RBerman

I'm with the consensus here. As Sturgeon's Law says, "90% of everything is CR**" The sieve of time lets the old  CR** fall by the wayside and be forgotten. But if you look at the new stuff, you'll see 90% CR**, and 10% awesome work that we'll still be talking about years from now when someone is complaining about how boring the new stuff is.

As a collector, there's more new stuff I like than I can afford, even though it is less expensive than the old good stuff.

ETA: That vulgarity filter is hilarious.

A recent acquisition by the quirky Langdon Foss, from the "Vote Loki" 2016 book:

And a 1988 Benn Dunn page from Ninja High School:

And early 90s Brigade by Marat Mychaels and Marlo Alquiza:

On 1/22/2023 at 11:33 AM, stinkininkin said:

You are correct Carlo. I sent Comiclink a notification email that I am sharing below...

"Incorrect credits. I inked the entire issue (even though that issues credits list Art Thibert as inker, this was a hasty editorial mistake. I definitely inked the entire issue). Joe Rubenstein had nothing to do with this page. Also, Jim Lee provided loose storytelling breakdowns for the art, and Whilce Portacio provided all the completed pencils."

 

Best

Scott

ComicLink has now corrected the entry, citing you.

I win the "didn't read the instructions thoroughly" contest. I only voted for one in each category, not realizing five were allowed. Can't be undone apparently. I'll try again next year!

Two other modification possibilities:

1) There are separate categories for "Illustration" and "Other." I would think those could be combined since this is a contest for illustrations. As I look through the "other" category, most of the pieces look like they could reasonably have been put into a more specific category like "commission" or "illustration" or "cover" or "recreation. Speaking of which:

2) Specifically expand "recreation" to include "homage." Not all recreations are intended to be exact, like the "One Minute Later" series, or the "Calvin and Hobbes version of Silver Surfer #4."

On 1/20/2023 at 10:55 AM, Twanj said:

I swear that wasn't there when I voted!

I did notice the preview if you clicked, but that was a bit slow with the huge number of entries.

You're not crazy. The artist names were not on the voting page when I looked yesterday, but they are today, which is good. Also if you clicked on the title of the art (as opposed to the art itself), you went to the gallery page for that piece, where you could read about it but not "like" or comment on it. You have to go to the owner's regular gallery to do that.

Many humans are inherently competitive. Years ago the computer in the break room at work had solitaire Mah Jongg on it. But since the game had a timer, solitaire inevitably became a competition. Metrics do that.

CAF is great. I love using it and looking at other people's art. I enjoy other people enjoying my art too. But because I'm competitive, I also think about how many views and likes and comments I get. When I post a new piece I really like, I can't help wondering whether it will get featured in the weekly CAF update on YouTube. (This has happened once.) But watching the CAF update the following week, I can't say that my piece was more deserving than the ones that were chosen.

That's how the awards are as well. There's so much great art out there that everybody needs to just take it in fun and not set any expectations of their art "winning." For me "winning" is just having my art featured next to some really cool pieces. (I'm going to keep reminding myself.) OK, if I get a few new likes and comments out of it, that's fun too.

One thing that ought to change next year though: It seems to me that a few artists are using the "Best of CAF" contest just to publicize their own art. That's not really what this is for, and if that became more common, it could really clog the process of reviewing submissions.

On 1/20/2023 at 7:05 AM, Carlo M said:

I expected around 6-7k, but there are several good reasons for the strong performance:

- Quitely is absolutely a top contemporary artist

- Fully inked pages by him are rare

- All-star Superman (pencils only) has gone around this level recently

- While no action, this page has several key characters (including Wolverine).  Quitely's version of Emma is possibly the definitive version, IMHO (Cassaday's being second)

- Morrison's run on adjectiveless was possibly the last great run on mutant titles before the Hickman reboor (barring possibly Astonishing by Whedon Cassaday )

- Early 2000s is entering the "magic demographic area"

My

I agree, including Whedon/Cassaday being great. I like All-Star Superman, but the pencil art is difficult to see; the New X-Men pages look better in this form.

On 1/19/2023 at 9:31 AM, Benedict Judas Hel said:

Holy cow!  I actually won a Heritage auction?!  Finally…my first after about 5 previous tries.  I just hope I don’t make it a habit because I don’t think my wallet can take too many of these in a year.

Pictures, or it didn't happen.

On 1/19/2023 at 7:40 AM, PhilipB2k17 said:

It used to be a truism in comics: Neither Uncle Ben nor Bruce Wayne's parents would ever come back from the dead. That's no longer true, obviously. Well....Thunderbird is the only truly dead and gone character in all of comics (Deadman, Vampires and Zombies notwithstanding). 

And then came Necrosha.

Glad this thread was resurrected; it's made for me. I love tight pencils! I won't repost any of those that are already here elsewhere, but just this week I got a Jungle Girl cover by Adriana Batista. Jana vs Mer-Men.

On 1/12/2023 at 5:17 PM, Dr. Balls said:

He gave that girl Greek Foot - classic move! That's a great piece.

Good eye! I had not noticed. I will add that insight to her CAF page.

Time for a few updates! First, a pair of illustrations from French artist Piotr Meneguzzo, who came to my attention through Stephanie Lavaud's Facebook page.

Next a couple of Colleen Doran pages from the penultimate issue of Bill Mantlo's space pirates series "Swords of the Swashbucklers." Doran is the ideal choice for space opera involving people with beautiful hair and clothing. This bedroom scene turns into a murder scene.

And three recent Val Mayerik pencil pages from the Fables-like series RRH (Red Riding Hood):

Finally, a Maguire/Story page from the Gen13/Fantastic Four crossover one-shot.

Catch him at a convention.

X-Men villains jam assembled over the last six months. https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1883018

I noticed two days ago that yesterday's Wednesday auction had a Terry and the Pirates which incorrectly identified the characters in the scene as "Ryan and Burma" when it was really "Terry and Burma." I submitted a correction, probably too close to the auction close.

On 12/16/2022 at 7:38 AM, delekkerste said:

1. No one builds a great collection without overpaying for art - it's often the only way you're going to get great pieces.

Which means it's not overpaying compared to the actual market; it's just overpaying compared to what would be comfortable for me.

I have one cover for a series which is on hold due to legal wrangling. The artist asked me not to post it online until the comic comes out, and I agreed.

On 12/10/2022 at 5:28 PM, adamstrange said:

What's CAF?

The hub of our hobby. Sign up!

https://www.comicartfans.com/

On 12/10/2022 at 2:39 PM, Benedict Judas Hel said:

I have posted about 90% of my art collection on CAF.  The pieces I have not posted are either very minor (in my opinion) or adult-oriented (about 2-3 pieces) and do not think they would be appropriate for CAF.  However, of those 3, one is Dan Brereton piece which I feel may be acceptable to post the more I ponder on it.

Of the art I do posts, why do I do it?  Perhaps there are people who would appreciate some of those pieces in my meager collection as much as I do.  Also, my collection may help draw people who may have similar pieces that they may wish to offer to sell to me.

Ditto on all counts, except the Brereton detail.

On 12/9/2022 at 5:17 PM, Peter L said:

Yes quite a bit.  There is a facebook group called Comic Art Buyer Beware.  Jae Lee seems to be the most frequent name and a kind of Hall of Famer in his own way.  

Jae Lee was one of my first commission experiences. It was suboptimal, though I have had worse since.

Jae was at DragonCon 2019 (Labor Day weekend). He was front and center, the first table on the first aisle at Artists' Alley. I paid for a 3/4 image of Colossus to be delivered at the convention. He was unable to do so but said he could mail it to me in a couple of weeks. Every couple of weeks I sent him a "Still waiting on that sketch" reminder email. He was apologetic in response, and the sketch arrived in November. It's longer than I expected and was told, but since then I've discovered that it's relatively short, as waits go from busy artists. Still, it would be nice to be the one receiving updates instead of requesting them. I did not feel that he was lying; he seemed rather to be in the (not small) group of artists for whom time management and customer service are not strengths.

It's not surprising that a lot of art under $500 will be specialty pieces, illustrations, and commissions as opposed to published pages. Here are a few I've picked up secondhand.

David Wachter

Terry Moore

This Bill Morrison sketch of Spiral was part of the "Mystery Sketch" event at Comic Arts Live. You paid $200 and requested a character, and you didn't know which artist was going to fulfill it.

This Art Adams remarque is in a 3 inch circle on the variant cover he did for the recently  released Invincible Red Sonja #1.

Art's wife Joyce Chin had a variant with a remarque as well:

Ariel Diaz did Queen Ororo:

Some other collectors were unloading work they had commissioned along a "Jungle Girl" theme. First is Savage Land Rogue by Tom Nguyen:

And a more serious version by Uko Smith:

And finally, the Chris Bachalo redesign of Magik as portrayed by Andrew Griffith.

On the small scale, one dealer buying 104 pieces would be a bummer for anyone else hoping to get one of them. But on a larger scale, the more of a proven market there is for such work, the more comparable artists will enter the fray, increasing supply. So the anecdote in the opening post seems to mainly show that Jusko priced himself below market value.