MyNameIsLegion

i would venture to say that any piece of Gil Kane art that has passed through the hands of certain dealers may have been re-inked. Not as a loving act of restoration and preservation, but as an act of outright deceit. This is far more rampant than the more easily detectable restoration of stats and overlays and all the questionable attempts to manufacture a "pre-lim cover or rejected cover out of a convention drawing or napkin doodle by the Bros. D. In other forums on this board that would be justification right there to have a 3rd party grading system, but I doubt anyone has the stomach for it because too many people would be shocked to get back $$$$ slabbed pieces of art with the dreaded "PLOD" Purple Label of Death. Imagine the uproar that a one of a kind piece was thus branded with the scarlet letter. Does it plunge in value compared to non-restored art? Can it be undone? Not if it was re-inked. Maybe buyers need to start inspecting art with a black light like comic collectors and dealers were doing before slabbing took over and killed the old school practice of touching up the blacks on a cover with a sharpie.

Do you really want to know the answer? Not everyone does; which is why they are still in business. They just might not be able to charge you the Andrew Rom Collector price when you “enquire” which is why they also stay in business. I would not buy it for any price unless I could inspect it in person, and now that I know it’s passed through their hands, it’s no longer worth as much.

WOODGOD. This contest was over before it even started

I overlayed these in photoshop as well- the B&W image doesn't have the same shadow under Swamp Thing, feet are cut off- demon wings are not quite the same size. This is not the same image. Now certainly there could have been a production cover made, that extended the art to the borders and other tweaks, and with the Philippino artists, more liberties taken with the standard DC production process as the art could have been repurposed from a pin-up or splash or ad, but the fact that Redondo's signature is so large and placed so high, is very strange to me. I could see if the inker wasn't the penciler that there could be a rational explanation for 2 similar pieces to be floating around. That happened before with the Buscema Conan pages that got inked by 2 inkers but this is hard to explain. Maybe he just did a recreation and noted the year that it was originally done, which was 1974.

This comic went on sale December 5th 1974, so everything about the comic was produced in 1974. That date on the comic is the pull date, not the publish date, as has been the norm for decades. Of course that makes the fact that Mike's piece is dated 1974 even more strange. How likely is is to do an original and a reproduction in the same year? Not very. Not back then.

what's worse, and I made mention of this before: They KNOW their reputation is garbage with the the majority of the OA collecting community, so if one of these alternate covers or WTF ever don't sell- they launder them through Heritage and other auction houses so the unsuspecting bidder isn't expressly aware that it came out of the Donnelly's Bros Comic Art Chop Shop.

well, I guess I'll be in the cell next to @Timely then. You guys have only further made the case that it's not the artist (which no one outside the hobby will recognize or appreciate) or the art, or one iconic page, no cover, it's one of the rare examples where the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts and breaking it up may in fact devalue it, non-super hero. It's merit and value is invested soley in story and technique in the CGC era where everyone is chasing 1st appearances, iconic covers, and that mindset has started to creep into the OA collecting corner. AND, its 60 years old, so the demographic that bought this off the stands will not be bidding at all. Will it hit six figures? Sure, Neil Gaiman or Gene will guarantee that! But Kirk Hammett isn't going to swoop in and scoop this up like it's a Frazetta and make the news. 4-5 guys will determine the outcome, while everyone else is eating popcorn. Not unless 2 of those guys have more money than sense will it break 300K.

I"m gonna be the contrarian and say this will do "less" that expected, because it's historic nature is too esoteric to draw attention. It would take more than a 30 sec soundbite to explain why a non comic collector should care about this. Now if it was the 1st appearance of Platypus Man? The hero with a happy meal and a movie and cartoon and halloween costume? yeah sure, that's easier to explain. Your age and comic nerd bias may be inflating your estimation of its value.

A recent acquisition- Secret Agent Corrigan Daily- 10/28/1969

I see why Dan's pulling the pic and price after it's sold, but it is kind of a shame, cuz I would have liked to have seen the scans- a few where sold without quoting the original post- so never got to see the Wonder Woman #105 or Superboy #168...

I wonder though, if the changes to copy-write law have artificially extended some of the franchises like Disney, Bond, and the Beatles. If the Mouse has entered public domain like it should have 30 years ago, things would be much different. On the other hand, pop culture is littered with the cultural obsessions of the past. The Western is still dead. Kung-Fu movies still dead. Pulp characters like the Shadow, The Phantom, Doc Savage, still dead. Dynamite has done what they can to keep them alive in comics, but they are not going to reach MCU levels, not ever. Why? They don't have the benefit of saturation via media, toys, products, licensing, etc that turn a property into a brand. Conan will never spawn a barbarian sword and sorcery craze. It's not gonna go on a happy meal, pop tarts, and electric tooth brush. Star wars is the success it is not for the movies, half of them were objectively bad. But all those 3.5 inch figures never left our consciousness. Star Trek perhaps is at greater risk of fading, it lacks the brand equity Star Wars and Batman have. And speaking of Universal Monsters, look at how much the current effort to revive that has fallen flat.

yeah, I can't disagree there- certainly those actively collecting are under 60, in their prime earning earning/buying years, so the gravity aspect of the black-hole metaphor is more apropos. I guess I was speaking more of the the cohort of current 60+ year olds, active or not in the hobby, their collections are less visible, less "fresh" or "fresh to market/" They are more likely to get dumped all at once on the market via estate liquidation ( ex. Ethan Roberts) or proactively like Berk's. Those are both "known" high profile examples of course. There are many many more minor instances, and maybe black holes isn't quite the right term. Those collectors that had a handful of pieces they acquired back when art was $10 a page, that got tucked away along with other related items in a comic collection. I think they are the most at risk of getting lost or thrown out, as the general non-collecting public simply is not well-versed enough in the world of Comic art to even recognize it as such. OA is still on the periphery of comic collecting. What to call those? Dark Matter Collections?

Black-hole: things go in, but don't come out- I think that is pretty much understood- but the key point is that you cannot see inside a black hole. If everything in your gallery on CAF is NFS, you're are not a black-hole collector. if you are one of those guys that contacts people on CAF but don't have a gallery, or it's filled with scans of comic covers of books that you WTB, yeah, you may be a black hole collector. In my experience though, most true black hole collectors simply are not active online in any sort of social way (message board, FB, whatever) They may be lurking, and if you look back at comic art-l or some of the FB groups, the number of active participants is not even 10% of the audience. more often than not, the black hole collectors simply are over the age of 60, and that explains their behavior more than anything else. There's nothing intentional about it, or strategic, or shrewd, or shy- they simply aren't online. which brings me to my next point: "Fresh to Market" that too is mostly about whether or not a piece of art has been publicly sold or traded. Emphasis on the word Market. Having art sitting in your CAF gallery I don't think makes a damn bit of difference if it's never changed hands via the "market". Art changes hands behind the scenes in private deals all the time, and that mostly goes unnoticed. Making an art day post about your recent HA win- I think we can generally agree that's the textbook definition of not "fresh to market." Posting a piece of art on CAF that you got from a black hole collection, or some other means that was not visible to others, or simply something you have that's never been posted: That's not fresh to market either, unless it's FS. I guess you can say it's "Fresh" for having never been shared online in a way that tells the world "Hey this art exists, and I own it" That's very different than a random image search that reveals a bunch of Pinterest posts that could very well have been scanned from F.O.O.M. or one of Mitch's old art catalogs from 30 years ago. The whole Flipping thread here is predicated on the quick turn of art in the marketplace when it is done publicly. By definition that art isn't "fresh." Nothing gets labelled as a Flip if the 1st transaction wasn't public.

well, speaking for myself- I do both- but it does double the work. CAF is orders of magnitude better at organization, categorization, search and filtering than FB. FB is a garbage fire. BUT, it's like eating cotton candy, it's light and easy to consume. I'm dubious how effective it is for selling- I'm not sure it's good for that, but for a spur of the moment topical post on say, Herb Trimpe's birthday, its got an advantage. CAF could do all that, but would have to rethink some of the architecture of the site. To me, some of the FB groups, Frank's in particular, are comicart-l 2.0, they have supplanted the dated yahoo group. theres no question that FB is easier to post pictures, even easier than a message board. Instagram I don't see gaining too much traction- FB groups allow for some measure of privacy and separation if set up properly from a users non-hobby life. I don't want my posts about OA to show up in my mother-in-laws newsfeed. There's a great many groups I don't join or participate in for that reason.

this x 1000. Why do people do that still? But I'm much more of a stickler for organizing my CAF. Its 50% of the reason I use CAF and post my collection. It's easier to keep organized, and as a Premium member it provides even more features to support keeping things organized and it does it all for you so you don't have to waste your time setting up galleries by artist, or type of art, medium, etc. Fresh to market: as someone else said, if it's NFS, it's on display, and to my thinking is somewhat immune to the "fresh to market" label. That's just a concern of dealers and flippers who wish to hide recent sales history. When it bounces from eBay to Clink to HA in 6 months, it's been rode hard and put away wet. When it's been automatically re-listed on eBay for 2 years, whether it's a sketch of an anthropomorphic emu or listed by the Donnely's for 5x FMV for a dubious prelim of a cover that's been re-inked and redressed to look like a cover, yeah, it's about as fresh as a Hostess Cupcake in a gas station in New Mexico. The worst thing eBay eve did was allow unsold listings to be be automatically re-listed for free. When people contact me out of the blue through CAF to inquire about art- particularly if it's NFS (and I have nothing currently FS) I immediately look at their CAF gallery, If they don't have one, I completely dismiss them. They have no credibility, no reputation, no history as far as a I can see. If they have a CAF gallery, and it has like 5 things in it, none of which have anything to do with the art they are inquiring about, I also pause and if I vaguely recognize the name from 20 years in the hobby, and know damn well they have a lot more art than that, I also ignore them. If they are cagey and don't want others to know what they have, but want to buy sell or trade art with you, and offer things FS or trade that where not in their CAF- that's a red flag. Could be a scam, could be a guy working to flip something he doesn't even own, whatever- I don't have time or interest to run a background check on you so to speak, so I also dismiss them without a second thought. Dopamine Rush- CAF view and comments are waaaaaay down, of A nd B list items, this has been trending downward for about 18 months. It's the FB effect. Many have chosen to only interact through FB groups. You get that dopamine rush of instant feedback on FB, though I struggle to see how it differs substantially from CAF in that regard. FB absolutely sucks as medium to browse after the fact- you can't even control your own view of a FB group in mobile or desktop without FB constantly trying to feed you what THEY think you want to see and in what order. I can only attribute this downward trend on CAF to the simple fact that FB isn't better, it's just EASY and it MOBILE FRIENDLY. I'm afraid Bill might need to address that and come up with a mobile platform or risk further erosion.

It's a small world indeed, in a myriad number of ways, and yet still vast. I find it amusing that I know @lighthouse and @ft88 both from college, they were both finance majors, and to my knowledge didn't know each other. They most certainly had classes together, it was a small university. Ed and I where neighbors in the dorms, and that's how I got to know him and bought and traded comics with him. TJ maybe wasn't active in the hobby at the time. Nevertheless, more than a decade later I join the CGC boards, and find lighthouse and ft88 both are active members of the boards, and still I don't think they really crossed paths. Now we have both TJ and Ed on the same boards with their own CGC blogs of sorts, with 2 very different perspectives on the business of comics. TJ's pro brick and mortar, Ed's very much against it for the most part, but both have been generous in their insight and business methodologies which makes for an interesting read.

@adamstrange ask @Weird Paper, he may have first or second hand knowledge of their print production history, he worked one some of the first color reprint collections. I have a color key somewhere to one of the books.

what happened? Some sorta new feature that's not backwards compatible with the old journal format? At least it's still readable, hate to lose it- Ed's is the only journal I follow.

If CAF premium membership was pegged to the rate of inflation of any Sal Buscema Page before 1982, it would cost $750 a year!

OK, I think Flamebit has clearly explained himself, he didn't lie, his comments started before San Diego, and then he did see Mike at San Diego, and that should be sufficient for Mike. I have every reason to believe that @romitaman will retract calling him a liar. No need for a flamewar over it. BUT, this little nugget from Mike is worth mining. Imagine a thread where every time the Donnely's quoted a price on a piece, since nothing is ever priced online or at a show, and it was posted here. THAT would very interesting.

I couldn't do SDCC, so I let SDCC come to me (mostly thanks to Anthony, no crowds, concierge service, a free t-shirt, and a signed copy of the new Overstreet Price Guide where Anthony signed his very out of date photo, sure to be a priceless treasure someday) Classic 1st Defenders Subby page, Al Williamson, Detective #457 famous There's no Hope in Crime Alley" page, Gene HA splash, Perez, Jimenez, and other random stuff Click here to view CAF, or click thumbnails for larger images , ,,, ,.

I've traded with Moy, Burkey, Anthony, Fanfare, and Morger on multiple occasions over the last 20 years. I've traded with many of you as individuals here and there. I've done some very convoluted 3 and 4-way cash and trade deals that would make the NBA or NFL player trades look simple. I've traded comics for art. I've certainly bought art that wasn't my specific thing but knew it had enough upside to be leveraged for things I like better. Sometimes you have to buy the art that's available to you and accessible, not the art you really want but can't afford, or don't want to lay out the cash and get caught up in some bidding war. I used to sell art too, but haven't so much in recent years, and you know why? I hate having to package it up, and half the art I've ever sold, I wish I still had. I've even gotten art back in trade I used to own.

everything they've ever touched would get a PURPLE LABEL OF DEATH, and the thing you paid 3x market for would be WORTHLESS...

A bunch of new stuff, including a few pages that have been buried away for over 30 years, most notably, one of the best Brent Anderson: Gold Loves, Man Kill pages from Marvel GN #5 (1982) God Loves Man Kills, Shanna Splash from Rampaging Hulk, Iron Man #165 page: ,, Vision & Scarlet Witch #1, JG Jones Wonder Woman, and a very early Art Adams Hulk sketch from summer of 1985 when LongShot was just hitting the stands. ,,