Four Color Images, Inc. Gallery in NYC

[mr_highgrade]

Did anyone ever snap up any OA from this gallery back in the day? I picked up a couple of prelim covers to Marvels #2. Also a limited signed X-men poster.

 

[Eric Seffinga]

I bought a bunch of stuff from them back in the day. Used to get their catalog mailings and go through them over and over again. A lot of stuff I have long since sold off, but off the top of my head there was

 

Alex Ross Kingdom Come page, one of the two featuring Deadman

Alex Ross Kingdom Come Revelations pencil piece, (also Deadman

John Estes Batman/Deadman splash page

Dave McKean Sandman cover

Charles Vess watercolor

Preobably half dozen others I'm forgetting.

 

The only piece I have left from 4 Color is probably the most fitting.

I bought this Eddie Campbell From Hell cover from them as they were literally packing up for the move out of the gallery. It may well have been the last thing they sold before they shut it down.

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Page=1&Order=Date&Piece=277299&GSub=42884&GCat=0&UCat=0

 

Mitch had a gallery in NY at one point and unfortunately it didn't make it either. Scott's got a gallery now and I'm hoping he really really makes it.

 

-e.

[Jesusjon]

Really wish I had been active in the hobby and living in NYC back then. Very sorry to have missed it! Once I even walked past where it used to be and tried to visualize it.

 

The Animazing Gallery is kind of near there. Never much in the way of comic art but fun to go in and look at what's on the walls.

[comicartcom]

I bought a bunch of stuff from them back in the day. Used to get their catalog mailings and go through them over and over again. A lot of stuff I have long since sold off, but off the top of my head there was

 

Alex Ross Kingdom Come page, one of the two featuring Deadman

Alex Ross Kingdom Come Revelations pencil piece, (also Deadman

John Estes Batman/Deadman splash page

Dave McKean Sandman cover

Charles Vess watercolor

Preobably half dozen others I'm forgetting.

 

The only piece I have left from 4 Color is probably the most fitting.

I bought this Eddie Campbell From Hell cover from them as they were literally packing up for the move out of the gallery. It may well have been the last thing they sold before they shut it down.

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Page=1&Order=Date&Piece=277299&GSub=42884&GCat=0&UCat=0

 

Mitch had a gallery in NY at one point and unfortunately it didn't make it either. Scott's got a gallery now and I'm hoping he really really makes it.

 

-e.

 

they aren't the only ones who have had galleries in NYC

 

there were 2 galleries in the 1970s - at different times. Woody Gelman may have owned one.

in the 1980s there was another gallery and in the 1990s there were several galleries

 

Myself I had a gallery in Cincinnati for 7 years when I lived there and I had a gallery here in Vegas just off the strip for 2 years

 

the one common factor about all these galleries??

 

None of us could make continuous money - if we could make any money - selling comic art to the people. Also, the expenses of galleries means you have to buy more art at higher prices to keep the material in stock and because of the expenses we also needed to sell more art to make the same money we all previously made anyway, so owning the galleries was nothing more than a serious expense with little benefit overall.

 

Sad.. but true!

[Eric Seffinga]

My post certainly wasn't meant to be a listing of those that were. Just a couple names I thought people would recognize today that had and are trying.

 

There have been, and still are many comic art galleries around the country trying to dig in and make it happen. Internationally I think there are a couple successful ones in Europe, but the European and Asian markets have a different view of sequential art than 90% of adults in the U.S. do.

 

The name escapes me now, but for a while there was a nifty one here in D.C. down in Georgetown. It was fun having a place locally that carried stuff you'd never get a chance to see in person. Especially political cartoons.

 

Speaking purely anecdotally, the obvious problem is that comic art just is too specialized for traditional walk-in purchases. The places I've been seemed to have a lot of foot traffic from curious passers by. Even admirers coming in to look. The problem being the majority of folks couldn't fathom the prices being asked, and when you add the overhead of the shop, and the possibility of needing at least 1 part-time employee for coverage, those prices are inherently going to be higher than the guy or gal dealing art out of their bedroom.

 

In the new age of internet connectivity and sales, carrying a brick-and-mortar location is often more of a liability than a plus, though there have been other industries that have managed to pull it off with select locations in major cities. At least for a while. What I've observed is that most such galleries opened to great fanfare, but then it was the trade ads and the available works catalogs that most customers bought from. The way the real customer shopped was over the phone with credit card in hand. With that being the true source of the income, it often makes the location redundant except for the love of it.

 

The differences between then and now, is that the advent of the internet has meant a great expansion of the market globally. Instead of listing a 1/4 page ad in CBG and mailing to a list of customers that have bought from you previously, you can toss a page on eBay and it's available to anyone who happens to be looking for it. You can have a web presence through both your own site and Bill's fantastic CAF is a great resource.

 

Of course, just as with infrastructure development around a city, once you build access roads somewhere that there didn't use to be access, the population begins to creep in with new places for new houses. Such is the original art market. With increased opportunity comes increased participants, and so the number of art dealers I am aware of has effectively quadrupled, with plenty more part-timers and weekend warriors like all of us. Trading and selling on a much bigger scale then we ever did, when it'd take a year or two to work out a trade, or you did it face to face at a con.

 

The one thing I think could help the budding original comic art gallery, is following in the footsteps of the indie art gallery. Hold frequent gallery shows featuring an artists work with plenty of draw, and basically bring the "convention" to their gallery door. People that turn up see it more as a true art gallery and may step outside of their mental box to spring for a piece of art, or to attract the hardcore collectors of artist-Xs work. Of course if the gallery is only repping and showing work by relative unknowns or artists without much draw, it'd never fly.

 

I for one, would love to hear more about your gallery in Cinci, and from any dealers who care to share their thoughts on the matter. I find this stuff fascinating, and of course I love to reminisce on the "good old days".

 

-e.