Ecclectica

Thank you for this follow up : I didn't had enough time the last days to write "Step 4".here myself, after I discovered the piece had indeed made its "transition"... I never look at DD, but I guess I will make an exception this time!

Storm & Colossus - John Byrne convention sketch - 1979 Step 1 : Sold on eBay last August for 300$: Step 2 : Sold on CAF (and here in Original Comic Art Marketplace) last September, two weeks later. Offers were asked for the sketch. Note that dedication had been deleted in the meantime, probably to make the piece more desirable (as if it still needed it! ) Step 3 : Offered now on CAF (and on website) for 5295$ on Will's Comic Art Page: https://www.comicartpage.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=9642 Thanks to the precise pic, we can see now the dedication was not carefully erased between step 1 and step 2... (to make my thinking more precise : I do not endorse dedication removing, I'm criticizing here the fact it was badly done too. All the pieces I have in my collection have still the original dedication whenever previously existing : to my eyes, it's part of the history of the art piece, even for dedications to complete strangers to me) Step 4 : Heritage in 2024 or 2025? Or the piece has now run out of meat? Thoughts? (I don't have any opinion. Let the specialists talks!)

Jack Kirby - The Demon #4 page 20 - Sold by Nostalgic Investments for 2600$ on 04/04/2021 : Now back for sale in this belgium shop : https://www.galeriebd.com/product/jack-kirby/the-demon/ ... for 8000$ ! (more than a 3x price compared to Bechara, it's already swollen, but that's also the price they propose for a small Jason Blood's head...)

So it will be interesting to see how this one will perform. https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/splash-pages/jack-kirby-and-mike-royer-mister-miracle-12-splash-page-1-original-art-dc-1973-total-2-/p/7358-219006.s

They need proofs or what?!?! I should have sent a pic of my own similar Death sketch (done in 1997)...

I agree with @Grant Turner and @gumbydarnit : Bronze age Kirby is still on demand IMHO, even DC pages... When some Kirby's 70s DC pages will be available again under 2000 $ like some were 3 years ago, I'll agree to see a reflux. Until then...

So now we both did ! (I did it this morning and noticed the Wolvie sketch / told them about it too)

I should contact HA to tell them this is a Chris Bachalo sketch...

As the SFX production process for season 2 will take a while, I would have kept extra episodes to give them to viewers later, to keep the series alive in the heart of viewers waiting for season 2. I would have released the "Dream of a Thousand Cats" / "Calliope" episode last christmas, instead of 15 days after the initial run release I would have released the "A Midsummer Night's Dream" episode at the end of this last summer. I would have released the "Tales in the Sand" episode 6 months before the season 2 debut, as an intro to the "Season of Mists" arc we probably will see explored in season 2. .. but that's in my dreams. :-) PS: in the same time, I see no real solution to adapt "Facade"...

Following your information, I just retreived the direct link to the high-res scanned pages done by Heritage for these auctions, just in case it would be enough for Scott: https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path[1%2F0%2F1%2F3%2F7%2F10137945]&call=url[file%3Aproduct.chain] https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path[9%2F9%2F5%2F5%2F9955178]&call=url[file%3Aproduct.chain] https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path[1%2F0%2F3%2F7%2F4%2F10374974]&call=url[file%3Aproduct.chain] https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path[9%2F9%2F5%2F5%2F9955186]&call=url[file%3Aproduct.chain] (issues : they're cropped a little bit, and only 300 dpi -> insufficient quality?)

Sold here one month ago for 420 USD : https://russcochranauction.auctionanything.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&auction_uid1=6637730 Now on sale for 750 USD on eBay : https://www.ebay.com/itm/335139244693?hash=item4e07db0a95%3Ag%3AQr0AAOSw-19lZJ7C&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338181027&customid=958&toolid=10049 I love the incomplete description : "The artwork is in very fine condition". "... but half of the inks faded, as usual for Kane's LoTDK pages." is missing.

Two Charlton pages by Ditko sold in May 2023 on eBay for $2000. The first one is still in Alex R collection -> https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1933748 The second one, the least interesting, is currently for sale on eBay again... for 2900 USD... https://www.ebay.com/itm/126204355973?hash=item1d625da585%3Ag%3AENMAAOSwVfplYTL2&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338181027&customid=958&toolid=10049 (IHMO, that's too expensive for the content of this page. Even Albert Moy wouldn't mark it at this price... and seing the price on 3rd grade Ditkos in auctions lately...)

I went to see the Marvels and discovered I couldn't understand many things about the background of the story. IMHO Marvel should come back to do tied movies and not make their movies as if they were enhanced "special" TV episodes.

Why did you raised this subject I was secretly hoping somebody still would buy this one to erase it from the market : https://www.ebay.com/itm/265065083727 Now my hopes are ruined...

I would be happy to see this one, actually.

You are saying very politely what I would say a little bit less politely : I'm a big Kevin Nowlan fan, but I wouldn't let him ink some pencils for me, except his own pencils ! But the result here is maybe the exception that proves the rule.

This week-end, I was surprised to see here this ressurection of an old thread I didn’t know about, about Visar Alard. I thought it would be appropriated to write here my testimony of the OA transaction I did with Visar Alard two years ago, which is the only one that I would qualify today as a « bad experience », after almost 50 transactions now in the OA art... Two and half a year ago, I noticed a 90s Marvel interior page for sale, simultaneously on CAF and on eBay, a page I liked a lot, but not to the point that I would have jumped on it immediately. I had others pieces of interest in mind to buy at the time, so I put it in third or fourth position in my mind. It was not an expensive page (the price was 380$). 3 months later, I decided to contact the owner on CAF to tell him I would like to buy it. The owner, Visar Alard, told me the price was wrong and that he had just updated it. He told me the old price was from when he had put the page on sale on CAF 7-8 years ago… I replied to him that I had seen his recent eBay auctions previously with the same (old) price for some months, so?!?! To conclude my mail, I said « Sorry but 490$ is too much expensive for this page. If you change your mind, you have to know that I can push to 390$ (but not above) and in that case, my offer is still open. You can contact me when you want on CAF. » You can imagine that, even if I had choosed CAF to save him the eBay commissions fees, I didn’t expected a reply with an new offer only 10$ above the original price, and far from the 100$ increase he had put on the page (in my mind, I told myself : around 400$ already would be above FMV value, so around 400$ would be my max value to put on it). But as I said previously, it was a page that I could miss, or at least, that I didn't want to overpay. But to my surprise, Visar Alard said ok for the transaction : 390$ + 20$ for shipping. When I prepared the Paypal Payment, I had another surprise, I discovered he was located in France, like me (his eBay ads were visible on all eBay european platforms, so I had wrongly guessed he was a foreigner, and we had talked only in english on CAF before!). So we continued the discussion in french langage, and I asked him, as we were in the same country, if it was possible to adjust a little bit lower the shipping price and make the parcel insured – his original price for postage was one to send abroad. He replied OK, I paid him and asked him for the tracking number. He didn’t send me the tracking number... 5 days later, I became a little bit worried because parcels take most of the time two days to travels to two cities here. So even with some margin, he should have given me the tracking number in time. When he finally gave me the tracking number (after I asked him for it again), I discovered the number didn’t work properly… and for a good reason : he had shipped the parcel with a flat/letter formula, so with no insurance (this formula doesn’t have this option here…) and only two steps as tracking data : one for departure and one for final delivery (no intermediary steps for this option…). Then, I began to seriously worry and with a reason : the travel from our 500 kms-apart cities took 10 days instead of 2… (I hadn’t anymore nails already after a few days). As you can imagine, he didn’t replied in between to my enquiries… But when the parcel arrived, my surprises continued. First, I discovered the parcel had been done in a way that the content could easily have been stolen : you could crack 2 pieces of tape on one border to open easily the parcel, without damaging the parcel shape. I should take the time to make pictures if some of you want them, because I still have this package now (it was so unbelievable as first that I kept it since!) Second, I discover the page was not protected inside : no mylar, no added cardboard, nothing! Since the transaction occured two years ago at a time we had here in France numerous rainy days, you can imagine what could have happened with a single misplaced drop of water in a parcel with uncovered slots… I tried to contact him again, with no luck. No reply. I still think today that, sending me the page with this low-cost formula, he thought he could fool me believing it was a normal parcel, fully insured (that’s what he didn’t gave me the tracking number at first). He was hoping for a two days travel. Problem is : with a flat/letter formula, you can’t expect a two days delay for sure even with a short travel here… It gave me the impression (and I told him) in my last email, he had done all this to recover a bit of money on the transaction (pityfully : the difference between what I paid for postage and what I got : around 7 or 8 euros). What a rat! After this experience, I discovered Visar Alard sold not only OA pieces with artifically inflated prices, but also others type of comics items (from everywhere : european, manga & US) or pop culture items. I discovered that he sold many questionable items like John Byrne’s Elsewhen printed paper omnibus compilations or counterfeit copies of old french mags which published translations of Marvel comics in the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s (as the company which published them disapeared 35 years ago and the publishing rights changed 2 times of hands since, I suppose it would be difficult to attack these counterfeit copies on legal ground…) To conclude, to me, Visar Alard seems to be a man ready to make money, even little, by any means... Some of you will tell me many dealers do this, but I’m pretty certain he isn’t a professional dealer and more greedy than the average dealer. For sure, because of what happened, I will never do any transaction again with him in the future.

I saw a portfolio full of this kind of pages almost 2 years ago at his booth. Looking at the pages, I could understand why. To caricature, I would say it was almost blank pages... (and I couldn't find something interesting in all this white, even with the low prices)

Late to the party... Hopefully the net never really forget, so I just could see the drawing even with your edit.

For my part, I really like the frame.

No, it's a Los Bros' new kind of fake.

Nice site. Interesting pics.

There were others excellent pieces in this HI auction. I was amazed by the new rendition of Batman by Kelley Jones for example.

Quick flip attempt, two weeks after ?

... and he even inked Steve Ditko for Charlton Bullseye.