Aahz

I appreciate the ASM #300 cover's pricing. I can point to my wife and say, can you believe what comic art is bringing now!!! :-) Bough one piece from a book that I had been looking for (for a while now). Very reasonable.

The provenance no doubt helped as well. Not only can you say you have a cool piece (many which were already framed), but they were also owned by Harlan Ellison. I was active on the Plunkett Spectre cover (actually covers), but it went for a lot more than I expected.

With that many pages of certain items, it has to have a downward price push.

Hmmm. Wonder if this auction is going too be too much of a good thing. Multiple Wrightson pages, Sandman pages, etc.

Kudos on the historic Tulip reference!! :-)

Well the one thing the thread did do is motivate me to start looking at some of the older art on CAF ... and liking/commenting on them.

Feels like the auction that just won't end.

I wonder if Heritage would share how many unique bidders there are ... just the number. This is a lot of $$$ floating around

Part of me really wants the art from the DC horror/mystery stuff to go up esp. the Filipino artists. Its wonderful art and I think under appreciated. That being said, I still want to buy it too!

I hear a lot that nostalgia is the main driver in this hobby. However, this does not explain interest in art from the 40's through the early 60's or the prices being realized by modern artists like Tradd Moore (first name that came to mind) whose work has not been around long enough to drive nostalgic feelings. :-). At the same time, I read one comment that a collector was happy they did not follow story driven pages/books, because a great story could drive mediocre art. However, if story is not a driver, why doesn't everyone just collect commissions or pin ups? Now art isn't the end all be all either, because there are great modern artists that still don't get their full value and older so-so pages that are expensive. I'm writing this while watching Heritage and seeing a bunch of Ross Andru pages from the late 60's early 70's going for about $10K a piece. They are nice pages, but what is driving the price? So which is it - Nostalgia, art, or story?

I'm just being cantankerous. Since I've been collecting long enough, this is a version of, "I remember when gum was a nickel!"

I really have to update my thinking ... I still have trouble swallowing $1,000 as budget.

Since we are on Sparling, one of my favorite covers!

You had to go and bash Bomba ... :-)

Well, here is (maybe) an under the radar opportunity on eBay, Scott Hampton has been selling pages from Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book." They are going for $200-500 for the most part. Scott inked/painted these. The penciller ... P. Craig Russell, although he is not mentioned in the description but has autographed the pages.

I may be completely wrong (usually am), but to a certain extent I don't think it has anything to do with the economy. The Sandman page I bought in 1994 for $125 has a bunch more 000 behind it now. Same with the Sal Busmen Hulk pages for $10 each in 1996. Now these are outliers because of their popularity. However, the Bronze Age DC horror pages that I bough for $10 in 1997 probably reasonable retail for $100-150. So they have all gone up in value, some more than others relative to inflation and CPI. I think the question is, will pages like this continue to rise in value or will they top off at some point. Now I will agree that the economy and global politics can/will have an effect as to the speed, and, yes, there could be a wholesale loss in interest in the field like Beanie Babies. I think really that is what most people that love this as a hobby or whatever you call it at this price point want comfort in. If they spend what they feel is a large amount, will it sustain.

It's a fair point, and I agree that nothing is immune when you have a significant economic/political event. However, that also indicates that people won't have the time/appetite for a hobby ... there are bigger issues. I'm not an economist (although I'm not sure that anyone seems to have a bead on what the hell is going on), but assuming that there is no precipitous drop that would cause people to re-evaluate how they are spending money, I'm not sure that you will see much price softness. All that being said, I'm prefer finding material that I like that is under $1000 that I enjoy. I can see that stuff just sticking there ... which is fine for me. The 5 figure panel pages ... I think they would have to be something special.

Only my opinion, and I collect because I love the stuff ... not because of opportunity. Leaving aside price, comic art is not comic books, sports cards, beanie babies. It is combination of words and art ... one moment in a story and one of a kind ... regardless of popularity or quality. If you destroy a published piece, there will not be another. If there are enough people that enjoy this (for whatever reason), the price will maintain. Not that it is a perfect comparable, but Picasso was very prolific, creating an estimated 50,000 original artworks. Prices have not gone down. Now not everyone artist is a Picasso, but there is an appetite and market for his works and the prices maintain. Unless people decide that there is no value in this as art, the prices will maintain and maybe continue to rise.

The romance covers went for around $3K. I was floored.

I understand why Bill (Cox) does not want to get involved in parsing out what does or does not belong on CAF. You can argue about taste, etc. However, as CAF and the hobby grows, I think he is going to have to do some segregation and policing of different CAF pages or risk becoming like Ebay. I think being swayed by hyperbole is an issue with any hobby. People collect differently and different things, and maybe they want the first appearances. Their thing. However, unlike the example above (https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1839917), Jordan is also a collector. Jay Johnston (owner of the CAF page cited) does not appear to be a collector. Leaving all issues of politics or quality of work aside, I don't think a page like this should be in the regular "collector" flow. Perhaps an amateur artist or artist section?

A lot of shows, the stuff being offered (for me) was ok ... nothing super. There is a new C-Link auction starting today I think and SDCC is coming up. Not sure you can read anything into this one instance.

I always liked how Ric Estrada used silohuettes. They almost look like paper cut outs.

Complete sarcasm. :-)

Well given the doom and gloom economic outlook, there have been a lot of bargains today. ;-)

Bought one very fairly priced Aragones page. Very happy with it.