NC101

I'm gonna stay with my version, I like it more

Having never met the brothers grim, whenever they're brought up I always imagine them as twins who both look like this:

Interesting good or interesting bad?

These pages are unbelievable...

I think that's a good point, maybe Disney legitimizing him further artistically would also translate to helping him be accepted by the mainstream fine art world too.

"As long as they can shoot straight, the best defense is a good offense"

You have an amazing collection, I think I'll be drooling the rest of the day

This is exactly how I feel, even if I could afford a beautiful prime Kirby cover at current prices there's absolutely no way I'd spend that much money on one, or really anything above a small fraction of what that work's getting now. And believe me, I love Kirby.

Just picked this up, Silver Surfer Annihilation Scourge #1 p18 by Paul Davidson

And still only $5200 in today dollars

Thanks, and I get that, and I'm personally sticking mainly to newer artists whose prices haven't exploded. I really enjoy the searching, it's fun and I feel doubly satisfied when I find someone I think is genuinely amazing who also hasn't gotten expensive. That's really becoming the fun of this hobby for me. I'm not worried for my own sake about a crash, because I don't buy for investment, and I stick to the shallow end of the pool (aside from a couple purchases early on that in retrospect I wish I hadn't made, but live n learn). The idea of a current bubble bothers me because it means inflated pricing and I don't like to pay too much. Do you have a caf gallery of your romance pages? I'd be interested in seeing them

It looks to me like a bubble that's been forming since around 2010-2012 or so. I don't blame you alone for that happening, I think you probably share responsibility, particularly because I do think you have high status in this hobby. Flipping contributes to bubbles, especially when it becomes the norm. I phrased what I wrote about shilling as a hypothetical because I don't know the extent to which you use/used shilling, so I don't know the extent of the effect on the market. As far as when the market starts to go downhill, my guess is within the next two years, but that's a guess. If that's the case, I'd say you're a talented prognosticator. In any case, my original intent wasn't so much to assign blame as it was to point out to you a possible reason that you take so much s### in this thread.

I think the issue is, like I said, those actions don't occur in a vacuum. They affect everybody, not just immediately but in a lasting way as well. It's sort of like saying "I dumped poison in the reservoir, but I only did it in one spot."

I didn't realize he had admitted to it and I didn't want to accuse anyone, but I agree that shilling is harmful. Especially if it's done by someone who deals in large volume, and especially high end work, if someone is flipping a lot of work and shilling to bid up auction prices that can move the needle across the board. Everyone here could be paying inflated prices still today as a result of someone having done/doing that.

I'd like to go sometime - it's been absorbed by the Society of Illustrators and they don't always have comic art on exhibit, but I look forward to visiting sometime.

There's also the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival on the west side of NYC April 4-5 - it's not exclusively art but tons of artists go https://www.societyillustrators.org/mocca-arts-festival

Thanks! I'm not familiar w Farel Dalrymple, I'm gonna go check him out

Woww that's wild, thanks for posting that - a good illustration of the mentality that can poison a fun hobby like collecting. You're right I misspoke, an influx of flippers/speculators not collectors.

That's a good point, and if that can be measured it would be very interesting to see. There are indicators of a bubble that we can look at for reference - irrational pricing (i.e. Kirby has been fetching high prices for a long time, it makes sense that his work would be priced high because it has a recorded history of steadily increasing price; johnny new kid the hot young talent fetching prices that don't reflect a solid market history doesn't make sense), "gold fever" atmosphere, a large influx of speculators, quick and large increases in price without any accompanying increase in utility, press coverage of suddenly rising prices, an increase in talk about "the next big thing" with accompanying high prices. None of these in and of themselves is definitive, but they're red flags. I just want to mention that I don't have any wish for there to be a bubble and especially a crash, and my budget isn't big enough for me to seriously benefit from one anyway, but I do think it's prudent to try to be realistic about possible scenarios. And I may very well be wrong, I can't see the future any better than anyone else. My intention wasn't to start a discussion on the possibility of a bubble, just to point out to Romitaman something he may not be seeing about why people react to flipping, and in particular his posts, the way they do.

I think one thing people may be reacting to, I know I am, is your apparently flippant attitude (and you may not intend it that way, I just know that that's how it comes across to me). I think you're right that you, along with anybody else, have the right to flip. It's perfectly legal and plenty of people do it. You've also very rightly pointed out that you wouldn't be able to flip without people on the other end who are willing to buy. The thing is, that activity, like all activity, doesn't occur in a vacuum. It does have consequences, much as you may or may not like it to. If there is a bubble and it bursts, flipping will have played a significant role in that. While that may be fine and well for those who have been profiting off the bubble all along, it's going to leave a lot of collectors with very devalued collections. I personally don't care if people who create a bubble then lose by it, and I'll be happy to buy work off them at much lower prices if the opportunity arises, but I don't think that that's the majority of collectors (maybe I'm wrong). If there is a bubble, and especially if there is a recession in the next couple of years which it looks more and more as though there might be, then when that bubble bursts I imagine there will be plenty of people who are still paying off work that they suddenly can't afford. I imagine there will be plenty of people who suddenly need to sell work they've bought, losing quite a bit of money on the transaction that they may not be able to afford to lose. And all the other problems that come along with a sudden devaluation of your assets. Like I said, you've rightly pointed out that in any transaction it takes two to tango. But if there is a crash at some point (which I personally think there will be), you won't be able to rightly claim you don't bear any responsibility for that. Not just from flipping in itself, but also from encouraging a climate that makes it seem harmless. Like it or not, your actions have consequences, which I'm sure you know but it still bears repeating. All that being said, I don't get the impression that this thread is intended to shame, just to cast humorous glances at what might seem like increasingly ludicrous activity.

I was wondering what Patreons people support - right now I'm following Jeremy Bastian (https://www.patreon.com/JeremyBastian/posts) and Artyom Trakhanov (https://www.patreon.com/ohotnig/posts). I like it because I feel like I'm supporting the artist directly and I see what my contribution is helping them to make.

I guess he lucked out in the end

That's...cruel

Anyone know what the resulting Byrne piece was?

I'm trying to look on the bright side - all this flipping by various parties creates the conditions for a market crash, and that's when I get to swoop in!