Collecting modern original art?

[TStrong-migration]

As a long-time comic book collector but new to original artwork, I've been watching this board and I've learned a lot from some of the old posts. I would appreciate some advice.

 

My funds are limited. I enjoyed comic books for what they are but I also trade and sell them. I usually make a small profit with them. Is this possible with modern original comic artwork?

 

I've read 'buy what you like' and I intend to do that but somewhere down the line, I'll want to 'trade up' or sell the artwork, too. I'm not in this primarily for profit but I can't afford to lose alot of money.

 

What I personally like is modern original art. I've been collecting comic books for fifteen years and I want to collect/sell/trade modern comic art from that time frame. Most of the big-time collectors on this board seem to have bought Silver Age artwork years ago at discount prices, allowing them to trade up, or they have great-paying jobs like an MD, or they are wealthy like Eric S. This is not my situation.

 

Modern art prices seem to start at a very high level. If you want a brand name label (like Fantastic Four), the dealers I've found want $1000 or much more for a cover or a splash. Even the dull panel pages that I don't want are $100. With every page of every comic now being saved or sold, only the relatively rare art like Hellboy seems to go up in value.

 

Small press comic art is usually cheaper but for a reason. Also, I'm not interested in collecting artwork from books I haven't read. As a Marvel/DC junkie, that leaves me looking for something from the big two.

 

Since I'm not Krazy enough to think that comic art prices are a bargain and will always go up, I just want to know what you guys think. Is there any profit to be made, no matter how small, with modern comic art?

 

 

 

 

 

[Mister Trent]

It's a Krazy hobby . . .

 

[micmack]

It is possible, but you have to catch certain new artists on the rise. I happen to like certain artist as they were or just before they started to rise in their prices.

 

I've gotten pages from Finch, McNiven, Ed Benes, Aaron Loprest and Ivan Reis at decent prices for even some Splash pages. Yes I collected them because I liked them, but at the same time they have some amount of liquity to them if I need to trade up. Not all artists work can apreciate in value in the short term. Start within your budget. If you hesitate in a purchase, it most likely not be a good one. If you start your cash immediately, then the piece is a keeper....

[Pirate]

It is possible, but you have to catch certain new artists on the rise. I happen to like certain artist as they were or just before they started to rise in their prices.

 

I've gotten pages from Finch, McNiven, Ed Benes, Aaron Loprest and Ivan Reis at decent prices for even some Splash pages. Yes I collected them because I liked them, but at the same time they have some amount of liquity to them if I need to trade up. Not all artists work can apreciate in value in the short term. Start within your budget. If you hesitate in a purchase, it most likely not be a good one. If you start your cash immediately, then the piece is a keeper....

 

Dont encourage him

[Pirate]

guys this is Krazy Kat

[EvilAsh]

guys this is Krazy Kat

It's almost too obvious though!

[malvin]

sigh.. I can be so clueless sometimes, ok, I'm deleting my words of wisdom!

 

Malvin

[Pirate]

guys this is Krazy Kat

It's almost too obvious though!

 

yea true

[LordZarak]

guys this is Krazy Kat

 

Wait... So that means he was talking to himself in the 15 Reasons thread? That's just KRAZY!

 

[Ares]

guys this is Krazy Kat

 

Wait... So that means he was talking to himself in the 15 Reasons thread? That's just KRAZY!

 

Thats not normal....

 

Hey it Happens all the time Ares

 

No it doesnt Sam, stop talking like that.

 

WTF are you talking about Ares?? You off your Meds again?

 

No Sam I'm not... now this is not the time nor place to discuss this!

 

 

Ok Ares... If you say so

[Pirate]

guys this is Krazy Kat

 

Wait... So that means he was talking to himself in the 15 Reasons thread? That's just KRAZY!

 

Thats not normal....

 

Hey it Happens all the time Ares

 

No it doesnt Sam, stop talking like that.

 

WTF are you talking about Ares?? You off your Meds again?

 

No Sam I'm not... now this is not the time nor place to discuss this!

 

 

Ok Ares... If you say so

[Mighty Hal]

Sorry, guys: This isn't Krazy Kat.

 

This post is from my cousin. His first name is Richard, he goes by , and he's not that excited about me giving his last name. Primarily because of your response to his question.

 

So if we could just have the lynch mob return back home....

 

I thought he asked a fair question. He knows I collect OA and he wonders if I'll ever get my money back. He likes my collection, wouldn't have spent as much for it as I did, and understands that I've collected what I like -- and hope, someday, to at least break even.

 

He's particularly interested in Tom Strong artwork (hence, TStrong) but doesn't yet own any. Any OA. At all. And, with this kind of welcome, it might be awhile until he does pick up his first piece.

 

 

[Ares]

Sorry, guys: This isn't Krazy Kat.

 

This post is from my cousin. His first name is Richard, he goes by , and he's not that excited about me giving his last name. Primarily because of your response to his question.

 

So if we could just have the lynch mob return back home....

 

I thought he asked a fair question. He knows I collect OA and he wonders if I'll ever get my money back. He likes my collection, wouldn't have spent as much for it as I did, and understands that I've collected what I like -- and hope, someday, to at least break even.

 

He's particularly interested in Tom Strong artwork (hence, TStrong) but doesn't yet own any. Any OA. At all. And, with this kind of welcome, it might be awhile until he does pick up his first piece.

 

Your cousin got a pretty standard welcome!

[Pirate]

Sorry when someone starts rambling about modern OA not increasing in value and misspelling crazy, we jump as most are tired of the same old song and dance from the shills..

[Frank Pentangeli-migration]

Sorry when someone starts rambling about modern OA not increasing in value and misspelling crazy, we jump as most are tired of the same old song and dance from the shills..

 

Dats not werry nice

[Mister Trent]

Sorry when someone starts rambling about modern OA not increasing in value and misspelling crazy, we jump as most are tired of the same old song and dance from the shills..

 

It doesn't help when new posters ask lots of questions, yet reveal nothing about themselves (and when you click onto their profile, that's either blank or vague).

 

It's difficult trying to take someone seriously who presents himself/herself as an unknown . . .

 

Personally, I like to know who I'm communicating with.

 

[malvin]

Well, if he isn't crazy cat, good thing I copied and pasted my post before deleting it, so here it is again:

 

Everything is relative and even someone with modest funds could participate in the hobby.

 

If you know what you are doing, you can buy pages that will likely hold their value. If you want appreciation, well, nothing is guranteed, but if you are very selective with what you buy, you won't lose too much money. Unfortunately, there is no way you can do that without some experience.

 

However, the biggest problem I see is that you imply that $100 is on the high side for a page. I don't know how everyone else feels, but if I find a page that I like and it's priced $100 or under, I buy it. That is pretty much the threshold for an average page.

 

And I'm rambling, but back to appreciation, buying what you like is always best because you never know. When I first started collection OA, I bought 2 pages each for $125. They were both from books written by Alan Moore. One of them I can probably sell for 5 or 10 times that amount, while the other I'll be lucky to sell for $100. But I don't care because I don't plan to sell either page because I

still like both of them after all these years.

 

Malvin

 

[delekkerste]

Sorry, guys: This isn't Krazy Kat.

 

This post is from my cousin. His first name is Richard, he goes by , and he's not that excited about me giving his last name. Primarily because of your response to his question.

 

So if we could just have the lynch mob return back home....

 

Yeah, I didn't see any of the usual KK symptoms in your cousin's posts (though the alarm bells are going off for 1 or 2 probable shill accounts), so I didn't say anything. I do think, though, that new posters, especially in the OA Forum, should introduce themselves by name and provide some corroborating evidence. Unfortunately, more often than not, "new" posters here turn out to be KK.

[delekkerste]

Since I'm not Krazy enough to think that comic art prices are a bargain and will always go up, I just want to know what you guys think. Is there any profit to be made, no matter how small, with modern comic art?

 

Frankly, in the overwhelming majority of cases, I think it's very unlikely that there's much, if any, profit to be made with modern comic art. There is such a huge gulf between supply and demand - there are literally thousands of new pages being created every month and, as you correctly pointed out, all of them are being saved.

 

One of my friends bought an Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra page a few years ago at a convention because there was a scene there that took place at Columbia University, his alma mater. I told him that, literally, he's probably the only person in the entire hobby who would pay money for that page. I mean, really - who's he going to resell it to?

 

The vintage stuff has a defined supply and an established collector base. The new stuff has ever-increasing supply and, frankly, most of the pages aren't very good now that lettering (and even inking in many cases) is applied digitally and since so little happens on any one page due to decompressed storytelling. Sure, there are some notable exceptions in the modern genre - James Jean, Mike Mignola and Eric Powell come to mind immediately - but most of these artists are already commanding sky-high prices. There are already a lot of optimistic assumptions built into the price when you shell out $3-5K for a Lee Bermejo or Simone Bianchi cover!

 

And take a John Cassaday, for example - one of the better/best artists working today, but if you shell out the big bucks for one of his decompressed panel pages from Astonishing X-Men, is anyone really going to pay up to take that particular page off your hands? Does anything really notable or memorable happen on any given page in modern storytelling that someone has to have "that" page? And it's not like there aren't literally hundreds of other Cassaday AXM pages out there now.

 

Take even a Jim Lee - those Batman "Hush" pages were so hot a few years ago, but one hobby pundit I was talking to at the NY Con this past weekend remarked that it would be difficult to get those "hot" prices for a particular page now that it's no longer the new new thing - and it's not like there isn't more than enough Lee art to go around. And who's paying enormous money for Alex Ross art anymore now that there's so much of it out there?

[Pirate]

Since I'm not Krazy enough to think that comic art prices are a bargain and will always go up, I just want to know what you guys think. Is there any profit to be made, no matter how small, with modern comic art?

 

Frankly, in the overwhelming majority of cases, I think it's very unlikely that there's much, if any, profit to be made with modern comic art. There is such a huge gulf between supply and demand - there are literally thousands of new pages being created every month and, as you correctly pointed out, all of them are being saved.

 

One of my friends bought an Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra page a few years ago at a convention because there was a scene there that took place at Columbia University, his alma mater. I told him that, literally, he's probably the only person in the entire hobby who would pay money for that page. I mean, really - who's he going to resell it to?

 

The vintage stuff has a defined supply and an established collector base. The new stuff has ever-increasing supply and, frankly, most of the pages aren't very good now that lettering (and even inking in many cases) is applied digitally and since so little happens on any one page due to decompressed storytelling. Sure, there are some notable exceptions in the modern genre - James Jean, Mike Mignola and Eric Powell come to mind immediately - but most of these artists are already commanding sky-high prices. There is already a lot of optimistic assumptions built into the price when you shell out $3-5K for a Lee Bermejo or Simone Bianchi cover!

 

And take a John Cassaday, for example - one of the better/best artists working today, but if you shell out the big bucks for one of his decompressed panel pages from Astonishing X-Men, is anyone really going to pay up to take that particular page off your hands? Does anything really notable or memorable happen on any given page in modern storytelling that someone has to have "that" page? And it's not like there aren't literally hundreds of other Cassaday AXM pages out there now.

 

Take even a Jim Lee - those Batman "Hush" pages were so hot a few years ago, but one hobby pundit I was talking to at the NY Con this past weekend remarked that it would be difficult to get those "hot" prices for a particular page now that it's no longer the new new thing - and it's not like there isn't more than enough Lee art to go around. And who's paying enormous money for Alex Ross art anymore now that there's so much of it out there?

 

Why i stick to reasonably priced Barry Kitson and Tony Harris pages. I don't break the bank and yet get some pages i'm very happy with. There is plenty of value art out there if you look and are patient.