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dichotomy

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Posts posted by dichotomy

    The OFFICIAL "This week in your ORIGINAL ART collection?"

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    On 2/19/2022 at 2:19 PM, GreatEscape said:

    The climactic battle scene DPS from Infinity Gauntlet #6 (1991) is a grand display of cosmic power.  Thanos' granddaughter Nebula unleashes the full power of the Infinity Gauntlet while taking on the collective might of the Elders of the Universe, ancient gods who rank at the very top of Marvel's power scale. The Elders include Galactus, Uatu the Watcher, the Stranger, Mistress Love, Master Hate, Lord Chaos, Master Order and Kronos.  Twice-up DPS, 24” x 18” image.  

    Link

    5A502466-3120-4BA9-AAF9-7B1946D40CC3.thumb.jpeg.ed4e83ae9ccf94cca05ecdaac6258ab2.jpeg
     

     

    Pretty damn epic! Congrats friend!

    NFT Ramblings

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    I turned around and I was being hit by Non-Fungible Tokens. The first instance was a livestream by Jim Lee earlier this month. Then a plethora of announcements this week from Christies, followed closely by Essential Sequential and Felix Comic Art. 

    Most of us are fuddy duddies about the digital art aspect and I get it. But look closely at proof of ownership. This is the essence of what blockchain was supposed to be. I remember when BTC/LTC/ETH etc first ‘flared up’ in the public eye. This is like that, with the fervor and vigor behind it, but also backed by ‘the man’ and ‘the machine’ (both of who were left out of the crypto boom), but more significantly, has a very clear and definitive purpose. Think a grading service, but without the self-interest. 

     

    1. Copies of artwork are already a problem - there’s a whole Kirby thread about this already - so the proof of authenticity and proof of ownership aspect of an NFT for REAL artwork is very tempting. It’s one of the very reasons why some people watermark the artwork they post. Starting now we should really all be doing that. If you haven’t spend a few moments wondering what is stopping a computer from reading a scan of artwork and recreating it, with a brush and ink, then you should. With a little tinkering any motivated home forger could wreck havoc. We’re lucky that our hobby has been quite isolated, but I believe that it’s time to start tightening up the lines of ownership and authenticity. Public sharers may have a bit easier time establishing authenticity, but what about the unknown black holes? Or imagine when you approach an auction house to sell a piece for you, and they politely ask for the corresponding NFT...

     

    1. Digital Art - many of our favorite artists, new AND old are working digitally now. Some finish traditionally but many do not. I know some of these digital artist intentionally produce some pieces traditionally because of the hobby and lucrative money that can be made. As a result, we’ve seen spirited attempts with mono-prints etc. Surely this is better. A clean file, certified forever as the one only true original. Imagine then the other functionality that could be built in. An instant royalty for creator and owner whenever the image is used commercially. Something like that may justify a price that approaches what might be paid for traditional art, because then over time you might make that money back. Or make money on a piece just for owning it. That sounds yummy. 

     

    1. NFT enforcement - with the backing of the establishment this will be easy. Imagine an active google crawler and board of arbitration. Every commercial image is checked for it’s NFT. An image without an NFT can be compared to a database and fined/billed/censored if it is found to be in violation. Or, an artist discovers their work is being used by someone on Etsy in some inappropriate manner, now they would have an avenue of recourse. 

     

    1. Finally, remember, that just as there are people out there who have more money that you, there are also more people out there who have more Crypto than you. Over the past decade people in hiding have amassed immense crypto wealth, and it’s still hard to spend. The crypto millionaire may have trouble buying groceries (well, not really, but kind of), but they love to find value for a place to park/convert their wealth). 27.5 ETH may be a lot to someone who has to buy it from scratch, but there are many people who picked up ETH when it was between $1-$5 ONLY 5 YEARS AGO! That is HODL. Buy $1000 of coin in 2017. Wait 4 years. Celebrate. 

     

    In any case I think this is here to stay. So dust off your digital wallets and put on your thinking caps. How will they get you? Dude, they will start giving you a token for free when you buy artwork. We have to figure out how to token the work that already exists, but soon ALL the new artwork will have one. 

     

    Discuss, be happy! I look forward to seeing what Felix and Jason talk about on Tuesday. 

    Mark Bagley's Miles Morales Spider-Man Cover Art Sells for $225,000

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    15 hours ago, stinkininkin said:

    Tying into the first appearance gist of the thread, I was more curious about if you were going to have a first appearance Green Lantern example, which one reigns supreme as THE definitive GL moving forward? John Stewart, Hal Jordan, Alan Scott, Kyle Rainer, Guy Gardner, etc?  And I ask because I haven't read the comics in some time, and Stewart was a favorite of the 11 year old me, but there's a lot of nostalgia clouding my judgement, so I don't know where the fan population ranks these characters today. Peter Parker will always be THE Spiderman for a certain generation, and Miles Morales might be THE Spiderman for a future (or current) generation, and I wondered if that drift could apply to other characters (like GL). I wasn't looking for a dollar value comparison by the way because comparing Spiderman and GL is apples and oranges (Spidey is massive, GL not so much), and also my cover is not for sale. Period.

    Beautiful cover Scott! It could also be that Stewart, no matter how deserving, gets leap-frogged like Prince Charles (wrong time) and someone like Far Sector's (DC Young Animals but Jemisin is writing some fantastic stuff) Lantern Jo Mullein could be the one to connect with the Miles/GwenPool/Silk generation. 

    Getting back to Miles, he was definitely in the right place at the right time. There were a lot of compelling reasons for Mile's emergence - particularly Donald Glover's spirited love for the character and Glover asking the question 'why couldn't I be Spider-Man". As a non-caucasian myself the whole exchange and subsequent formation of Miles really resonated. I've always had it in the back of my head to try and acquire some early Miles art but never really dug into it too much, particularly as so much of it is digital. Another character that resonates with me is Kamala Khan. 

    I'm slightly older than the generation that grew up reading Miles, just for context. My sweet spot is late 80s / early 90s. Stay safe everyone and happy collecting! 

    Are there really lots of new collectors, and do they care about the older stuff?

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    I’m mid-40s and buying mid 80s to current OA. Here’s my current pull list more or less. I’m clearly a Big 2 guy but I am trying (and finding) great material outside them too. 2 stand outs are Dept of Truth (Tynion/Simmonds and much more unique than Batman) and Something is Killing The Children. Cheers. 
     

    The Clock

    Undiscovered Country

    Dept of Truth

    Marvels

    Marvels X

    Wolverine

    Giant Size X-Men

    Marauders

    New Mutants

    X-Factor

    X-Men

    X-Men + Fantastic Four

    Hawkeye Freefall

    The Rise of Kylo Ren

    Spider-Man (Abrams)

    Strange Adventures

    Superman’s Pal JO

    Batman’s Grave

    Batman White Knight

    Dceased Dead Planet

    Decorum

    Star Wars

    Darth Vader

    SW : I High Republic

    Future State: Swamp Thing

    Future State: Wonder Woman

    GIGA (Le)

    Norse Mythology

    x-Ray Robot

    Immortal Hulk Trade

    Daredevil Trade

    Something is Killing the Children Trade 

     

     

    Flattening Watercolor Bristol Board

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    On 1/15/2021 at 5:26 AM, ShallowDan said:

    II don't have any other solutions/ideas, but for what it's worth, I've successfully used the iron method before on a gouache illustration that was on a very wavy piece of heavy watercolor paper.  Basically I lightly misted the back/verso so that it was just barely damp, laid a layer of paper towels over it, ironed it flat on a low heat setting, then sandwiched it between some heavy books (changing the paper towels out every few hours).

    The process worked great and completely flattened the piece.  I'll admit though that this was a fairly low value piece of art and even then the pucker factor was really high.  I don't know if I would have the courage to try it on something of higher value.

    I’ll second this. If you Google/YouTube there are lots of demos. Good, thick watercolor paper can take quite a lot of water but err on the side of less. Heavy books after and repeat the process many times - eventually it will flatten. Your second challenge is to maintain the new shape. Over time, without pressure, the paper will likely return to the warped state. Good luck!