MyNameIsLegion

My opinions of artists have not changed dramatically over time - my appreciation for inkers (or dislike) has increased exponentially over the years.

Yeah but how much did some of those guys actually produce on a consistent basis once they went to Image? Keown was a non-entity, with what 3 issues of Pitt in two years? Portacio and Jae Lee didn't do much. McFarlane stopped penciling and did some inking, spending more time on Toys and Baseballs. Jim Lee even faltered output-wise, but his clones on Stormwatch were fairly consistent. Silvestri cranked out stuff semi regularly, Savage Dragon was fairly regular. Liefeld and his clones flooded the market with a ton of wretched looking product. So the greatest volume of material came from those with the least appeal for me. Wildstorm was by far the steadiest pillar of the bunch, and that's why D.C. Saw fit to buy them.

McFarlane wrote about as well as Leifeld could draw. I believe his first SM story arc was aptly named "Torment" Jim Lee was by far the best of the bunch, both at Marvel and afterward. His Wildcats at least looked and read like a polished comic. Nevertheless, collectively their influence of style over story and substance hollowed out Marvel and to a lesser extend D.C. ( they still had Vertigo) and killed the serial charm of monthly comics. I quit buying monthly tiitles 20 years ago, and since then the number of comics I've bought off the stands would fit in a short box (and most of them have Alex Ross material)

I won one of the Starslayer #2 DPS splashes for a decent price...

I almost bid before I realized it was a recreation- It's not out of the realm of possibility that the winner chased it with out reading the fine print.

Indeed, there was a rash of it this year- we had to hire some additional security...

that's what I was referring to as "semantic shift" or drift, it has a few names, and it's LITERALLY out of control!!!!!

the Term "grail" ceased to have meaning sometime in the later half of 1998 or early 1999 on the comicart-l mailing list. I think the term "grail" has been sufficiently watered down in the subsequent decades of this hobby that the semantic shift has taken root. Besides, the very notion of a grail flies in the face of the neurosis that is collecting. There can't be just one. Imagine if the character the Collector had but one single specimen? Nope. Of course, he's never sold or traded his specimen's either. That would make him THE FLIPPER. There's a lot of cosplayers around here masquerading as the Collector, but they are, in fact, THE FLIPPER!

I sold the majority of 1-2 issues to Anthony in 2004. Over the next 10 years, I sold 3-4 pages of M2in1 #35 to various collectors. The pages are out there, particularly those that were inked by Gan or Trinidad from the series, and the Chan pages from M2in1. It's very likely a stack of pages are sitting in some collectors stash, having never been scanned or shared because they weren't especially sought after. They shouldn't be that expensive relative to other pages from that era.

the countdown is on!

this show is deader than disco- promoter stiffed people last show, divorced wife, and skipped town from what the rumor mill says- he's probably in hiding now.

well if you send it first light they will likely only have made it through the first layer of packaging before it arrives.... that really does suck though.

well done sir.

I generally find that the most vocal of those proclaiming that "I'll pay more than anyone" Stupid money and all that, are completely FOS.

Man, picking just one is tough. I guess I have to go with this one today- but reserve the right to change my mind- this was the first Avengers comic I ever had or ever saw- and I still consider it the perfect book.

Jame's you will NEVER sell a glue stained X-Factor page like the one you just had on ebay for $650. Not now, not tomorrow, not five years from now. You might sell the DHOKF page for $400, but not a BIN of $715. You spam everyone of CAF with sub-par art and then get indignant when someone politely declines (but hey, they replied, which was more than you deserved) We've given you ton of candid, valid, constructive advise, and still you rant about no one ever discusses price with you. Well we are discussing it now. If you continue to just vent this passive aggressive bile it's a one-way ticket to ignores-ville. It's a self-fulfiling prophesy. You want to sell something? You want someone to haggle with you? I can only imagine what that exchange would look like. why would anyone sign up for that? They can find dozens of pages of comparable or better art on Anthony's site for less. What possible motivation would a buyer have to do that? You can't make an apples to apples comparison to what other dealers do, or what other people buy from those sellers. You are not an apple. You are not Anthony, or Burkey, or Spencer. You don't have the inventory, pure and simple. You certainly work hard to build your business, and rep your artists. I applaud that. But blaming your potential customers for not buying what you are selling is just about the dumbest thing any retailer can do. You have nothing that any collector can't live without, or can't get elsewhere for less, and with less drama. Put the shovel down and climb out of the hole you just dug for goodness sake.

MMM has 2-3 shill accounts- over time he has stopped selling on one when there's too much press about his shilling, then some other account starts selling the exact same material, including all the Wacky Packages stuff, then he switches back to his old ID like nothing ever happened. If you tracked bid history its very suspicious, and the hight number of re-listings (because his shill won, so he re-lists it) is staggering. To my knowledge he still owes Burkey money for art he got many years ago that Burkey allowed him to take and pay later, and he's never paid up, and avoided Mike even when they are at the same convention. Many have wondered about how he can try to flip art recently in HA, but I suspect he's working some sort of game where he "wins" stuff at a certain price, which establishes a perceived value, and then re-sells it, sometimes for less. I think he's working with someone else that consigns and he shills it up. Sometimes he "wins" and then just sells it for real on ebay (and shills some more). It may cost some juice on HA, but if you can make a $200 page look like a $600 page the math still works in your favor.

James here are your most recent unsold offerings- your prices are completely unrealistic. They are are borderline what you would get from inquiring about something from the Donnelys. You might also try mentioning the artist and the year, not additional hyperbole in the auction title like Avengers! X-Men! etc which are rather deceptive and the sort of over-selling I would expect from less reputable sellers. I was genuinely surprised you did that James, given what I believe to be your genuine belief in ethics and fairness and accuracy which you have always championed in your posts and discussions in the old chat room. Besides all that has been said in this thread, you are also running up against true FMV versus perceived FMV, which is highly manipulated thanks to shilling and strategic bidding by deep pockets to maintain price perception. If you posted A-list art. It would get bids or offers, and the first one's in line would be other dealers. You wanna sell a decent Vosburg page from DHOKF? Price it at $450. Not a BIN of $715. You know what I can buy for $715? 75% of what Anthony posted in the last week, and its better art on the whole, even for being Bob Hall. Thats your competition. The Mutant Massacre pages? You might gets some nostalgia there, but not $650 for a glue stained page. I can find 20 other pages I like more for less that Anthony has for sale right now. Do you need any more concrete examples?

and the Wonder Woman page is the best of the lot- it might sell for $400. Find me a comparable SOLD ebay auctions for more that's comparable, that isn't from MakeMineMarvel.

Really James, C'mon man. Nothing against Vosburg, but he's not regarded as an A-list artist by most purveyors and consumers of bronze art. And just look at the thousands of pages Anthony has on ebay that never sell because they are too high a BIN. I've had pages that I've tracked on ebay for literally years, and there they sit. YEARS. Malvin starts all his auctions at 1 cent and lets the market decide. Matt Stock (Make Mine Marvel) starts his at 9.99, but he literally shills just about every auction he posts. A starting bid that is essentially a BIN price will get ZERO action, and if it does, it will be a snipe in the last 5 seconds, and not a moment before. To bid sooner is stupid, especially for sub-prime art for which there are thousands of other pages to be had on ebay and dealers sites, and clink and HA. Start your auctions at $9.99 with no reserve, or don't list auctions at all. List as a BIN at about your starting price, and see if it sells after a few re-listings. Lower the price if you have too. I can understand not wanting to go straight auction with a consignment, no other dealer does that for that very reason. Lambasting the CGC boards for not bidding WILL result in the self-fulfilling prophesy of some people not bidding out of spite, though spite may not be the correct word for it.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken Bill had major issues with switching to the new servers a few weeks back and was ultimately forced to revert CAF back to the the original servers, so what you are experiencing may be an artifact of the switch back or a symptom of why Bill sought another home for CAF to begin with.

@Ironmandrd- thank you, you are correct about how HA wins are labeled - I meant to say Floor Bidder. I pay attention to the cadence of the bids as they are placed, not just who wins - after a few hundred of these it's clear to me that if you were to remove 5-6 people from the floor, the results are very different, as to who wins, number of bids placed, and ultimately what the final price is. They keep the ball in play much longer than the real market, absent their participation would support.

I will admit to some hyperbole- anything of merit is bid up. Watch an auction live on HA. The % of items bid on and/or won in HA Live. (the dealers in attendance) Contrast that with Clink and other formats, where they are not in the room, just online, and you quickly see why HA commands the highest prices, and they absolutely role our the red carpet for a few favorite bidders. One or two guys may net HA 20-30% of the total auctions returns for being there. Certainly worth flying them out and plying them with dinner and booze don't you think? Clink, Hakes, ebay, not so much. thats why the normal pattern for art to get flipped is ebay-clink-HA. Any other order and you might lose money. That's the sad truth of the hobby really. It's a small enough pool that prices manipulation is rampant and rewarded.

Actually, I don't believe this to be true- not in the slightest. there is FMV, and then there is the price manipulation when a piece hits HA and everything gets bid up by a couple of dealers in the room that seek to buoy prices.

ans so it is- I finally found it- National Lampoon Sept. 1983