comiconxion

On Saturday, November 5th at 11AM PT/2PM ET, join Mike Vosburg, Bill Cox and me (Chuck Costas) for a special live art "claim" sale. This sale will celebrate the release of the new Lori Lovecraft Omnibus and full color Lori Lovecraft comic "Dark Inheritance" The sale will feature 32 pieces from Mike's personal collection dating back to "Linda Lovecraft's" appearances in Star*Reach in the 1970's. The sale will also include a variety of B&W and color interior pages, pin-ups, and covers. You can join the sale here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBip5wbKG4U Each lot will be revealed one by one on the Livestream and in this gallery simultaneously. I'll keep this gallery updated during the event so that you'll know what lots are still available and which have been sold. Any unsold lots will also be available through this gallery after the Livestream event until November 12th. Each piece will be priced to sell and orders will be taken on a first come, first served basis. To reserve a piece, send me an e-mail directly at comiconxion@hotmail.com or you can send a message through CAF. Tune in and be quick. I expect many pieces to be sold within seconds of their reveal. When you reserve a piece, please indicate the lot # you want to reserve. Check out Mike Vosburg's website at vozart.com to learn a little bit more about Mike and to check out examples of his work. Keep your eyes out for banner ads and notices on CAF for more info. about the sale and we hope to see you on November 5th!

So, should we expect to see any $1M cover sales any anytime soon? Probably not. Why? Because pretty much all of these covers are locked up with collectors who love them and frankly don't need to sell. Without revealing any "non-public" info., here's a run down on where all the covers on my list currently lie. - Killing Joke #NN - This is the biggest piece that is unknown and if it were to come to market, it could set new records. - Dark Knight #1 - Recently purchased by Jim Halperin. - Uncanny X-Men #137, Uncanny X-Men #141 - Rumored to still be owned by Terry Austin. But he hasn't wanted to sell in years. - Secret Wars #8, Turtles #1, Wolverine #1 (Limited Series), ASM #252, Captain America Annual #8, Iron Man #128 - Owned by Eric Roberts and have been loaned out for various art exhibits over the years. - DD #181, Secret Wars #1 - Owned by Dave Mandel and have been loaned out for various art exhibits over the years. - Hulk #340, ASM #316 - Owned by Joe Le. - Thor #337 - Still owned by Walt Simonson and will allegedly be donated with his collection. - New Mutants #98 - Owned by Tom Fish. - Punisher #1 (Limited Series) - Painted cover owned by me; B&W art owned by Dave Mandel. - ASM #328 - Purchased for $657k many years ago - not sure if owner has been publicly revealed. - DD #168 - Since I'm not sure this has been publicly revealed, I can say it is owned by a notable collector for 20+ years with no intention of selling. Given the owners, I'm not sure how many of these would come up for public auction any time soon. If they were to be sold, I would expect them to change hands via private channels. So, what does that mean? Well, we'll likely see Copper covers at the next tier (e.g., other McFarlane and key X-Men covers) attempt to push for the $1M level, but it may take a few years. And, as seen with the Secret Wars #8 page, you could see key interiors like the ASM #299 interior challenge the $1M level, but there aren't many of those either. But, it's more likely that you'll see Bronze and Silver Age material hit the $1M mark more frequently.

When you think Crisis #7, you have to also think Uncanny X-Men #136... You can debate it, but I'd probably value the #136 more, and I don't see that one cracking $1M either. Ultimately, Crisis #7 and the Death of Robin issues are some of the other more memorable DC 80's covers, but you can see with the Death of Robin issues selling recently, they haven't made it into that $1M range. Ultimately Marvel is king, especially when it comes to original art prices. Superman #75 could potentially get to that level, but again, that's Modern! And, I debated Sandman #8 and Swamp Thing #34. Although classics... just not sure they get to the $1M level (and I believe that Swamp Thing #34 was stolen years ago).

Hard to say for sure, but here are the ones that I think could be contenders (from highest to lowest) - Killing Joke #NN - Uncanny X-Men #141 - Dark Knight #1 - Uncanny X-Men #137 - Turtles #1 - Secret Wars #8 - DD #181 - Hulk #340 - Wolverine #1 (Limited Series) - Thor #337 - ASM #252 - ASM #328 - DD #168 - New Mutants #98 - Captain America Annual #8 - Secret Wars #1 - Punisher #1 (Limited Series) - ASM #316 - Iron Man #128 I'm going to leave out Uncanny X-Men #275, X-Men #1 and Spider-Man #1 since I'd consider those Modern. Also, I left out Uncanny X-Men #268 as it sold for $300k in 2020 (and also borders on Modern). Not sure it'd break $1M two years later despite market appreciation.

I think Overstreet doesn't want to price it because the publishers specifically asked people not to make these collectors items as they were intended for the visually impaired who couldn't read the book any other way. Similar to counterfeit books, they likely don't want to encourage the re-sale of these books.

These look good to me as well... older signatures... late 80's to 90's. It doesn't have the curve on the "k" as he signature does today.

It did sell on the CAF show, but then the buyer backed out on buying it so it was put back up for sale in the auction.

The Defenders DPS is now sold... still a few more hours until the post-auction sale closes. Feel free to ping me directly if you have questions or want to make an offer.

Today (Friday 7/8) is the last day that Propstore will be accepting offers on items that didn't sell. Listing a few more items below that are still available to peak your interest.

Thanks to all those that participated in the Propstore auction last week. It was an amazing four-day auction including some amazing sales including the sale of a screen-matched Star Wars X-Wing model for $2.75M and the John Alvin Gremlins Poster Original Art pictured above for $175,000. If you missed the auction, there are some pieces remaining that didn't sell which Propstore is still taking offers on. Below is just a sampling of items that are available. Please take a look at the full list of items here: https://propstore.com/tag/emla-us-22-second-chance/?sortType=2&auction=1&buyNow=1&archive=1. Please note: Offers of 80% of reserve and higher will be considered. Some great bargains to be had. Offers will be accepted through July 8th and each item will sold as soon as the offers are accepted. So, act fast!

Items may have a reserve that is no greater than the low estimate. In this case a bid was placed that met the reserve of $4,000.

Don't forget the comic art portion of the Propstore auction is coming up tomorrow Friday, June 24th. It should start around 9:30AM PT/12:30PM ET right after the comic book portion of the day ends. In addition to the Hannigan collection and the great pieces shown above, here are some of the other lots in the auction. Register now at propstore.com/liveauction.

This great piece of Gremlins original poster art by John Alvin is closing on Day 1 of Propstore's Auction on Tuesday, June 21st. https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/319/lot/88854. Can you find the easter egg?

For those that are interested in the Ed Hannigan pieces,Propstore put together this video with Ed highlighting some of the pieces in the collection. Check it out!

There are over 80 comic art lots in Propstore's June 21-24 auction which includes over 1800 lots of props, costumes, animation, toys, production art, posters, and more. Check out the selection of comic art here: https://propstoreauction.com/auctions/catalog/id/319?page=1&view=grid&cat=3281%2C2692&catm=any&order=order_num&xclosed=no&featured=no Bill Cox will be hosting a special live auction preview with Propstore on Monday, June 6 starting at 6PM PT/9PM ET: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3fWLTJWB4 Highlights include: Brian Bolland's B&W Joker cover art for USA Magazine #36 - the publication which printed Batman: The Killing Joke for the first time in France in 1988 The splash page featuring the 1st appearance of the Punisher from Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes #178 by Dave Hunt & Mike Esposito which reprinted Amazing Spider-Man #129 for the 1st time in the UK in 1976 Over 40 lots from the personal collection of Ed Hannigan including his interior prelims to Cloak & Dagger (Limited Series) #1, the cover prelim to Fantastic Four #244 (1st Frankie Raye), a Defenders DPS, and many Batman cover prelims 5 fresh-to-market Cerebus pieces from the collection of Gerhard including a cover and DPS The Molecule Man pin-up from Fantastic Four Annual #2 by Jack Kirby and Chic Stone A Magneto action page by Dave Cockrum and Joe Rubinstein from Uncanny X-Men #150 A Snake Eyes page from G.I. Joe #4 and a Transformers Limited Series #3 page featuring Optimus Prime with a rare Black Symbiote Spider-Man appearance (same month as Secret Wars #9) Some amazing cover paintings by Mike Zeck/Phil Zimelman (Spider-Man & Kraven), Bill Sienkiewicz (Hit Girl homage to Elektra #1), and Greg Hildebrandt (Punisher/Deadpool) Pieces by Frank Frazetta, Bernie Wrightson and Will Eisner from the collection of Lucasfilm historian J.W. Rinzler Check out the catalog and register at propstore.com/liveauction. Most comic art will be sold on Day 4 of the auction (June 24). Bid live, online, over the phone, or via absentee bidding. Interest-free payment plans are available up to three months on auction purchases over $1,000.

Don't worry, all the Zeck art from the Florida exhibit was all safely returned back to me. These were pages cut out of the Mike Zeck IDW Artists Edition that I helped put together a few years back. It seems one of the trends these days is to cut out pages from the AE books and sell them to people as special prints on eBay. Can't say that I'm a fan of that trend and unhappy when I see pages from the book selling for $50 each on eBay. I'm pretty sure the people buying them don't know exactly what they're buying. I was in contact with the seller about his listing last night and he kindly agreed to take down the listing since it was misleading. He claimed that he had bought them on eBay and that's how they were sold to him. And, he got them signed by Shooter at a convention (and indicated Shooter was happy to see them). But, yes, Buyer Beware and thanks to all those who alerted me to this listing to make sure that they weren't stolen from the exhibit.

For those that are interested, those are fair prices. Given that interest in the old Joe art has jumped, I'm surprised these pages haven't been gobbled up by now.

No, this is a printing issue. The two copies currently on eBay offer a good example of the smudging: 1) This one is a "clean" copy - https://www.ebay.com/itm/185257334560?hash=item2b22329720:g:ktYAAOSwZe5h2697 2) This one is a "smudged" copy - https://www.ebay.com/itm/275185324104?hash=item401252d048:g:bhEAAOSwQ9ViGrdj notice the darker blacks around the right horn of Cerebus' helmet and on the shield. Overall the detail of the blacks on "smudged" copies isn't as good. I'm not sure what % of copies have the smudging and you see it to various degrees on different books, but I believe the "clean" copies are more desirable. I believe this was isolated to the covers and not the interiors.

The dates came from an announcement e-mail that John sent to dealers. I'm not sure it's been publicly announced except for here.

One other defect that's always been noted with Cerebus #1's is "smudging" of the blacks on the cover. Typically that is most pronounced around the horns on the helmet as it is with the copy shown here. How much does that figure into the valuation of a copy? Should a copy without smudging be worth more than a copy with smudging? I'm doubting that CGC is accounting for that when they do the grading of the books.

I finally made it out to Sarasota to visit the Mike Zeck exhibit that I helped to set up. For anyone that wants a virtual tour, please join Bill Cox and I for a Livestream Friday, March 4, 2022 at 1PM ET/10AM PT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F2h7yCgSPE If you miss it live, you can always catch it on replay as well!

Yes, announced today. July 16-17 at the Hollywood Palladium.

Also, early Mike Zeck story at Marvel.

For X-Men, issue #40 (1/68) was the last large art issue, but since #39 was smaller sized, I assume that was an inventory issue that they may have decided to use later.

I actually talked with Mike Zeck about it before the auction. Definitely not inked by Beatty. He thought it could be Abel with a Romita Professor X head in the bottom right panel. I just talked with Mike… honored to take the award for the artist who drew the most expensive piece of comic art, but thinks it’s crazy himself. No regrets on selling it back in the day… that’s just what artists did back then and there was no vision (even earlier today) that it would sell for so much.