Benedict Judas Hel

I have no “grail” to speak of in original comic art. While I’d love a Ditko Spider villain page, or a John Romita Sr. one or a Todd McFarlane, I can easily live without them (and the price to acquire them). Thankfully, I also set up some strict rules for myself when it comes to purchasing comic art (content, price, panel size) so I don’t feel the need to impulse buy certain pieces that become available and can save my available funds when a piece that fits my criteria becomes available.

I have no interest in unpublished comic pages or prelim pages. They are nice to look at and can be interesting, but they are not something I seek for my personal collection.

And the commissions keep rolling in! I got in this 11” x 14” Baroness commission by Greg Petre (a.k.a. Greg + Fake) today:

I got in an 8 1/2” x 11” Baroness commission by Derek Laufman:

I got in an 8” x 10” Vega commission by Jeff Victor:

I’ve graduated from D-list Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe villains to a C-list one with the addition of The Asp to my collection: As she appears in issue #1 page 37:

Hey, you can’t go wrong with the toy or that commission. Congratulations!

It definitely looks awesome. I love horror art and combined with my 2 favorite commission subjects, it was bound to shoot up to the top of my favorites list. I sure hope that framing will help. I will leave it to the professionals to do the best they can. I sure as hell know I don’t trust myself to attempt anything!

Now, that looks awesome! I loved Warduke and he was one of my favorite childhood toys. So much so that I reacquired another toy for my collection...

Good luck on the sale! Had a great purchasing experience with you before and wish you the best...

Thanks. I told Renee other collectors would not be as forgiving as I was if they received a commissioned piece in this condition. It does suck that the piece arrived with this gigantic crease and I am disappointed but I’m hoping that when I get around to framing this piece, my framer will be able to minimize the crease or possible even eliminate it.

I don’t think she shipped it. I never had any contact with Arthur, only her (Renee). When I e-mailed her about it and suggested to her that Arthur may want to package any future art better, she said she would pass it on to him. She went on to offer me advice on “steaming” the piece to possibly minimize the crease. Below is how the crease looked when it arrived:

Then I guess it is fortunate for me that I don’t collect Lady Mechanika published story pages. They look cool though!

Here is an 11” x 17” artwork by Arthur Sudyam I received today that I commissioned from Comic Art Fan’s Comic Art Live event in May: *Full disclosure: He didn’t package it very well (not sandwiched between 2 pieces of cardboard) and artwork arrived with a crease going across the top third of the art. I love the piece and the crease brings it down a bit...

1) Excessive damage to the art 2) Signatures within the artwork (no problem outside the panel borders but I dislike them inside the actual artwork itself) 3) Pencil only pieces (I’m an inked pieces only collector) 4) DC Comic Art (no knock on DC artists/art but I grew up reading Marvel Comics only so that is the only art I am interested in collecting)

I got in a 7” x 10” Baroness commission by Jeremy Treece:

Congratulations on getting what you wanted.

I look for large art and overall appeal. I don’t have disposable income for premiere pieces so I have to usually choose interior pages with large “splashy” panels over official splash pages and covers. That being said, I would choose the DD splash page over the interior page. The Pin up would be last. Personally, I love text, speech bubbles, trade titles on original art. It makes it sink in to me that it is “official” comic art. I adore the marriage of large art and text on a comic page.

I just picked up my framed Masters of Evil cover art from the framers today:

Thanks to Mr. Burkey, I was able to add 2 more pieces of Marvel villain art to my collection starting with Captain America #337 page 6: And Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Book of the Dead Deluxe Edition #18 page 14, The Kangaroo: As it appears in the comic book (a little weird the art is on a DC comic board):

I got in an 11” x 17” Baroness/Vega commission today by Brian Dawson:

I personally would prefer an origjnal commission rather than an exact recreation of an original. As others have stated, I would get an homage commission (in fact, I am getting one in the future) that is different and personal touches that I would suggest from the artist. As for investment appeal, I wouldn’t know enough to comment on that aspect. I buy original art/commissions for personal appreciation, not financial appreciation.

Hmm...I did not either being a newcomer to this hobby. I don’t quite remember how big his set up was at the comic con I attended but it was around the same time as the article ESeffinga posted. It had to be at least 2-3 tables and was at the middle end of Artists Alley. It is very selfish and careless behavior to displace fellow artists who registered their own tables in accordance to convention guidelines. However, I cannot deny that my own personal interaction with him was positive at this event.

I like his art style very much and love his Marvel Zombie comic covers. In fact, he was the first artist I ever got a commission from. Being a very private person, I am not one to approach anyone out of the blue and especially artists whose artwork I have admired and whose names I’ve only seen in my favorite comic books and magazines (I remember seeing Simon Bisley at a comic con table and being too shy to approach him). But Arthur Suydam made it extremely easy. He was very friendly and outgoing and urged me to approach his table. As others have stated, he didn’t have any original art to sell; only prints or sketch cover commissions. When I asked him if he had an original art, he stated he never took any to conventions because he was afraid the airport would lose or damage them. I ended up getting a sketch cover from him (a Spider-Man bust) which, I thought at the time was a bit expensive for what it was (being a newbie). Had I had the knowledge I had now, I would have asked if a take home commission was possible. However, I did recently commission Arthur, through his representative, during the recent Comic Art Live event where an 11”x17” take home commission was finally possible due to the recent pandemic going on. I got a 2-character commission (Vega and The Baroness as zombies) so I’m expecting them to come out fantastic knowing what Mr. Suydam is capable of.

Out of all of the artists I have gotten commissions from, Graham Nolan was the only artist who had no clue who Vega was. He said he wasn’t into video games so asked me for some reference pics. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone else automatically knew Vega right away. I suspect the other artists may have done Google image searches. Surprisingly, I’ve gotten more confirmation requests about The Baroness than Vega.