ShallowDan

Yeah, Lee was such a larger-than-life character that I don't think the industry will ever see someone like him again. Jim Lee is by all impressions a great guy and could arguably be considered the top guy in the industry, but Stan Lee managed to transcend the world of comics and had a level of awareness with the general public that I doubt anyone else will ever have.

As the guy who steered that initial wrong turn (I'll blame the GPS!), I will note that there were only 30 pieces of art on day 1, with a full five of 'em being the MTG pieces. So, it's partly a matter of it being something a little out of the ordinary that catches your attention due to the novelty and partly a matter of there not being a ton of other stuff to talk about yet.

Just thinking out loud here, but could it also be a matter of there simply not being as much stuff available? I know MTG has been going on for 25 years or so now, but I'm guessing the total number of cards is less than 10,000. A single monthly comic title will have almost 10,000 pages in this same period of time (32 pages a month, plus cover). Obviously, how many of those are "decent" is up for debate, whereas each MTG card is probably more akin to a cover or splash piece, relatively speaking. I also may be off base with this, but anecdotally I seem to recall hearing that much of the early card art for MTG was scooped up by a small handful of collectors, which I imagine would also limit the number of pieces that trade hands in any given year.

My dirty little secret is that either of them are way out of my budget (and if given a $300k cash windfall, would probably just shore up the retirement accounts, pay off the mortgage, take a nice vacation and buy a sub $50K piece. Having said that, if someone is Christmas shopping for a gift I'm obliged to hold on to and can't resell, I definitely prefer the X268 cover. Whether that decision is colored by my particular set of nostalgia goggles or the technical superiority of the Lee/Williams piece I'll leave to others.

And if anyone is looking for evidence that MTG original art collecting has come into its own, this auction provided it. I don't know what preliminary estimates were, but one of the pieces finished at $168K all in, with another finishing at $114K. For pieces that appear to have sold solely on nostalgia (no offence to the original artists, I'm sure their mothers were proud of them) that strikes me as incredibly strong pricing.

Just in case it's of interest, this popped up on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/303767157502 Not the sexiest of 'em that I've seen, but funny enough (with a dead-on Hagar the Horrible as a bonus)

That's been me with this one, too. There's a small handful of things that I'd love to own any one of, that are all at lower-than-expected numbers this close to the live. I'm feeling a bit like Charlie Brown getting ready to take another kick at the football. I know how it's all gonna end, but hope springs eternal...

The slow collapse of the comic book industry that's been playing out over the last decade or so (and hopefully I'm not offending anyone with that assertion), doesn't seem to have affected the price of O/A, so I don't think it would necessarily have an immediate impact that would be noticeable in either direction. I know that a general impression is that "there's new art coming out every month", but with more artists going digital and the number of books being put out on a monthly basis dropping over time, it seems like there's already less and less new art hitting the market each year. Demographically, I'd love to know what percentage of floppy readers are under age 20. I bought my first comic book at the local drugstore and had "collected" for three or four years before I ever stepped foot into a comic book shop. These days, I imagine very few kids take such a path. And with all the publishers having moved to higher (more expensive) paper/print standards, comics feel like a luxury even to me as a grown man when I make the rare purchase. That's to say that I've long been skeptical of things in the long-term. I'd say you're safe sticking with top tier characters such as Spidey and Batman, but I'd be careful putting too many eggs in my Phantom Stranger basket

Thanks for the clear and honest info, Bill! Frankly more there than you owe any of us. I'm sure you always get way more free suggestions that you'll ever have time to implement them, but I'll toss one on the pile: It would be great if members were emailed or otherwise notified of changes to pieces that they have marked as "liked". That's to say if I have my eye on ten pieces that I'm considering, and two get a price cut and three are no longer available due to being sold, that sort of update would be very useful. That stuff is always much easier to propose than it is to code, but it was something that came to mind this weekend that I wanted to share.

Maybe it was a file size issue??? I'll see myself out now...

The first Comic Art Live snuck up on me and hit during a weekend when i was really busy, so it wasn't able to participate. This go-around I made an effort to have some time set aside so I could enjoy the panels as they were being streamed. I mentioned it in the thread for Felix's podcast, but his two-part stream with Tradd and Bill was a particular favorite from the weekend. I'd been hoping Felix would eventually interview Tradd for his podcast, so I was excited for the chance to see them discuss the business and hobby. I also ended up being able to cut a deal for something I've had my eye on for a while, so the weekend was a success on that front as well. Like others have said, it can be eye-rolling when you see some of the same pieces at the same prices that you've seen 'em at before, but that's very often the case with real-life cons as well.

I've always noticed that any time you're remotely deep into a hobby, you'll catch all sorts of anachronisms with movie/TV props and set design. One of my favorites is pinball. For the longest time, it seemed that Hollywood sound pros only had access to EM (electro-mechanical) audio recordings for pinball machines, so you would get a scene with someone playing a 90s era DMD machine, but the sound would be 50s/60s era bells and chimes. Like RBerman said, I'm betting it's probably a mix of prop-master ignorance and it being "close enough" for most folks.

I really enjoyed both parts of the chat today. My impression has always been that Tradd keeps a low profile (reinforced by that half of the stream), so it was great to get a chance to hear you two discussing his career. And the second half with you and Bill was equally fun to listen to. Plus, after seeing your avatar pic here for so long, I spent the entire time thinking "wow, Felix looks much younger than I've been picturing him"!

Frank Kozik is generally credited for almost single-handedly bringing back the lost art of rock poster design back in the 90s. He would shamelessly borrow from lots of sources, with comics being a favorite. This poster for a Morphine show has always been a favorite:

This is where I come down on this as well. There are some things that I value more than the broader market does (and am thus willing to pay above-market for, if necessary) and there are definitely some things that the market values much more than I do (leaving me sitting on the sidelines, wondering what the hell I'm missing). With many pieces having grown significantly in value, it's easy to forget that comic art is still a relatively small/narrow market and one player can single-handedly establish a new floor.

I'm a sucker for happy endings, so it's great to see that you've made such progress with the search. The new ones are fantastic: #136 in particular has long been a favorite: https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1677851 I love Wright's knack for rendering automobiles. This one has that, the dynamic overhead shot in the third panel, and the great flirtatious banter.

Yep, there's simply no way to eliminate shill bidding. You can try to discourage and minimize it, but folks will always find workarounds. Years ago on an ebay auction (non-art), I had a similar situation to grapeape, where someone had pecked away until they topped my bid, then at the end of the auction I was quickly offered a second chance to buy the item after being told the high-bidder had flaked out on the purchase. Looking at the bid history, there was a big gap between the final bid, and the price I would have won it at in the absence of shenanigans (that's to say the third highest bidder was significantly below the final price), so I responded that I'd be happy to bid again if the item was relisted, but wasn't interested in the second chance offer. The seller pushed against this, with a now-or-never type response, but eventually relisted the item a week or so later. I had a buddy bid on my behalf the second go-around (I was paranoid that the seller might try to screw me out of some sense of general principle), but this time I went with the sniping route on the bid and ended up getting it at a much lower price. I've used sniping on ebay ever since for most big buys. Obviously it won't keep you safe from all shill bid situations, but does help with some.

Obviously this sort of thing is definitely none of our business, but my impression is that Mr. Gorrell's death was very unexpected. Back in early September, I sent him a CAF message, inquiring about a piece of strip art he had listed for sale earlier this year. After a couple of weeks went by without a response, I ended up checking out his personal website (I learned that he was an artist himself), hoping to find an alternate email address to directly reach out to him. It was there that I saw a notice of his death that his family had posted. From what I learned there, he died in May. He was still posting/commenting on CAF as late as April, so I'm guessing that whatever happened, it was something sudden. My impression from his website was that he didn't have a spouse or any children. I had debated reaching out to his family, to see if the estate had any plans for his collection (not a "I'd like to offer you pennies on the dollar" sort of thing, but rather a "please be aware that this stuff isn't worthless" message). So I was happy (or at least happy for them) to see the listings pop up on Heritage. Much better that they be able to benefit from the sale than it all end up in the garbage.

There's an ex-wife joke sitting here on the tee, waiting for someone to take a swing at it...

I have a sincere soft spot for kitsch and several years ago I spent some time digging around, trying to figure out if any of the O/A from these tracts was available. As far as I can tell, it's all locked away at best or has been lost to time at worst. Like vodou, I'd definitely be willing to pony up for nice examples. I'm sure everyone who is chiming in on this thread is well aware of this already, but if any lurkers who take a peek are not, Daniel Raeburn wrote a great long-form essay on Chick tracks a couple of decades ago in the Imp #2. It can be downloaded for free at https://danielraeburn.com/jack-chick.html .

Any thought on the election you'd like to share????

Not gonna lie, those corduroys are pretty swag. As far as the article itself goes, I can't pretend to be too surprised by tax loopholes benefiting the wealthy. I'm guessing the building that hosts the collection is also held by the foundation. Not to pull things OT, but I've often wondered if Los Bros run things as they do simply so they can be collectors while reaping some of the benefits that come with being a business (no sales tax with HA and other auction houses, writing off convention expenses, etc.).

Wow! That's legitimately one of the dumbest things I've ever seen done. It legitimately results in the OA looking like it's nothing more than a print.

The thread about recap pages included a comment by Malvin about the old days when a buyer/seller would often have to double-check to be sure they were both talking about the same page (since page number isn't something that was always standardized). As someone who has only collected comic/illustration art in the post-Internet age, I thought it might be fun to have a thread where some of you old-timers could share a few "back-in-my-days" type stories. I'd love to hear any stories about pieces bought solely based on the verbal descriptions (were you happy/disappointed) Or situations where you scrambled to buy a copy of a comic book to see what was being sold. Or weird phone call discussions. Basically any tales of the trials and tribulations of buying OA before everything was a simple as it is these days.

Ha! I didn't even make the connection to your user name. I have a soft spot for primitive art, so I really liked that one.