For this question, I would separate out Adams’ work which improved artists’ pay, because I think that tilts the question too much towards Adams. I’m thinking more in terms of style of work. Poor Jack was more like a pin-cushion for publishers to take advantage of. By the way, for me, the answer in both cases is Adams, but everyone has an opinion. As to #2, you can see Adams’ influence in, e.g.,Byrne, Grell, and Batista (who once confirmed it when I asked him) to name a few.

Fair nitpick. How do you compare, for example, Bruce Timm and Neal Adams? That’s a major reason I buy art from artists I don’t particularly like—comparisons in style. So how about something emphasizing the interest of the buying public, like “potentially, more commercial interest.” By the way, some stuff just is bad by almost any standard.

No, not a valid test because this subject is governed by complacency. Comic Art is not a competition, as much as we wish it were. Comics are a business designed to get out a product that generates a solid rate of return. If the public accepted Sal’s work, and the books continue to sell for a profit, why risk it on a better artist? If anything, put the new artist on a different book and see how that works out. Sal’s work does what it was supposed to do: illustrate a story while moving the plot forward. Good job, not godhood. One thing I didn’t like about his work were the facial expressions. He had like, 5 stock expressions which he could increase or decrease in tonality. Pick a situation, add expression #3, adjust eyebrows, and move on. If a situation didn’t fit a stock expression, leave it out.

Adams was a real god. He re-created comic story-telling the way he opened up pages with his layouts. He advanced what Eisner pioneered. His characters were larger than life, but nonetheless, real people. Without an Adams, would we have seen a Byrne, a Lee, or any number of artists who used his work to learn how to draw? Apart from getting artists their art back, he apparently helped boost their pay (I don’t know the details). He was a bit full of himself, and a real salesman of his work, but when you got past the “I’m Neal Adams”, he was a good guy (and an “old school” liberal).

I've used "the other guy", and he is excellent.

When I first saw this thread, I assumed it was going to be satirical. Guess not. Sal did his job; he illustrated stories. Mostly, in pretty conventional ways. There is nothing I find brilliant about his work. It isn’t particularly clever or finely drawn, although the raw volume is impressive. Compare it to, say, Chaykin or Wrightson or Lee. There, you can find brilliance. That doesn’t mean Sal is a bad artist. He had the house style down nicely. And maybe there is a “pocket universe” somewhere in which he qualifies for godhood—but not this one. Feels good to get that off my chest.