Gonzimodo

For anyone interested in Compendiums of the original ARAH Larry Hama GIJOE run, the Kickstarter for them is now live! 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skyboundent/gi-joe-a-real-american-hero-compendium-set

Need a rug for your comic book room?
https://rugsrat.com/collections/the-comics-collection
 

Which issue of NFL Superpro is it? 

I do have a certain amount of sympathy for dealers, and especially shop owners - they have overhead, they're still fighting the good fight in a digital age, etc. And it's tough for anyone to keep up on the changing market across thousands (or tens- to hundreds-of-thousands) of books. On the other hand, if a dealer set a price in the first place, the assumption would be that they had enough profit margin to charge that price. True, if a book goes from a $20 book to a $100 book overnight and they don't realize it, they're losing potential profit. But they obviously had enough margin to make money if they sold it at $20.

I won't shop in LCSs that check the price at the register, and even more so if they have prices already listed and "re-check." I'm not their employee who is tasked with showing them what the "hot" books are; if I find a deal on a book based on my knowledge of the subject material, I shouldn't be penalized for it because they feel they're missing out. If I get overzealous and buy a book they have priced at $100 and find out it's really only a $50 book, I can't go back and ask for a refund because I feel like I overpaid...

My quick scanning eye saw this thread and read “shart” which…thankfully it’s not that in the slab

So Alex had 3 different posters at that show.  I bought 2 posters of each cover.  All Winners, Captain America and Marvel Mystery.
He signed them all with his slow perfectly meticulous signature. So neat and tidy.  
Someone here must have been at that show.  SDCC, mid 80's  ( Mitch maybe?) He was at a table in the lobby area, not in the main sales room.  
Anyways, still have these.  Gave one Cap poster and one Marvel Mystery poster to friends. 


(used the vacuum just the other day Jim )  

Geez, I really need to get the CGC Grading Guide and recalibrate my thinking.  Foxing and corner bends are allowed in 9.6 and 9.8?!
I'm even more clueless about this stuff than I thought!  

I bought this Vortex Comics, Mr. X poster with Paul Rivoche artwork years ago.  It's quite large.  36 x 27 or so. 
The frame guy said he could flatten and mount it no problem.  I said "Do it".  What good does it do me hiding in a 
drawer or box.  I wanted to look at it. 


I got the Schomburg poster at San Diego Con back in the 80's.......  FROM ALEX SCHOMBURG  !!  
I watched him sign it.  

Also cheating a little here.  These are the original mail-in GI Joe posters from 1982/83.  (Not the original owner; these are from eBay years ago.)  These are hanging up in my very cramped office/toy room.

Astro City promo

Punisher by Mike Zeck.  I have a different Zeck Punisher poster stored away somewhere...

1) Bruce Timm: A good artist, though I prefer Darwyn Cooke for this type of style. Timm allows his interest in drawing sexy girls overpower his storytelling abilities. Cooke's work generally remains focused on storytelling and visual invention, and at a very high level. I'd put Cooke in the pantheon greats, and Timm as a solid craftsman.
2) Alex Ross: Despite his popularity, I am not fond of most of Ross's work. He has done a few things I liked, such as a pencil drawing for the cover of Hulk. I was surprised to discover it was by Ross, because it was so unlike the work I was familiar with. I find Ross's compositions boring, though a few work that way. My main quibble though is his coloring, which often relies too much on heavy blacks. His interior painted style doesn't work well for me. This is likely because of the time it takes to execute and his over-reliance of photo reference. In combination, he has very little flexibility with his compositions, making them very stiff. This, btw, is a general criticism I have for all artists who draw directly from photo reference, starting as far back as Mac Raboy. There is a big difference between copying a photo (or near-tracing it) and using it as reference for the appearance of an object, and then redrawing it from a different camera angle. Jack Davis and any of the better artists do the latter, but Ross does the former. Frazetta, btw, although he has made excellent covers, was not very strong at drawing interiors for the same reason it is a weakness for Ross: too reliant on his source photo reference.
3) John Byrne: I like John Byrne and at one time owned about a dozen pages of his original art from Wonder Woman and Next Men. He is a terrific storyteller and has become a very interesting inker. His drawings are usually quite solid. He makes drawing errors, as do most comic book artists, even the best: Gil Kane, Walt Simonson, Johnny Romita Jr., etc. The errors, however, such as the ones pointed out in the first post in this thread, are made up for with quality storytelling. Byrne does rush a job sometimes, and those are usually not as well done due to lack of finish as others, but he hits a very high standard overall as a comic book artist. With a few exceptions, I do not think of him as an "illustrator" the way Frazetta, Wrightson, or Dave Gibbons are illustrators. The exceptions are Byrne's OMAC, Wonder Woman, and Next Men. There may be others I don't know about, but Byrne put a tremendous effort into those titles and raised the bar for his own art.
4) George Perez: He made some very good covers for the Avengers and is perfectly good at interiors as well. He isn't my favorite artist, but he is good at what he does, so I have no serious complaints. If I had a choice between a Perez original or an Alex Ross, I'd take the Perez. Between Byrne and Perez, though I much prefer Byrne, I might go for Perez, depending on what the art is. If it was one of the Avengers covers vs. a Next Men cover, I'd go for Perez. If it was an Avengers interior or a Next Men interior (or Omac), I'd take the Byrne.
5) Adam Hughes: Hughes is a significantly better colorist than Ross. Put another way, Hughes is a good colorist. Overall, I think Hughes has much better-developed art skills than Ross. However, I find most of Hughes' work to be uninteresting and far too reliant on his photo reference. Unlike Ross, Hughes apparently has better quality reference. The "sexy girl looking sexy while posing in a sexy way in a sexy outfit" genre is not my favorite. For this kind of work, I prefer the Dodsons, because they usually manage to add some story detail to their images (or at least, more often than Hughes). One thing Hughes does very well is organize the tones of the colors in his images. Ross is not very good with this and ends up with very high contrast value differences that are inappropriate and jarring. Hughes gets the contrast levels either right or at least more comfortable than Ross and almost every other painter/colorist working in comics. If I had to pick an original by Ross or Hughes, I'd probably go for Ross, though I think Hughes is a better artist. The reason is that I like the golden age feel of Ross' work more than the cheesecake feel of Hughes, which often crosses the line between tasteful and tacky.
Keep in mind what comic books are and what they aren't. They are a storytelling medium utilizing sequentially-arranged panels. Artists that think they will improve on the medium by making laboriously drawn hyper-realistic panels miss the point. If you are too realistic, as many modern artists are or try to be, they lose the dynamism that make comics fun or interesting to read. The best blend of realism and storytelling I've ever seen is by Mazzuchelli in the Daredevil "Born Again" storyline, as well as "Batman: Year One." Neal Adams, by the way, I don't count as very realistic because of his frequent use of odd panel shapes and extremely wide virtual "lenses" that distort his drawings. It was an interesting look, but I wouldn't call it realistic.
I've never seen Byrne try to do anything in color, so I have no idea if he knows how to color, if he's any good at it, or if he can paint. The same is true of Perez. The other three artists, Timm, Ross, and Hughes have some painting/color skills, with Hughes being the standout best of the group. However, the primary advantage Hughes has over Timm, Ross, and other color artists is that he understands value structure. The other two are aware of it, but not as adept at handling it. That said, I might prefer an original by Timm or Ross over a Hughes, and would definitely prefer a Byrne or Perez over any of the other three. 
Once you get into painted covers, I start looking at illustrators who paint. There a lot who do and who are much better at it than almost all illustrators who have ever worked in comics. So when I look at Ross, Hughes, Suydam, and other comic book artists who paint, I tend to compare them to Norman Rockwell, Howard Pyle, Jon Whitcomb, the Leyendecker brothers, and the brothers Hildebrandt. These other artists are so much better than their counterparts in comics that it is unfair to compare them. There is some crossover, but not much. The Hildebrandts have done a limited amount of work in comics, as has Frazetta, but there isn't much after those two. Also, as great as Frazetta is, he doesn't hold a candle to Rockwell. 
The area where comic book artists can, and often do, have a signific aesthetic advantage over painter illustrators is in dynamic composition. This is because comic book artists have to make so many compositions every day that if they are any good, they become extremely good at it. They create a kind of mental flexibility with camera angle choices and character poses that Norman Rockwell would find nearly impossible to imitate. This is where artists like Frank Miller, Jack Kirby, Darwyn Cooke, John Byrne, John Romita (sr), and others excel.
It's interesting to me that the "popular" artists at any given time are often the flashiest but not the most solid. I would take Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., Don Heck, or Mike Ploog over Jim Starlin any day of the week. The same goes for Frank Miller, John Byrne, Mazzuchelli over Ross, Hughes, Dodsons, or Suydam. Richard Corben and Robert Crumb are both a couple of oddballs that are each extremely good at what they do, but the subject matter puts me off, so I woudn't be interested in anything they did. Frank Thorne also, now that I think of it.
Here are a few of my favorite comic book artists:
1) Carl Barks
2) Curt Swan
3) C.C. Beck
4) Johnny Craig
5) Joe Kubert
6) John Romita Sr.
7) GIl Kane
8) Frank Springer (inking himself)
9) Jack Kirby
10) Darwyn Cooke
11) David Mazzuchelli
12) Frank Miller 
13) Harvey Kurtzman (war titles at EC)
Also, in case you are curious, I draw comics myself from time to time. You can see my work on my website, www.paqart.com

Geez, I really need to get the CGC Grading Guide and recalibrate my thinking.  Foxing and corner bends are allowed in 9.6 and 9.8?!
I'm even more clueless about this stuff than I thought!  

Now I get it why ads like this were place in comic books back in the 70s and who were the target readers...

 

So I get to spend one wild night with her and never have to deal with her again?
Death.