comiconxion

Mike Zeck explained it to me this way... The Limited Series was always planned to be five issues. But, up until they did the Punisher Limited Series, Marvel had only published four issues in a Limited Series so whoever added the type to issue one labeled it as #1 of 4. Mike caught the mistake after the first issue and they corrected it with the 2nd issue (which is labeled a Five Issue Limited Series). But again with issue #3, someone in the offices made the same mistake as they did with the first issue. Mike decided not to say anything this time so the mistake was made again with issue #4. Luckily Marvel finally figured it out again with issue #5. One of the big goofs at Marvel in the 80's.

Herb Trimpe - At first, I saw his style as a Kirby imitator, but over time, learned to appreciate him as one of the definitive artists on Hulk (similar to Romita on Spider-man) and G.I. Joe. Herb was also one of the few comic artists able to change his style as needed. His work on Savage Tales was super-detailed and gorgeous and contrasted the blocky style we were used to seeing from him. He even learned to draw in a "Liefeld" style toward the end of career at Marvel as that was the popular style of the time. Also, as I got to know Herb as a friend, I learned to love him as a person... a true great and humble person.

My point was that there is a color variation that you'll notice on the #4's. Some are more blue and some are more purple. The "blue" ones are a little clearer and closer to the original artwork. In this day and age of "variants," I didn't know if people were starting to differentiate between the two. The "blue" ones are a bit rarer and you typically see those more with the newsstand versions vs. direct sales versions.

Are you considering the blue vs. purple colors on Punisher #4 a variant?

Phil Churchill or Rich Donnelly could likely give some insights here on which pages were worked on by Cockrum. I see it in Colossus' face on this splash. Perhaps on Nightcrawler as well. But, not so much on most of the pages from this issue. But, many times you see these pages listed as "Cockrum" pages. Not saying that Heritage is representing it that way here. It's true that he did assist with this issue, but it doesn't specifically say he worked on the page being sold. It leaves it to the buyer to assume.

I don't believe it's accurate to say there are art assists by Dave Cockrum on the X-Men #110 page. I don't believe he touched every page as it was an inventory story. I believe he touched the splash and perhaps some other pages, but I don't see his work here.

There were two versions of the Caps and Punisher. So, 25 of each type of sketch.

Agree - this was one of my favorite ones in recent years. Classic page after classic page - most of which had great character shots/action. And, some great covers and bonus material. Thanks to all the collectors that contributed to this one to make it so great.

I just talked with John Dolmayan - he'll have an update for everyone next week, starting with the dealers. With everything still very fluid here in California, he's working to firm up the venue, dates, and precautions that will need to be in place before announcing anything. He's still committed to putting on a show, but wants to make sure he works through the additional details that are required these days.

Nope, never heard of this.

I had somewhat forgotten about this rare Punisher wraparound cover until recently... I like the colors on this one. A rare combination by Larry Stroman and Frank Cirocco reprinting Marvel Preview #2 and Marvel Super Action #1 with a new story by Mike Vosburg (the artist who drew Punisher Limited Series #5). The editing on this book wasn't great as they credited Vosburg's story to Russ Heath and misspelled Gray Morrow's name on the inside front cover.

Based on the stats I was seeing, it looked like 217 pieces sold on the first day out of 2729 - so a little less than 10% of the art listed. I sold four pieces on the first day which I guess is better than average. For the 2nd day, I'm dropping the prices on some of the pieces in my gallery "Chuck Costas' Cherry Blossom Explosion" to encourage some more sales. Here's what's reduced: Joe Jusko Large Hulk Painting - Was $6,000, now $5,000 Mike Zeck/Phil Zimelman Large Iron Man Steel Terror Painting - Was $5,000, now $4,000 Cerebus #167 Cover – Was $6,000, now $4,000 Cerebus #108 Page 20 – Was $1,400, now $1,200 Cerebus #166 Pages 18-19 – Was $3,000, now $2500 Cerebus #233 Page 1 - Was $1,100, now $1,000 Herb Trimpe Chicken Scratch Newspaper Strip Prelim - Was $75, now $45 John Buscema Two Double-Sided Prelim Pages (Conan & Shreiking Man/Cowboy) - Was $250, now $200 Batman/Scarecrow 3D #1 p. 35 by Carl Critchlow & Sal Buscema - Was $200, now $150 Man of Steel #94 p. 3 by Ron Frenz & Sal Buscema (Strange Visitor) - Was $150, now $100 You can find all my pieces here: https://www.comicartfans.com/comicartlive/Booth.asp?bid=57

The original is actually modern sized and not twice up. But, this has to be a copy taken from an Artists Edition.

Prop Store sold this "fresh to market" interior a few months ago for $1187.50 (including BP). That was right when the coronavirus hit so the market could have been impacted a bit, but it should give you a good sense of what a nice interior page goes for on the open market,

I'm extremely supportive and excited for the virtual Comic Art Live event that Bill Cox is setting up on CAF 5/30-5/31. I hope it will be something that continues to evolve and thrives and encourages dealers and collectors to make available items that haven't been seen before. I wanted to start a thread so that those participating to give a little teaser as to what they'll be revealing at the show. I'll start! For my own booth "Chuck Costas' Cherry Blossom Explosion," I'll be unveiling five new Cerebus pieces straight out of Gerhard's personal collection including a rare cover! In addition to that I plan to have art from $75 to over $5k by: Joe Jusko – One of his greatest and larger paintings Mike Zeck – An amazing Zeck/Zimelman painted collaboration John Buscema – Some preliminary sketch work Sal Buscema – His inking over some other great artists Herb Trimpe – Rare comic strip art Mike Vosburg – American Flagg, Bloodshot, Eternal Warrior, and a page from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade Ron Frenz – A Strange Visitor page from Man of Steel Art Nichols – Justice League Europe art Steve Moncuse – An early Fish Police splash page Bryan Hitch – An X-Men double-page splash with an amazing team shot (including a huge shot of Wolverine) Also, check out the "Prop Store - Ultimate Collectibles" where there will be a variety of film production artwork from fan favorite movies such as Batman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Dune, Jason and the Argonauts, The Rocketeer, The Chronicles of Narnia, Jumanji, Goonies, Star Trek (III & IV), Gladiator, and more.

They look mostly right, but the white border around the edges concerns me a bit. Typically legit copies don't have that and could indicate a 2nd generation copy was made around that timeframe. Peter and Kevin did run those off in batches so all ~50 copies from the run don't look exactly the same, but I'd want to examine them more to see if there were more signs that these could be 2nd generation copies.

If you're talking about blueline copies that were colored as part of the printing process, the earliest examples I can think of would be for Dark Knight in 1986. Lynn Varley colored those on pages that were smaller than the original art. A similar process was later used for other books printed on nicer paper like the Punisher Return to Big Nothing GN, the TPB of Kraven's Last Hunt and American Flagg (Vol. 2). Those were done around 1988. The B&W art was copied on an acetate overlay and then placed over the hand-painted blueline art.

The ones I got in the 80's just came in brown wrappers that you could slip the books in and out of. These are a lot cooler.

Prop Store is happy to offer the following comic art selections at a fixed price for a limited time. If you are interested in purchasing or making an offer, please e-mail Chuck@propstore.com. All items can be viewed on ComicArtFans at https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=114348. All-Select Comics #2 p.9 (Sub-Mariner Story) (Dan Barry Attributed) - $18,750 Wolverine Horizon Vinyl Model Kit Box Art (Ron Frenz & John Romita Sr.) - $10,000 Justice Machine Annual #1 Elementals Inside Back Cover & Promo Poster (Bill Willingham & Bill Anderson) - $6,250 Moon Knight #10 p.1 Splash (Bill Sienkiewicz) - $6,250 1989 Watchmen Rorschach Magazine Illustration (Dave Gibbons) - $5,000 Creature from The Black Lagoon Card Painting (Bernie Wrightson) - $5,000 The Punisher Limited Series #3 p.4 (Mike Zeck & John Beatty) - $5,000 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #5 p.7 (Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird) - $5,000 The Mighty Marvel Western #5 Cover (Herb Trimpe) - $3,750 Transformers #26 Cover (Mechanic's First Appearance) (Herb Trimpe) - $3,750 Ultimate X #1 p.13 Splash (Wolverine) (Arthur Adams) - $3,125 The Rampaging Hulk (Marvel Treasury Edition) #26 p.5 (1st Solo Wolverine w/ Hercules) (Ken Landgraf & George Perez) - $2,500 Large Size The Incredible Hulk Pin-Up (Unpublished) (Jack Kirby) - $2,500 1977 Charlton Horror Cover (Unpublished) (Mike Zeck) - $2,500 Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) Raiders of the Lost Ark Painting (Sanjulian) - $2,500 The 'Nam #51 p.1-22 (Complete Book) (Herb Trimpe) - $2,500 Stig's Inferno #1 Cover with Color Separations (Paul Rivoche) - $2,500 G.I. Joe #6 p.10 (1st R.T.V.) (Herb Trimpe & Chic Stone) – $2,187.50 The Tick 1991 Trading Card Art – Set of 4 (Ben Edlund) - $1,875 Transformers #2 p.8-9 (Bumblebee's Reveal) (Frank Springer & Kim DeMulder) - $1,875 Framed and Matted Barbie Fashion #1 Cover with Comic (John Romita Sr.) - $1,875 The Chameleon (Spider-man) Toy Biz Figure Package Art (w/ Venom & JJJ) - $1,562.50 G.I. Joe Pin-Up (Unpublished) with Snake Eyes, Duke & Scarlett (Mike Vosburg) - $1,500 Sisterhood of Steel #8 p.26-27 Double Page Splash (Mike Vosburg) - $1,500 Shogun Warriors #12 p.19 Splash (Herb Trimpe & Mike Esposito) - $1,250 Archie and Me #11 Cover with Comic (Joe Edwards) - $1,250 Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero Cover Design Art with Record Sleeve (John Romita Sr.) - $1,250 Spider-Man on Dirt Bike Valentine Card Art (John Romita Sr.) - $1,250 Supergirl American Honda #1 Alternate Cover (Unpublished) (Joe Orlando) - $1,250 Power Man and Iron Fist #57 p.7 (X-Men X-over) (Trevor Von Eeden & Frank Springer) - $1,000 The Amazing Spider-Man Sunday Strip (9-5-1982) (Fred Kida, Frank Giacoia & John Romita Sr.) - $1,000 Dazzler #38 p.30 (X-Men X-over) (Paul Chadwick & Butch Guice) - $875 Seven Tales from the Crypt Season 7 HBO Cover Prelims (Mike Vosburg) - $875 Four Archer & Armstrong Splashes/Pages (#20, #21, #23, #25) - $800 The G.I. Joe Order of Battle #1 p.30 Splash (Lifeline Pin-up) (Herb Trimpe & Joe Delbeato) - $625 World's Finest #299 p.4 Splash (Superman & Batman) (Gene Colan & Steve Mitchel) - $625 Secret Wars Dr. Doom Toy Vehicle Design (Larry Hama) - $625 Dr. Strange Pin-Up (Unpublished) with Prelim (Mike Vosburg) - $625 He-Man (MOTU) Animation Cel & Drawing (Raising Sword) - $375 13 Powder Burn #1 Pages (Nathan Lumm & Mustang Robertson) - $187.50

Conan #131 and #133 were two sentimental books that got me started reading comics so I'm always looking for pages from them. Stories by Bruce Jones and art by Gil Kane. If anyone out there has any pages they want to part with, feel free to drop me a line. I've seen the cover to #133 floating out there, but never have seen the #131. If anyone has seen it, I'd love to know. Unfortunately, I have a feeling it was drawn partly in marker (as Kane was known to do) so not sure how well it's stood the test of time.

Since Zeck's Secret Wars and Punisher keep coming up, would Kraven's Last Hunt count here? Although not bannered as a Limited Series per se, I believe it was the 1st complete story Marvel had ever told across three titles?

I'll vote for the Punisher - launched him to be the most popular Marvel character of the 80's (up there with Wolverine). Hard to top that.

From Jim's latest auction for Big Barda "All proceeds to benefit comic shops in need during this crisis. Now 95% tax deductible as funds go immediately to the fund DC has set up at the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. Shipping will be very delayed so please have patience. Will have to wait til shelter in place lifts which could be 30 plus days."

The one in Harbour's house is most likely one of the prints of that cover that Mike Zeck used to sell at cons. He made a print based off the original art. He's down to his last few, but still selling them on his website (minimum $50 per order). https://www.mikezeck.com/shop/captain-america-321-print

Not 100% sure, but it's rumored. There was a rumor years ago that the originals were owned by members of Duran Duran, but no one could prove that. In fact, it seemed liked they didn't after people probed, but not sure who owns the one pictured.