ShallowDan

Excellent composition there! Even by Adams' standards that one is exceptional.

Easier question might be "does anyone not love Moebius?" My impression has always been that he's fairly universally admired. I'm primarily a fan of his Heavy Metal era work, but unfortunately I don't have anything from him.

So much truth packed into this post. I saw this play out during July's Heritage auction, when I was drinking with a friend and bidding on one of the Herriman Krazy Kat strips that were up for grabs. As I was showing him some past auction results to give him an idea of where I thought it would end up, my buddy who is a watch collector, was dumbfounded that anyone would bid that much on what is just a piece of paper with some drawings on it, when you can get xxxx (insert whatever watch he was talking about) for the same amount of money... 15-20 minutes later, I casually ask him what time is it. He reaches for his phone to check and I follow up with "why would you spend that much money on a watch you don't even use, when the same amount of money would buy a one-of-kind Herriman original Sunday strip that's almost a hundred years old...".

This "half up front, remaining half upon completion" is always my preference as well. It just seems like the fairest arrangement for everyone, since both parties have some skin in the game. If you don't mind me asking, as an artist what would you feel is the best approach for the person on the other end of the transaction to take if they find themselves in a situation where the completion date has been pushed out past a reasonable point. I think a lot of folks fear that if they get too pushy then the piece will get rushed, with the final results reflecting that. Also, something I didn't mention in my previous post, but I always try to make sure that the idea behind a commission project is one that the artist is fully on board with and enthusiastic about (usually I'll pitch 2 or 3 ideas and let them pick the one that most inspires them). It's just a gut feeling, but I can't help but imagine that if the artist likes the general idea of a piece, the end results will be all the better. In your experiences, is there any truth to that?

I could almost agree, EXCEPT for the fact that the jerk misspelled "virtue". That just adds to the insulting manner of the thing..

I don't think anyone has mentioned the payment terms, but I imagine very few published/known artists would tackle a piece featuring a client-created character without getting payment in full at the start of the project, so I wouldn't be bothered by that aspect of the transaction at all. Logically, they will always have other opportunities to sell a piece based on a published character, if the commission falls through, but there's a much diminished chance of that when it's something super-specific. As far as the timeline goes, I don't have a ton of experience with commissioning, but I usually ask the artist for a worst-case time estimate, add another 20% or so to the length of time, and then ask that they reach out to me with an update if it's not complete my that date: I'm fairly specific with this request, but still have had mixed results. I've never had any nightmare scenarios like I've seen others recount, but it's obvious that some artists are just lousy at handling that aspect of their business.

Yeah, the next illustration art auction looks to have the best mix of pin-up art they've offered in quite a while (at least since the Martignette collection was sold off). There are several very nice pieces.

Congrats on the win! Of the Kaluta covers HA has offered up this year, I think that one may be the nicest of the bunch.

I would say I was surprised, but not shocked, by this one. It's a nice and sexy pin-up piece and it's Bolland. I didn't expect it to break $10K, but can definitely understand why others were willing to bid higher.

I ended up breaking this one into two viewing sessions, and just finished it up today. It was a great episode. George comes across as that favorite uncle who has a house packed full of interesting things, each and every one of which he knows the history of.

Thanks for sharing the story behind this strip, Glen! Mutts is probably tied with Pearls Before Swine as my favorite modern-day strip. But the part of your post about the city having an injunction against spaying/neutering strays has me scratching my head. Was that a budget-driven decision, or some sort of LA-being-LA type thing?

Compared to redrawn stats covering faces, etc., this wouldn't bother me one bit. Just out of curiosity, I might like to know the story behind the changes, but the difference itself wouldn't be a concern at all. I've been trying to get my hands on some nice examples of Enrique Romero's AXA strip. Those are interesting in that much of the series was originally published in English, but later republished in Spanish-language newspapers. Some have the original English word balloons, while others have the Spanish. As NelsonAI says, this is one of those things that is undoubtedly much simpler to handle in the digital era. And that's a very pretty page, by the way. I'm sure it looks great in person.

Yep, Bronty mentioned that one earlier, which I was unaware of. It obviously got the Frazetta bump (and was apparently a Jim Halperin purchase, should anyone be inclined to level accusations of shenanigans on that price). Setting that outlier aside, it looks as if most EC covers by the regulars have been fairly range-bound between $70-90K for the last decade. Against that backdrop, the Chamber of Chills result is really impressive.

Too true! This is one of those situations where I can't help but think of what else you could buy for $1.2M. And given that Heritage's listing description alludes to the fact that the original is still in existence (at least presumably), I'm genuinely curious where this result would have it valued (and what would happen to the value of this piece if/when the original surfaces).

And a final price of $174K all-in on this one. Even including EC, is this a new record for a PCH cover? Off the top of my head, I can't remember any EC covers in this territory.

A price point that approaches rascality, but clearly avoids the level of shenanigans! Either way, it's much stronger than I would have guessed for a recreation.

Yep, as a buddy of mine who is a watch collector explained it to me, certain models (such as the Daytona, IIRC) are almost always held back and never see a display case. Instead, they are sold to the buyers who buy multiple watches a year. So in return for buying a half dozen or so more common watches, those guys get the opportunity to buy something they can then flip/resell for an instant return, given the pricing on the secondary market. The part I found most interesting (which you alluded to) is that there are waaaay more Rolex watches manufactured in a year than most folks would ever guess. As I understand things, they don't release hard numbers of watches manufactured, in part I'm guessing to keep the impression of them being much more limited in supply than they in fact are.

In a hobby with more than its fair share of interesting folks, George has always struck me as one of the most interesting, so I'm definitely looking forward to tonight's panel with him.

There's obviously a small handful of pieces that might be expected to challenge Egyptian Queen, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that this is one of them, especially given the fact that it's essentially a recreation. But what do I know? I'm not yet in that "then, you only want Frazetta" territory... Either way, it will obviously be exciting to see where this one ends up.

To me, it just says that you still remember that this is real money we're talking about here, which can arguably go a lot further if buying other things. It's a weird mental state we as collectors sometimes find ourselves in where $X (whatever that value is for the particular collector) doesn't seem like much when spent on art, but definitely feels like a lot when spent on something that's non-art related. And I say that as someone who never ventures outside of the low four-figure side of the pool (and spends most of his time in the three-figure kiddie pool).

There’s a lot of truth in that take. The losses that eat at me the most are definitely those where I was the underbidder. As you said, there’s always that nagging feeling that if you had stretched just a little bit more you would have won. But when you get blown out you know that you were never in the running, so that feeling doesn’t haunt you.

That makes it all the more special to you, I’m sure. Jim has always come across as one of the truly good guys in the industry and it’s great you have a piece like this to remind you of the times you hung out together.

Always a downer when you get blown out before it even hits the live auction. Best of luck if you do decide to chase it.

To the OP, Taylor G sums up what I was trying to say in the "in my heart" part of my post far, far better than I do. It's a great post that nails the argument of why some stuff should be kept together.

In my heart I feel similar to what Rick says above: if there's an argument to be made that comics are art, then I would say that it's the complete story/issue that comes closest to meeting the standard. Obviously it's an imperfect analogy, but a single page of a story is akin to a chapter of a book or scene of a film This is why with more historically important works, I prefer to see stories stay together - the artwork from EC stories come to mind here. I think Quietly still owns all of the art from We3, and if he ever did sell it, I'd love to see it stay together. Having said that, in my head I recognize that for the bulk of the stuff most collectors are interested in (big 2 superhero stories) this is rarely feasible and much less of a concern since stories are on-going/never-ending, big events are undone or retconned, etc. You may find it interesting, BurradoRun, but a not-insignificant portion of the Prince Valiant art work that survives is in the form of single panels. Hal Foster would cut up strips and gift individual panels to fans who wrote him. I've wondered if anyone has ever tried to tackle reassembling a Valiant strip.