NC101

3 minutes ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I’m having a philosophical crisis as to what “decline in popularity” in the original art hobby means. Do we mean past peak popularity?

When I became active on the boards 5 years ago the talk about Neal Adams pages would not stop. No one talks about Adams pages on a regular basis today. Some of Neal’s comments have chafed ppl today too. So has his popularity declined (maybe as a personality in the hobby)? Are his vintage pages on the decline in price and demand today? 🤷‍♂️

Also, 3 years ago, lots of talk about the Miller DKR market when it was heating up. Then I remember a “flip” took a bath. The talk stopped like the party was over. Is this a decline in the popularity in DKR? 🤷‍♂️
 

Same with Watchmen. Watchmen page pops up on auction and there’s no discussion about it. Does that mean there’s a decline in popularity? 🤷‍♂️

Tricky question.  

I meant it more in the sense of the Neal Adams example, like artists that at one point people talked about a lot, the way I hear some people talk about maybe Daniel Warren Johnson today (not that I think he'll drop in popularity or anything, just as an example of someone who gets talked about a lot) or work that was once really coveted but has less of an audience now. That said, any example or way of interpreting it is interesting imo.

19 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Declining in popularity is not the same as declining in price. Prices from dealers tend to be sticky downward, and they just tend to stay in inventory or auction unless someone makes a good offer. Generally, I would say there has been a decline in popularity of generic 1970’s art, but that doesn’t mean you can expect price drops for things like X-Men or Adams. I am referring to stuff like “oh yeah, him”. Non-superhero work hasn’t done too well, even though War comics can be beautiful. I gather from comments on these boards that BW Smith Conan work has dropped, overall, but it isn’t an area I collect so I could be wrong. 

Thanks, I reworded it to be more clear, I guess popularity is really what I'm curious about.

1 hour ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I guess I'm trying to decipher your underlying question. Is there some Golden Age art you would like to buy but are concerned that its value will decline over time?

That might not be your question but I'm going to answer it anyway. There's an adage in the hobby that goes, "Buy what you love..." It's a tired but true saying that does come with caveats. If you truly are a new collector, I will tell you that what you buy today, you may not love tomorrow (i.e. three years from today) and you may ask yourself why you bought  it in the first place. You may want to sell it to buy something you really like. We all hope that sale will make a little (or lot!) of profit, then we hope to break even when we figure out that it's harder to move. If you are a new collector, you might want to consider swimming in the shallow end of the pool (relative to your budget) on any period of art as you begin to figure out what you *really* like and love and as you begin to follow markets and their trends.

 

No I'm not wondering about that, I'm really just interested in whether there are any artists or work that have noticeably declined in popularity that were once more sought after. It's more of a for-interest's-sake than for the purpose of buying anything - sorry, I think I didn't word it very clearly.

1 hour ago, Blastaar said:

As far as artist goes are you thinking modern or silver/gold? Modern what comes to mind is someone like Van Sciver who was on top and then made some questionable choices. Much of his fanbase jumped ship but his art still stands up. 

Really anybody, the strips were what got me thinking about it but I'm curious if there are examples from any area or time period.

Are there any artists who used to be popular but for one reason or another have fallen out of favor as far as their work's collectibility?

Just now, Blastaar said:

I would love to hear the story of how that got passed and approved to be printed. We are talking about a major character for Marvel. Just does not make since. That wouldn’t have been approved as an ad by a small time agency. 

iirc it was one of a handful of books that marked the first return to Marvel by some of the Image creators, after they'd publicly spurned Marvel and gone off to become even bigger stars on their own - my guess is at that point Marvel would have published just about anything they gave them, in the interest of making nice & making $$

1 hour ago, Blastaar said:

I wonder if the page has been altered since print. Would love to watch that one go on auction. 

Think he went back and puffed out Cap's chest a bit more...true story, when I was young and that 1st Liefeld issue of CA came out I was so upset by how bad I thought it was I tore it up and mailed it back to him at Marvel. I actually really love his art, his was the first comic art I really fell in love with, but boy was I upset...

2 hours ago, Varanis said:

I'm surprised no one has posted this infamous piece.

Wow I actually really like this...

2 hours ago, Blastaar said:

Is the Cap OA out there?

I saw Rob Liefeld post the other day in the facebook OA collectors group that he's held on to some 500 pages of art, including full issues of Cap.

On 12/19/2019 at 9:39 AM, grapeape said:

Dear P-Nutz,

•I was scrolling through the various Schulz daily strips you have. I’d like to make you an offer on what I consider the weakest of your collection.

•You have Schroeder playing the piano but only Lucy is listening. You have Snoopy dancing in every panel but where’s the doghouse? And the Red Baron? Then you have Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown in the final panel but you can’t see the zig zag on his yellow shirt cuz he’s flying upside down after missing the ball.

•Even with all of those letdowns it is still a Schulz. I can check it off my list even if I probably won’t even bother to frame and display it. So I’d like to offer you (fill in low ball offer here) for it. I think it’s more than fair and no one else will offer you as much considering all the deficiencies I have pointed out to you.

Let me know,

Clueless.

"I'm sorry to hear you think so little of the piece. To be honest, I had been thinking of selling it anyway, but you've reminded me that it could well end up with someone who doesn't appreciate it as much as I do and I couldn't bear that thought, so I've decided to hold on to it after all."

41 minutes ago, alxjhnsn said:

I decided to include what I paid so that people can see that really attractive pieces are available for not a lot of money (though I admit that "not a lot" is VERY relative). Also, I hope that it encourages people on a budget to keep at it. There's good material at almost every price point.

I like that idea, I added the prices to mine too

Published 

The Outer Skin, pg. 39, by Anna Andruchowicz, $117

3 hours ago, aokartman said:

Some discrete fields are already in decline.

What do you mean?

Being new to this hobby I've been pretty obsessed with learning as much as I can over the past month or so - I came across this article about bubbling in the fine art market and it sounded kind of similar to some things I've been reading about OA right now: https://www.artbusiness.com/orwxb.html

It goes into more detail, but some signs of an art bubble it mentions include things like pricing based on speculation rather than past performance, flipping, and rapid price increases. I'm starting to think that OA is in a little bit of a bubble right now, and I might just hold off on collecting much until it pops.

4 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Did you ever hear "Spanish Bombs" by the Clash?

I have! It's been a long time since I listened to it though, thanks for bringing it up.

On 3/21/2018 at 9:17 AM, ESeffinga said:

With Guernica, I would argue that is also based on context. If you look at the piece without context. Show it to a teenager with no idea about the subject matter or the history behind it, I bet you’d get a shrug and a “that looks weird”. It’s not so representational that the anguish jumps off the canvas at you. There are much more representational works capable of doing that.

I don't think that's necessarily true - I first saw a picture of Guernica when I was a teenager and had never even heard of the Spanish Civil War and it absolutely blew me away. I still don't know the first thing about that war, or the context in which the work was received, and I've spent a decent amount of time looking at reproductions of the painting. I agree with you that context and significance also play a role in pricing, but it's also an incredible image and I think that has a lot to do with how valuable it is.

1 hour ago, cstojano said:

A distinguished gentleman I am not. 

Maybe the real distinguished gentleman was inside us all along...

edit: nvm but not sure how to delete a post

This conversation started in another thread but I thought it deserved one of its own - who are some artists you're into that other people might not know about? A few I discovered recently are

-Daniel Gutowski

-Weronika Banasińska

-Anna Andruchowicz

33 minutes ago, theflashunc said:

-- Matt Lesniewski

I follow him on instagram, his stuff is amazing!

6 minutes ago, alxjhnsn said:

Where did you find his work for sale? I had no idea it was so inexpensive.

This page has a bunch of stuff, including a few <$100: http://www.comiconart.com/artistgalleryroom.asp?ArtistId=103

52 minutes ago, vodou said:

There's a ton of recent guys that can spin circles artistically around the old crowd that enjoys nostalgia popularity; many are not just affordable but cheap even. You may not ever make a markup but if you like the art/story/whatever...go for it. Don't have any Tyler yet, but I will and I've been buying lots of other guys in similar situations -just for fun. Profit...later? Or not, who cares

Who are some of the other guys that you're into?

4 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Ever see Mythbusters? They had one episode where a small boat used duct tape to create the siding around a frame. And yes, it held up for a while.

Today that boat is worth millions...