Well, you can always do business with reps who don't do such things, and are currently holding a Christmas sale on many pieces of original art, like myself.
But don't take my word for it, see for yourself:
http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=3287
I think all reps should limit themselves to a few hundred pages and a handful of creators. It makes inventory updating a breeze for them and it makes my browsing experience as quick and easy as possible.
Seeing the work of almost 80 artists and tens of thousands of pieces of artwork on one site is like a trek through the desert in comparison.
Oh, I quite agree with all you said. It's why I'll never work with more than 10 to 12 artists, at most. It just becomes to unwieldy to handle more than that, especially if you are a one-man operation (as I am). Keep enough artists to have regular updates, but not so many that you can't keep up with them. Pretty easy rule of thumb, IMO.
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Of course it's not much of a test of that theory until you have a chance to rep someone like Romita Jr., or Perez, or Finch and you turn them down because it would be "unwieldy".
It's like having a hard and fast rule to not date more than one supermodel at a time. It only really comes into play if you've got a shot at one supermodel in the first place.
Is this a backhanded slight at the artists I work with now? It certainly is feeling like it. And if I was at my 10-12 artists limit, I wouldn't care who the artist was. I don't take on more than I can handle. That does a disservice to the artist, to the buyer, and to myself. I know it might be hard to believe that there are still people in this hobby with scruples, ethics, and standards, but we do exist. I'm one of them.
Of course not. It's more of a shot at you attempting to elevate your stature at the expense of Spencer's, in a thread that has nothing to do with you or your business.
Oh, so you mean "doing what businesses do." Oh, okay, thanks for the clarification.
I don't see any other reps hopping from thread to thread on this forum, in threads about or by other sellers and reps, to hype their own business.
Probably because their own threads are getting enough attention on their own.
Either that or they can't handle the strain and have self-limited their amount of posts to nothing more than an optimum amount.