BCarter27

As an added bonus, scrolling through this thread creates a moiré disco effect on my computer monitor. Apparently Zip-a-Tone can still create visual magic even in the digital age!

A poor inker is burning the midnight oil on deadline. He's jittery from caffeine and there's a baby crying somewhere. Or maybe that's just his inner child slowly fading away as he scratches out yet another panel of cross-hatching. There are presses ready to roll, delivery trucks sitting idle, and grocery spinners standing as vacant and empty as his soul. So what can he possibly do to get this ship into port on time? Get ready to cut and paste the old fashioned way, 'cause it's time for...

Zip-a-Tone!

Yes, our old yellowing, curling friend and every graphic artist's last refuge... It comes in many flavors and patterns. So let's see your Zip-a-Tone pages and panels!

I am going to try to shift the conversation a bit. We talked a lot about shifting demographics and their major effect on demand and supply being made available as collectors age out, but what about TOTAL supply of desirable OA?

 

When we look at a basket of published desirable material, what percentage of what was made still exists, sitting neatly in the portfolios of black hole collectors that has not seen the light of day for 20+ years? If most of it is out there, maybe there is more than enough for everybody. However if most of it is lost to the winds, maybe the demand side may never be satiated.

This remains to be seen as those black hole collections (or those smaller "dark matter" collections of onesies and twosies) come to light. As I said earlier, WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE POST-1975 ART? (Or whenever the Big Two decided to actively give back art. When was that for Marvel and DC? Can someone clarify?)

Also can over supply ever really occur of the desirable pieces that we know there is low supply of. We know exactly how many KJ pages there are, assuming none have been lost. on the flip side there are potentially thousands of desirable Kirby's out there. Does absolute supply of specific examples play into the future?

I was trying to articulate this point in another thread recently. The differences between a second-run Cockrum and first-run Cockrum may start to soften as that age group divests or dies out.

And further proving my point, look how many people wouldn't mind taking home the "leg" Alex Raymond.

Somebody needs to start a Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter Art Appreciation Thread.

First appearance of Lady Shiva in #5! Got my copy signed by Denny O'Neil. Wish I could've gotten those pages that popped up recently from Richard Dragon.

This modern vs vintage argument is ridiculous from an aesthetic point of view. You want word balloons? Fine, go get an overlay made. But I could crash this forum with so much art from the last 17 years that BLOWS AWAY most pre-2000 art. The competition has gotten more and more intense... both internally and with other media such as gaming. Art schools are producing more and more talent. Gaming and concept artists are spilling over into comics. Digital art has helped artists not only work faster, but get better faster while learning from their mistakes. More sharing of techniques on places like deviantart. More publishers hiring. Faster feedback from readership. These all lead to better technique.

The bulk of modern comic art is much more skilled than the bulk of pre-2000 art. It's like saying the athletes of yesteryear could compete in the same games today. Most human endeavors accelerate in their growth, building on the foundations that were laid before.

And on top of that improvement curve are the outliers... More recognition of comic art as a serious medium worthy of study has led to true virtuosos spending their time in this field. You get guys like Alex Ross or Del'Otto or Bermejo or Suayan or JH Williams or James Jean. These guys would've gone into illustration pre-1960 or Salon art pre-1900, but instead we get them in comics now.

Yes, you can show a ballooned page to your aunt and she can read it. But show your aunt an Adams/Novick/Aparo page and compare it to a Finch/Fabok/Lee/Barrows/Capullo page and see which she thinks is more exciting, took longer to complete, and has more appeal to the uninitiated.

(And for the record, I would rather own the Adams/Novick/Aparo page for nostalgic reasons, but that is not my point.)

And lest I limit my point to more illustrative styles, there are examples of cartoonier artists that are equally ground-breaking. Damion Scott, Nick Pitarra, or Geoff Darrow spring to mind.

To think that the bulk of published newer art is not superior to the bulk of published older art is very much reliant on rose-colored nostalgia glasses. There are simply more great artists today than there were great artists of yesteryear. The industry is supporting more talent than ever.

It was a good year for me. I was able to pick up some very cherished pieces. Here are my submissions...

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/MyLowry.asp?GSub=1537

Tales of the Jedi! That takes me back. Great page and not something you see every day from that title.

On the other hand, every single physical cover now is "more special" by the old metrics as they all fanboy-perfect standalone shots and such. Few floating heads w/ a buttshot like asm121

 

Kidding and poking fun, but serious too... if we are going to use the old metrics then it's worth mentioning that even with the dialogue and trade dress taken away, modern covers are often the 'perfect shot' that yesterday's collector would want.

 

I don't think any of this matters if you don't have the large readership, but playing devils advocate...

Yup. Beat me to it.

from an OA-centric point of view, it means that a smaller % of the story is happening on any given page of art. That's just simple math. As such, are there "key pages" anymore?

On the flip side, the common complaint about modern superhero OA is that the artists are so mindful of possible OA sales that they load up an issue with splashes. And most big-money collectors buy covers and splashes. So what do they care that panel pages have less story in them?

This goes back to my own worries about ending up with a collection that is all covers and splashes simply because I have tricked myself into worrying about resale. The art of layout and storytelling won't be as well represented in my collection, if I am not careful.

The longer this thread goes on, with the more posters concluding that the fallout is imminent, the more the answers to the OP might be irrelevant...

If the vintage OA market corrects/collapses in 15-30 years, then WHEN TO SELL? Answer: doesn't matter. Most collectors here on the boards have said they will welcome a drop in prices because they can finally afford art that has been out of reach. And those "dark matter" collectors, they aren't heavily invested enough to care about when to sell off either.

Everyone will divest on their own schedule, until they reach that personal point where fetishizing the object is no longer important to them. Most have come to terms with the fact that the money is burned anyway. ("Collect what you love", right? Really means, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.")

Modern OA will live on in its own different market with its own time line. It will fragment and niche along with the rest of new media.

I can't help but think these "sky is falling" threads are just to crash prices in order to pickup pages on the cheap. . The Anti-Cabal has risen!

I have sold issues complete, but for the most part, it's one page at a time. Sometimes a buyer will pick up multiple pieces, say 2 or 3, but I would estimate that 90% of the transactions are for single pages. This is a blue-collar gig!

...

...

 

I did another sale a month later (also a sell-out)...same thing.

 

Big surprise to me at the time, but now I've become used to it.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that data. I think it puts a lot of questions to bed, and I would love to hear other modern OA reps weigh in on the same questions.

So yeah, new art is selling. And to a much more diverse audience than what makes up this board.

These are the "dark matter" collectors I was referring to. The "soft" or "casual" collectors who have bought art like this since the early 80s and will likely keep doing so in the same manner until digital production really dries up the supply for good.

As for pen and ink recreations of digital pages, that's very interesting. Though they are just that to me... recreations. However, if they are all that is available, I might consider them. But given the choice between a one-off recreation of a digital page and a one-off print of the published digital page, I am not sure. I might go with the recreation since hands touched paper. I'd have to think about that.

But modern OA collectors will have to come to terms with questions like these. We are already seeing it with the pencils vs blueline inks. (Btw, sell me all of your worthless blueline ink pages. I can't see those much-preferred pencil pages on my wall from 5 feet away!)

...who the hell these people are and where they are.

And why aren't they on this Board? Assuming they skew younger...shouldn't they be even more plugged in than older, stodgier generations? Or are they not younger? Or is this Board "lame" to them for some reason (too many "old" guys around?!)

This board is awesome, but it is the equivalent of "going deep". That's why something like a Tumblr feed or iTunes podcast about OA will be much more accessible to the younger and or newer and or casual collector.

And everyone on here is a stodgy old fart with their own lingo, inside jokes, and agenda. :-)

At the last NYCC, I saw some pretty good artist (forget his name) in Artist Alley, who had gotten on some recent Marvel books. And, guess what - after working on some Marvel books for a couple of years, you accumulate literally hundreds of pages that are stacked on your table. What are those pages worth after you buy them from him? There's just so much of it that there's no real liquidity and no secondary market to speak of. It's a lot like most newer fine art - you'll never get your money out of it, maybe even not recoup anything more than a token amount.

You do see this a lot, but this is where a rep is needed to push those issues out the door as they come in... building the artist's market while the iron is hot.

Of course, a lot of this depends on the quality of the artist and the book's profile/sales too.

I think the thing about the vintage market is that a cherry-picking of sorts has already happened because we only see a fraction of it. Gobs of bad to mediocre stuff -- from even after the Big Two started handing art back -- must have been thrown away by the artists or their heirs. Or maybe I am wrong and it's all just sitting in closets somewhere.

I have a few artists from the Copper era that I lust after and I can't possibly fathom where all of the art from their 20-30 year career went. It was either destroyed or just sold off piecemeal over the years. I seriously doubt there are collectors hoarding hundreds of pages, but who knows? Prices were so cheap back then. I guess it's possible. But it's more likely that there are just a silent majority of "soft" OA collectors out there sitting on 1-2 pages. That "dark matter" of OA collectors and their heirs might inadvertently prop up prices longer than we expect... even after all of the BSDs and known dealers cash out.

Speaking of dealers, how are the major ones planning to close out? Will the business stay in the family, be sold off to a competitor, or inventory liquidated in progressive sales? Anyone know of any future plans? How have some of the retired, past dealers closed out?

About the museum donation thing... I don't know why this idea always rubs me the wrong way. Maybe the thought of so many pieces being out of play takes the fun out of the game and this is pure selfishness on my part. However, unless your art has some kind of social relevance (AF 15, GL GA drug issue, Ali vs. Superman, Crumb, Mad, Bechdel, etc.) I think there is a lot of hubris in thinking a museum/library/university would want it. They really aren't going to appreciate it the way your fellow collectors will. And it will probably just turn into a burden on the institution to be deaccessioned later. Meanwhile, we all will have to drive to the Univ of Toledo to see those What If and Blue Devil pages you donated!

I have not been around much lately so I really have no accurate idea. Is there any one person, or a group out there who can compare notes and come up with fairly accurate population numbers, age demographics, financial wealth and collecting habits information as to what the OA hobby currently looks like?

I would think Mark Hay, Felix, Essential Sequential, and the like would have a better handle on the modern OA collecting population. ComicLink skews the youngest out of the auction house (outside of ebay). ComicConnect and Heritage are getting the older, wealthier crowd.

I think a correction might occur to vintage super-hero art at around the 30 year mark, but I don't think it will crash as hard as comics, vinyl, books, or sports cards. The one-of-a-kind aspect is still alluring enough and I think the remaining second-gen collectors (as in the group right after the group that bought the last physical art) will still be propping up prices to some extent.

I think whatever changes to the modern indie art scene will happen much sooner than that. The new model may have settled in about 5 years.

Sprang Batcave !!!

A bit more on the indie stuff... One of the reasons for the indie comics explosion is because everyone is looking for that Hollywood money. That isn't going away any time soon.

So, what happens many years down the road when a webcomic with, say, 10 years of serial storytelling gets turned into a massive TV hit? A new Walking Dead. It will have all been done digitally by a more mainstream-friendly artist. (I love Adlard, but how would TWD art look to the casual masses if it were more rendered by a Mico Suayan or an Eddy Barrows or maybe even if it were more cartoony like Tony Moore or a Terry Moore.)

So there is no OA for this future webcomic/TV hit except for cover-quality commissions bought through a rep and those prices go through the roof? And they hold their resale because of lack of supply? Do digital con prints become even MORE popular as the con souvenir of choice in place of cheap interior pages?

Thoughts?

Some great points. However, I'm not sure you can decry the volume of modern OA pages on one hand while lamenting the lack of supply (due to digital penciling/inking) on the other.

Also, indie art will always be more transitory than the 80-year superheroes. Someone getting priced out of Neal Adams Batman can look at an Eddy Barrows Batman and still feel some continuity there even if they aren't reading the current run. Indie art collecting is much more story-driven, than character- or aesthetics-driven.

I feel like indie explosion of recent years will lead to the indie OA market following the trend of other media... It will find its small niches of fans and collectors. Maybe that will keep pricing down for those fans and maybe that will be a good thing. The cost for entry into the hobby will be lower, stimulating participation for a web comic reader to pickup a page here or a cover there. Will there be another Jimmy Olsen-level circulation book? No, but as an article in the NY Times pointed out recently, nor will there be another ubiquitous All in the Family. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/technology/how-netflix-is-deepening-our-cultural-echo-chambers.html) And maybe that is a good thing. No more homogenized society. OA (and comics) will live on because it will break into a multitude of smaller pieces.

(Unrelated, but I think you could then make the counter-argument that the quality of art will suffer because the big paychecks will no longer be there as an incentive for a working artist to soak their time into greater works. Maybe indie art collecting will devolve into only con sketches or commissions.)

Moving forward, I think indie OA will have even MORE collectors than the current Gen X and Baby Boomer crowd. However, the prices may be lower and the collections may be smaller. Volume up, price down.

I think the proliferation of reading digitally will mean that the fetishization of the object itself, which is the true heart of collecting, will be diminished. I think this is a good thing as well. People may finally learn to pursue the experience rather than the material goods. Maybe this will spill into OA. Maybe it should spill into OA.

But back to vintage super-heroes... In 30 years, what happens to all of the pages from today and back? If everyone is producing digitally with greater frequency, does it all become irrelevant garbage or does it then become truly collectible -- because now it is its own category in the history of popular art and it has a finite supply?

I keep looking for models of comparison in other collecting areas. Certainly, pottery and ceramics went through a similar change of production methods. Or Old Master fine art has similar name recognition of a dead group of originating pioneers. But neither collecting field has the mass appeal of comics.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable about vinyl collecting could weigh in... Are the overall number of collectors up or down? Are prices up or down? How many super-collectors are out there buying up the collapsing market for pennies? (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/magazine/the-brazilian-bus-magnate-whos-buying-up-all-the-worlds-vinyl-records.html)

That Sibyla piece is stunning in person. Congrats!

And congrats on that marriage thing too. ;-)

done

 

Docs Lowry

 

 

Firestorm 1 cover! So cool!

Detective Comics 617 pages 17, 18 & 19, pencils by Norm Breyfogle, inks by Steve Mitchell

This thing is seriously HUGE! This piece repeatedly makes The Wife stand up and yell, "I am the Bat!". Breyfogle upended the way Batman was drawn and brought him into a new era. His cape and use of both regular and inverted silhouettes brought an energy at least equivalent to McFarlane's webbing. Norm's work on Detective was illustrative and emotive in the faces when necessary and then flatly graphic and even downright geometric when things needed to get really intense!

http://www.comicartfans.com/LowryPiece.asp?Piece=8512

 

 

This is EPIC.

Thanks! You've got some amazing pieces by him as well. It really ticks every box - fav artist, nostalgia, Bats, DPS, even a nice mat setup. Credit to my wife who saw it and was trying to grab the mouse out of my hand to buy it right away!

Just heard back... No dice on my one request this year. But glad others are getting their picks!

The Wife and I had our biggest OA year by far, both in dollars and in volume. We have really shifted our collecting habits (following a lot of great advice found on these forums and in Felix's podcast interviews) and I think the results speak for themselves...

Wonder Woman 165 page 4, pencils by Phil Jimenez and inks by Andy Lanning

Jimenez's design and layout here exceeds even the great George Perez. His WW model is both perfectly Amazonian and super-heroic. And his line work is brought to exquisite life by Andy Lanning. I mean, look at her hair! This page encapsulates everything you need to know about the character... a bridge of peace between the gods and humanity.

http://www.comicartfans.com/LowryPiece.asp?Piece=8511

Detective Comics 617 pages 17, 18 & 19, pencils by Norm Breyfogle, inks by Steve Mitchell

This thing is seriously HUGE! This piece repeatedly makes The Wife stand up and yell, "I am the Bat!". Breyfogle upended the way Batman was drawn and brought him into a new era. His cape and use of both regular and inverted silhouettes brought an energy at least equivalent to McFarlane's webbing. Norm's work on Detective was illustrative and emotive in the faces when necessary and then flatly graphic and even downright geometric when things needed to get really intense!

http://www.comicartfans.com/LowryPiece.asp?Piece=8512

Joker (2008) page 16, pencils, inks, and wash by Lee Bermejo, inks by Mick Gray

Lee Bermejo is a phenom. Look closely at his strange, self-taught geometric shading technique. I've never seen anything like it. And his level of rendering puts most fine arts painters to shame. This is a great example of both his wash as well as his gnarly pencil style with inks by Mick Gray. Appropriately, his "Black Dahlia" take on the Joker was likely an inspiration for Ledger's seminal Joker interpretation. Every time I look at this page, I mutter, "wtf!"

http://www.comicartfans.com/LowryPiece.asp?Piece=8514

Gotham Central 15 page 14, pencils by Michael Lark

"Zut alors! I haf missed one!" "Soft Targets" is likely the 2nd greatest Joker story ever told. It is a pity the dialog is not on this page, because this was THE SCARIEST MOMENT in a comic book I have EVER read. And Lark was the one who sold it. A scary man in clown makeup breaks out of holding, kills a cop with his handcuff, and then starts shooting the rest in the head, until it's just you (the secretary) and him! Greg Rucka once described Michael Lark's work as not photo-REALISTIC, but photo-JOURNALISTIC, which I think says it all. He is a master of body language and a true storyteller.

http://www.comicartfans.com/LowryPiece.asp?Piece=8519

Nexus: God Con 2 page 18, pencils by Steve Rude, inks by Gary Martin

Steve Rude may be the greatest comic artist of all time. Yeah, I said it. He out-Kirbys Kirby. His line is perfect (especially when Martin inks him.) His acting is equally full of comedy and drama. His design work on every costume, location, nut, and bolt is downright exhausting. And his layouts are so instinctually brilliant that they trick you into not noticing all of the other amazing things I just mentioned. The symetrical layout, the borderless "panels", the expressions, the over-the-top villain design, and the balance of blacks all really come together here. Steve Rude goes for broke on every page, never phoning it in.

http://www.comicartfans.com/LowryPiece.asp?Piece=8520

Honorable Mentions --

Nexus: Executioner's Song 3 page 22, pencils by Steve Rude, inks by Gary Martin

The Dude can do super-heroes. The Dude can do drama. But The Dude does madcap comedy like nobody's business. This page is PACKED with site gags and detail. It's the kind of page you can hang up and always find something new to see in it... like Maggie Simpson?! How many artists can balance Dr. Suess, Groenig, Loomis, and Toth on one page?

Nexus: God Con 2 page 21, pencils by Steve Rude, inks by Gary Martin

VAM! Vootie!

Star Wars 20 cover prelim, pencils and inks and watercolor by Mike Mayhew

Mayhew brings every bit of his trademark energy to this prelim and then some. No one makes naturalistic or photo-real drawing look as easy Mike.

Winter Soldier 7 page 11 pencils by Michael Lark, inks over bluelines by Stefano Gaudiano

Lark and Guadiano are pb&j. This scene is perfectly staged and draws you into an action movie in progress. Excuse me while I pick the broken glass out of my face!

Other notable 2016 pickups-

Batman Earth One by Gary Frank and Jonathan Sibal

Nightwing by Eddy Barrows and Eber Ferreira

Catwoman commission by Unknown

The Exterminators by Tony Moore and Dan Green

Samurai: Heaven and Earth by Luke Ross

Pat Savage by Kewber Baal

Army of Darkness: Furious Road by Kewber Baal

Leave it to Chance and Hellboy... pb&j!