RockMyAmadeus

Annnnnddd...as usual, I'm days late to the party.

Whenever I am at a convention, inevitably most dealers have multiple stacks of books set aside because they are 'On Hold" for so and so. We all know so and so doesn't buy all the books, they are just setting them aside to prevent others from buying them. I would hate to see this same technique employed in a sales thread. In this specific case I think the seller should have stated the book is Sold, not On Hold. There is a difference. You're talking about two very different things and you're bringing emotion into the discussion when it's clear cut that there was a written contract. We're not privy to why books are being held at shows or on the forum. Some are held as committed purchases. Some are held because people want to flip through the books, etc. Here are the rules as posted by the OP: In this case, based on the PM exchange posted, quadman78 was obviously fully committed to the purchase as he was willing to pay the full $10K. The only purpose of the hold was to a) figure out how to get that money to the seller b) how to get the book to the buyer. He was willing to pay outside of Paypal He was willing to have the book shipped to a US address. You'll note that the seller even encouraged discussion on payment / shipping / pickup options. Those negotiations were cut short unfairly IMO because both buyers were willing to fulfill those conditions. It just took a little longer with quadman78 - and based on the book being on hold, I'd have figured that quadman78 should have had a reasonable amount of time t speak his peace before being shut out. And again, it's important to note that the seller was the one that instituted the hold based on negotiation and the seller didn't fully explain. If the seller removes the hold before negotiation is complete it's a cheesy move in any negotiation, whether it's real estate, comics or anything else. Cheesy yes but well within his rights to do so. The seller pulled the plug immediately after the 3rd party suggestion. He did not like the terms. Negotiation over. Thanks for your interest. The negotiations may have lasted longer if there was no other buyer waiting but the seller is not obligated to continue the discussion. The PM could have easily been from the buyer No thanks, you're from Canada and I only ship to the US. Seller removes himself from PM It doesn't matter if the buyer was from the Congo. If he had a US address to ship to, he met the conditions of the sale prior to his PM. The buyer met the conditions of the sale. "trory" did not have the right to back out at that point. And he *certainly* should not have put it on hold. If he wants to have that right, he needs to state it up front: "I reserve the right to sell or not sell to whomever I choose, for whatever reason I choose" (which is what I do.) That way, people know nothing is final until I say it is. If I think you smell...no book for you! None of this lazy "normal rules apply" business.

In case this wasn't mentioned before: It's tough trying to slog through the "one more bid, and I'll have to sell my car" verbiage in the posts...I doubt the...less particular...among us even bother.

It is not "arguing semantics" when there's a very real transaction on the line. If you have a check or MO, and you wait the appropriate time for clearance, where is the risk? You insure the book, you pack it well, you get all the bells and whistles, you get the buyer's acceptance of the bells and whistles in writing, and you're done. What is the buyer going to do, claim he never got the item and sue you? From another country? When you have all his accepted terms in writing?

There is no such thing as "normal rules", because there are no standard selling rules in place on this board from the moderators (outside of things like no Paypal Personal for merchandise.) If you have specific rules, they need to be stated, upfront, every time....especially on a "5 FIGURE BOOK."

Agreed. I have passed on several items because they were on hold. It means it's being held for someone else, provided they work out the details. If it falls through, and the hold is released, THEN it's available for others. Otherwise...don't place it on hold.

And if that doesn't sum up the entire argument, nothing does.

Hahahahahahahahhahahahahaha I love that all of your arguments hinge almost entirely on your personal feelings about what a word means. "Well to me 'artist' means this specific set of requirements and without them you can't possibly consider yourself an artist!" Hahahaha. You are a trip. Do you know how many professionals never draw outside of work? Who draw only because it's the career they're in? But apparently they aren't artists huh? And I love that after proclaiming that McFarlane is not an artist based on your bizarro world logic, you then actually say "an artist wakes up every morning with a desire to create" - but clearly that doesn't apply to creating a toy, a video game, or any art not used in a comic book?? Hahaha, really starting to think you're writing to us from he psyche ward in Bellevue... When you cannot make your arguments without insulting those you are arguing with, you have lost. As far as "psyche ward in Bellevue"...who is the one typing "Hahahahahaha" over and over....? Isn't that what the Joker does....? Laughs maniacally? One more thing... As all the actual Artists on this board know (as opposed to "people who happen to make their living with or in the arts"), you have no concept of what it means to BE an Artist. You do not understand, and so you mock. If you do not eat, breathe, live your artform...every day. If it does not ooze our of your pores, and infuse your being with drive to create....then you are not an Artist. You may be what the professional world calls an "artist"...but you are NOT an Artist. I am NOT a Musician, despite the fact that I hold a degree in it. It does not drive me, it does not wake me up in the middle of the night with new ideas (ok, sometimes it does), it does not force me to create, whether that creation is new, or just new to my listeners. If I was, I would never put down my instruments, be they pen, computer, or violin. Mozart was. Beethoven was. Pucinni was. Bach was. Bernstein was. Williams is. Perlman is. Stern was. These people were Artists, more particularly Composers and Musicians. It's what they did, every single day of their lives. It consumed them, their thoughts, their dreams, their ambitions. It's who they were. So, NO, dear RabidFerret, you do NOT understand what it means to be an Artist. These are NOT my "personal feelings", though I certainly share them. And to answer your question: if someone who is employed to draw doesn't do it outside of work...then NO, they are NOT Artists. They are journeymen. A genuine Artist draws constantly, compulsively, on napkins and counters and walls and any other thing they can doodle on. It is, again, what they do. If they put it away after 5PM and don't think about it again until 8AM the next morning, they may be good craftsmen, they may be excellent journeymen....but they are NOT ARTISTS. And other Artists and those who understand Art know PRECISELY what I am talking about.

Not just that, but an obstinate, obdurate 13 year old who thinks, like most 13 year olds, he knows everything....and with an adult's vocabulary and capacity for disguising horse manure as "plausible."

What "popular characters" did Rob Liefeld create...? Don't say Cable, because Louise Simonson was just as responsible, if not moreso, for him. Don't say Deadpool, because Liefeld gave him the barest outline of a character, who wasn't very popular until Joe Kelly, Mark Waid, and others fleshed him out. After all...we don't call Kirby the "co-creator" of Spiderman, simply because he drew the cover to Fantasy #15. Anyone else....?

What planet are you two insufficiently_thoughtful_persons living on? Go research some of the wildly_fanciful_statement you're trying to shovel. This is a complete fallacy. Liefeld solicited a comic called Berserkers, a ripoff of X-Force, that was going to be released through Malibu at the same time he was doing XF. Marvel went berserk and threatened to sue and fire him. Liefeld talked to McFarlane, explained what he was doing, and it snowballed from there. The entire thing started from Liefeld. McFarlane had already quit Marvel and was playing daddy, completely unsure what he was doing next. Are you kidding me? You've mostly named a list of popular current writers and a hack artist who was popular for a few years for doing photo reference paintings. There are plenty of great artists and writers throughout history, but the vast majority of them could have vanished and things wouldn't have changed. The only ones on this list that belong are the ones who truly changed the landscape of comics. Lee and Berger arguments could be made for but even Berger is too small in the grand scheme, working at a single company. Lee at least created Wildstorm, ran multiple studios, then took over DC. The same argument could be made for Johns and Quesada. Perelman sadly belongs as well, and an argument could be made for Geppi. Your perspective is utterly, utterly off. Karen Berger is responsible for Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison (among others) working at DC. Karen Berger CREATED Vertigo. Liefeld has had 1/100th the impact on the comics industry that Geppi and Perelman had. Seriously....stop already. You don't know what you're talking about, you know *just enough* to sound like you do, and you keep digging yourself a deeper and deeper and deeper hole. Because you keep making absurd arguments and making mess up! You put your foot in your mouth and immediately follow it up with your own insults and claiming "everything you say is a strawman argument". I've never run across such a broken record. Now you've resorted to lying and repeating what I have already said to you.

Now THAT is a far more valid list. :clap: It wasn't a competition, which is a very, very large part of your problem. It's certainly not a competition! But some people clearly understand the history of comics, such as DuPont here, as opposed to rambling off the names of your favorite writers. Yes, fine, great, I'm happy you read all the popular stuff people and magazines tell you to read. It doesn't mean any of them changed comics. Like I said...you argue like a teenager, filled with angst, but lacking in reason and logic. And I'm sure you'll have another cute quip to follow this, as well.

Hahahahahahahahhahahahahaha I love that all of your arguments hinge almost entirely on your personal feelings about what a word means. "Well to me 'artist' means this specific set of requirements and without them you can't possibly consider yourself an artist!" Hahahaha. You are a trip. Do you know how many professionals never draw outside of work? Who draw only because it's the career they're in? But apparently they aren't artists huh? And I love that after proclaiming that McFarlane is not an artist based on your bizarro world logic, you then actually say "an artist wakes up every morning with a desire to create" - but clearly that doesn't apply to creating a toy, a video game, or any art not used in a comic book?? Hahaha, really starting to think you're writing to us from he psyche ward in Bellevue... When you cannot make your arguments without insulting those you are arguing with, you have lost. As far as "psyche ward in Bellevue"...who is the one typing "Hahahahahaha" over and over....? Isn't that what the Joker does....? Laughs maniacally?

What planet are you two insufficiently_thoughtful_persons living on? Go research some of the wildly_fanciful_statement you're trying to shovel. This is a complete fallacy. Liefeld solicited a comic called Berserkers, a ripoff of X-Force, that was going to be released through Malibu at the same time he was doing XF. Marvel went berserk and threatened to sue and fire him. Liefeld talked to McFarlane, explained what he was doing, and it snowballed from there. The entire thing started from Liefeld. McFarlane had already quit Marvel and was playing daddy, completely unsure what he was doing next. Are you kidding me? You've mostly named a list of popular current writers and a hack artist who was popular for a few years for doing photo reference paintings. There are plenty of great artists and writers throughout history, but the vast majority of them could have vanished and things wouldn't have changed. The only ones on this list that belong are the ones who truly changed the landscape of comics. Lee and Berger arguments could be made for but even Berger is too small in the grand scheme, working at a single company. Lee at least created Wildstorm, ran multiple studios, then took over DC. The same argument could be made for Johns and Quesada. Perelman sadly belongs as well, and an argument could be made for Geppi. Your perspective is utterly, utterly off. Karen Berger is responsible for Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison (among others) working at DC. Karen Berger CREATED Vertigo. Liefeld has had 1/100th the impact on the comics industry that Geppi and Perelman had. Seriously....stop already. You don't know what you're talking about, you know *just enough* to sound like you do, and you keep digging yourself a deeper and deeper and deeper hole.

Hahahahaha, you are the most delusional person I've ever seen learn how to type. I wish I could meet you in person and give you a banana for all you've accomplished. When you have to insult the people you're debating, it's almost always because your arguments have failed. Source? I can post page after horrible page of Spiderman #321, 322, 323, 325....it's rushed, it's poorly inked, the faces are all squashed...it's a mess, and being bi-weekly didn't help it. Why do you insist on making things up out of thin air? Just to keep you straight, we're not talking about #315-317 NOR #328, although the signs were starting to show that McFarlane was getting lazy. His best work on the run was issues #310-314, where he clearly had the time and willingness to really pour his heart into it. #322, by comparison, is a HACK JOB, and only someone completely unfamiliar with his work would say otherwise. This is a deflection, and bears no resemblance to reality. This is also a deflection.

Now THAT is a far more valid list. :clap: It wasn't a competition, which is a very, very large part of your problem.

If you can't make your arguments without calling people names, there's really no point in having a conversation. It simply shows that you feel your position is weak, so you mask it by aggressive posturing. If your argument was solid, you wouldn't need to be calling people "insufficiently_thoughtful_persons."

McFarlane's art got worse as time went on, after a certain point. That particular scene is from Spidey #318 or #319. Issues #320-325 are a mess. Issue #300, on the other hand, is as good as McFarlane ever got (outside of the excessive linework on Brock.)

Liefeld CO-created (talk about "refusing to give credit") those characters (and "large number"...?), created a clone army that either got better or found themselves out of a job, and brought a lot of people into the hobby, who all promptly left when they realized what they had gotten into. Do you simply not know that the industry crashed, from which it has NEVER recovered, in 1994-96? Right. We wouldn't have Cable, we wouldn't have Deadpool, and....? The fact is, without Rob Liefeld, the comic book industry wouldn't have been changed much at all. As Chuck said, it was MCFARLANE, not Liefeld, who came up with Image, so there goes that one. And I can name 50 people who are more important to comics in the last 25 years than Rob Liefeld. Here, let's start: Alex Ross Neil Gaiman Grant Morrison Jim Lee Karen Berger Ron Perelman (ugh) Steve Geppi Brian Michael Bendis Robert Kirkman Geoff Johns etc...etc...etc...

These are irrational, illogical, fallacious arguments. The exclusion of one possible meaning does not therefore exclude all other possible meanings. The cover to Killing Joke has nothing to do with the Joker "taking up photography"....but it DOES reveal a crucial plot point to the story, and, in that respect, it is a good example of STORYtelling. The cover to Animal Man #5 has nothing to do with "how to draw a comic book"...it is a METAPHOR, used to describe both the story inside, and the direction that Morrison was going with the series. As such, it performs DOUBLE duty as a STORYtelling device. Metaphor is one of the better storytelling devices that exist. Only a LITERALIST would fail to recognize the validity of both those covers as telling the story. You argue like a teenager, filled with angst, yet utterly devoid of basic logic, inventing points simply because they sound good in your head at the time, but which have nothing to do with the discussion. You: "Rob Liefeld is the greatest artist, EVER!" Logic: "What a minute. What about the standard rules of art, like perspective, anatomical accuracy, proportion, and all the rest?" You: "Hogwash! Liefeld doesn't have to follow any stupid "rules", he's EXCITING!!" Logic: "But even the most exciting 'art' has to follow basic rules, or it will eventually get stale and boring." You: "You don't know what's going on in his mind! You don't know that he doesn't know the rules!" Logic: "How can you possibly make such a claim, when there is absolutely no evidence, over the course of nearly 30 years, that Rob Liefeld "knows" the standard rules of art? That's like saying you're the greatest inventor ever...you just haven't invented anything yet. It's a fallacious argument." You: "Oh, so you're saying Rob Liefeld doesn't know the rules of art? How can you possibly know that? Are you a mindreader? Logic: "Yes, by the complete lack of any demonstration, it can be quite reasonably concluded that Rob Liefeld does not know the basic rules of art." You: "You just hate Rob Liefeld, and are jealous of his success." Logic: "That's right, it's all stemming from jealousy. Brilliant deductive reasoning, there. Of course, that's not even remotely what I said, but you seem quite impervious to facts." You: "Here's a lamp for you." Just stop...you're making yourself look incredibly silly.

And where did any of that start from? Would Kieth have left Marvel to start his own book? Doubtful. "Left Marvel"? Kieth didn't WORK for Marvel. He did work for HIRE, not contract work. Kieth had been an independent artist for 8 years before doing any work for Marvel. Image was in the right place at the right time for KIETH, not the other way around. He would have found a way to publish Maxx...just as Aragones found a way to publish Groo....whether Image existed or not. Stormwatch was never a "Jim Lee" book. Supreme was never a "Rob Liefeld" book. That their names appeared on the books in the beginning means little to nothing. By the time Alan Moore got to Supreme, and Warren Ellis got to Stormwatch, they had been abandoned by Lee and Liefeld as creators for years. And, AGAIN, you're changing what I said to make your weak arguments sound better. No one is "refusing" to give anyone credit. Liefeld and Lee don't DESERVE credit for these books, because they had almost nothing to do with them. I DO have a thing for Alan Moore, though you wouldn't know that from this discussion, this being the first time his name has been brought up.

Oh, you've got that right. The marketplace wanted the promise of ultrahot books, and that's exactly what they got: the promise of ultrahot books and nothing else. The market got precisely what it asked for. Image Comics is still around despite Liefeld, and to a lesser extent Lee, and to a lesser extent McFarlane. Liefeld had nothing to do with Image "re-imagining" itself 15 years ago. Eric Stephenson has done far, far, far more to accomplish what you state than Rob Liefeld has ever done, or ever could do. 1. Timely Comics showed up in 1939. Timely was on the ground floor as much as anyone else was. And while some of the work was derivative of Superman and National, it wasn't all. And Timely managed to stay alive, while others like Fawcett (sued out of existence), Dell, Quality, and Standard did not. 2. Valiant comics appeared in 1990 and just started cranking out amazing books, on time, monthly, by late 1991. 3. Pacific Comics appeared in 1982 and just started cranking out amazing books (though the Schanes' poor management sunk them.) 4. First Comics appeared in 1981 and just started cranking out amazing books. 5. It was the DIRECT MARKET, more than anything else, that made these ventures successful. The rules were now different, and yes, it allowed companies to skip the "years and growth for a company to find its place." Valiant went under because they failed to be responsible with what they had. They printed comics with greedy glee, and failed to understand the longterm effects of what they were doing. People didn't "stop caring"....Valiant committed suicide by devouring itself. And the Valiant that exists today has absolutely nothing...nothing....to do with the company Jim Shooter founded, except the trademarks. But that doesn't change the fact that they rapidly "found their place."

You misread my post. I didn't, and wouldn't, say that. See above posts for the whole explanation. Reader's Digest version: it's one thing to produce a few books a year, and say "you'll get 'em when you get 'em" (Fantagraphics)...it's another to promise them next week, and they show up 9 months later (Image.)

It was the greatest con in the entire history of the comics industry. At least...at LEAST...Marvel made sure their trash actually showed up, month in and month out. But this guy was a kid when all this happened, not an adult....so he had no idea what was going on in the industry outside of his local comic store racks. And in the ensuing time, he has completely failed to educate himself otherwise....but has the chutzpah, the moxy, to keep making his arguments. He really ought to give it up.