Speculators: Which Original Art / Artists are Undervalued/Overvalued?

[jick]

This thread is just for speculators about future prices of items, or which art you can get for a steal under the radar, and which art is overpriced.

 

Like which artist is very key and helped redefine characters yet his art goes for cheap today?

 

And which artist's art sells for very high but the bottom line is that there is a lot of it in the open market that sometime in the future, prices will have to go down?

 

Or which modern artists have unique art but sell for cheap, vis-a-vis modern artists whose art sells for tons because they draw every page as if it were a splash page and make sure it is sellable (rather than telling a story)?

 

Or which artist makes intricately detailed linework but people just don't appreciate it yet, so his art goes cheap but will sell for high in the future?

 

Or what other reasons you think can some art slip under the radar and sell for a lot in the future, while which art is greatly overrated?

 

The only thing I can really think of now are Archie Comic covers. I think they are undervalued. Archie characters are part of all of our lives and we know them well. But you can get a cover - yes a cover, not an interior - for less than $200 sometimes. That is grossly underpriced for me.

 

And overpriced art would be the unproven artists (rather not name names) who advertise their art for large sums (not even sure if people are buying). Well if no one's buying then I guess they are not over valued. But you get my drift.

 

I hope the veterans or experts here can share their opinions and name some artists.

[DJRome]

I can see this thread turning into a flame war already, but I'll give it a shot:

 

Underrated: Kieth Pollard. The guy was a star back in 1980. He was concurrently working Thor, ASM, and the FF. Big titles back then. Unfortunately (for Pollard) those titles went on legendary runs with other artists shortly after he left. ASM got JR, FF got Byrne, and Thor got Simonson. He's been out of the spotlight ever since.

 

[comicartcom]

I hope the veterans or experts here can share their opinions and name some artists.

 

any artist whose art is selling for low prices when they should be getting high prices. I understand Joe McDokes is one of these artists, but I have been unable to replicate this is my lab

[Bronty]

I can see this thread turning into a flame war already, but I'll give it a shot:

 

Underrated: Kieth Pollard. The guy was a star back in 1980. He was concurrently working Thor, ASM, and the FF. Big titles back then. Unfortunately (for Pollard) those titles went on legendary runs with other artists shortly after he left. ASM got JR, FF got Byrne, and Thor got Simonson. He's been out of the spotlight ever since.

 

I love Pollard. Very nice artist. (thumbs u

[Claudio]

There are many things that I disagree with in this hobby but I can understand them. For example, you can drop 1,000 on a crappy Kirby page or you could buy a very cool page by a different artist for that price. I think 1,000 for a crappy Kirby page is too much but a lot of people want something buy Kirby so they buy it up. I understand that even if I disagree.

 

One thing I cannot understand is how John Byrne pages from the 90's and on command any kind of price. I mean, that stuff is just lazily drawn !

 

[comix4fun]

I can see this thread turning into a flame war already, but I'll give it a shot:

 

Underrated: Kieth Pollard. The guy was a star back in 1980. He was concurrently working Thor, ASM, and the FF. Big titles back then. Unfortunately (for Pollard) those titles went on legendary runs with other artists shortly after he left. ASM got JR, FF got Byrne, and Thor got Simonson. He's been out of the spotlight ever since.

 

I love Pollard. Very nice artist. (thumbs u

 

 

I agree. He did a commission piece for me a couple years ago and he's still got it!

[Tony S]

I won't offer any opinion on overpriced artists.

 

But I can think of a couple whose work is undervalued and so far all of those mentioned as undervalued I'd agree with.

 

Ernie Chan - especially his Conan pages, which look nearly as nice but go for a fraction of Buscema's

 

Luis Dominguez: His work has in the past few years gained in popularity but still IMO do not reflect the quality of work.

 

Mike Nasser (Netzer): He's quirky, controversial, reputed at times to be hard to work with, a web activist and has come and gone from comics several times. His work is first rate though. Early work had nice clean lines, later work had a darker, moodier feel similiar to Millers. BTW, he shared an apartment with a couple of other artists in 1975 including the afore mentioned Keith Pollard.

 

 

[AKA Rick]

I think from an investment standpoint, the under / over valuation process as it relates to a return on investment, it's like buying anything, "junk is junk" and "quality is quality" so, somewhere in between in a world of "one man's trash is another man's treasure" is an opportunity.

 

I think safe bets are to buy:

 

Published Artwork of known characters that are popular, so mainly DC and Marvel and the A-Z of Avengers to Zatanna and longstanding characters in-between like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, X-Men and the like. Especially, those who are part of the mainstream (licensed products or have appeared in movies)

 

Splash Pages, Double Page Splashes, and Covers - Art is a visual medium and most of the time these command the most attention

 

Published Art based on Fan Favorite Stories - So, I'd buy a Jim Lee Batman "Hush" over his JLA work. Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and The Walking Dead are more popular because of the storyline than the artwork. I think recent popular stories which might be undervalued now could be Steve McNiven's "Civil War", Joss Whedon's run on 'Astonishing X-Men" by John Cassaday, and Rags Morales' "Identity Crisis".

 

It appears that some of the bronze age Marvel art is gaining popularity by artists who are less popular like Sal Buscema, Ron Frenz, Keith Pollard, as opposed to the John Byrne, George Perez, Frank Miller, Walt Simonson, Michael Golden, Paul Smith, etc. of that era.

 

I think George Perez's run on The New Teen Titans is undervalued per its potential, when you compare that work to what John Byrne's Uncanny X-Men of that same timeframe runs. There seems to be plenty of room for increases on Perez's art.

 

I think there's a few artists from the Silver Age other than already price/value established artists like Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, John Romita, or Jack Kirby who had historic runs which are under valued like Gil Kane, Carmine Infantio, Murphy Anderson, John Buscema, as well as, more for their work on major Marvel titles in the 60's like Don Heck, Warner Roth, Larry Lieber, John Severin, George Tuska.

 

There are a lot of current artists like Mark Bagley, Ale Garza, Michael Ryan, Patrick Scherberger, Philip Tan, Ian Churchill, Dan Jurgens, Jae Lee, and Ed Benes who have reasonablly priced artwork with good potential for increases.

 

As for the already high priced artists whose work seems to sell out as fast as they are available in the open market that goes with the "quality is quality" theory of only continuing to increase in value, I'd probably say: Adam Hughes tops the list, followed by J. Scott Campbell, Neal Adams (published only), Jim Steranko, Tim Sale, Jim Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, David Finch, John Byrne (70's-80's) and Frank Miller.

 

For "over valued" I'd say any art that has been relisted more than 10 times on eBay, has been available on a website or store for more than 1 year, should consider revisiting the pricing. As I usually say, when someone says some collectible is "worth" a certain amount based on seeing that item for sale at that given price, I say "no, it's selling for that much, and has not sold, if it were 'worth" that much, you wouldn't be seeing it and it would have already been sold and unavailable"

[julianross06]

My humble opinion about artist with good potential : David Petersen (i think Mouse Guard Will become a classic), Gabriel Ba (idem with Umbrella Academy) and Nick Bradshaw For thé already Highh priced (with possible increasing value) i'll add to Rick list : Quitely, Arthur Adams And Mignola

[Wyndchill]

Keith was and is definitely underrated. The guy got to pencil ASM #200, FF #200, and Thor #300, among his runs. And few kids today even know who he is.

[Rodey]

Mark Bagley, I agree (and I'm biased), and I noticed his fame increased because of his Spiderman work.

 

Brandon Peterson as well I agree with, and I have to throw in Charles P Wilson III from Stuff of Legends.

 

I'm going to throw in Wellington Alves from his work on Nova and the Annihilation series. Maybe that's a bias as well.

 

Kyle Hotz too. I'm not a fan of horror stuff, but some of the covers he did for The Hood run a few years back were impressive.

 

Pollard I will always give mad props too. So glad I have his Taskmaster MUME and a page from Spiderman 2099.

 

 

[Bird]

Here, I will give some artists I think are overpriced (I like to start trouble I guess)

 

someone mentioned Jae Lee as undervalued- I think the Dark Tower stuff was WAY overpriced.

 

I like Andy Brase's work but when I saw the prices...I'll pass.

 

Alex Ross' prices continue to baffle me, but that is Sal A. more than the art I think.

 

any and all Ebay convention commission auctions, be they AH!, Tony Moore, or others...way out of proportion to reality IMO. The work is stellar, yes, but the prices are surreal

 

Here's one no one but me cares about...Mauro Cascioli. He did JLA Cry for Justice and the prices were way high I thought

 

undervalued is hard because it can easily mean "I like this and no one else does". To me that means michael lark's early, clean line stuff like Terminal City. Too bad I sold it all when I was pissed about a delayed commission, which he ultimately made VERY right but the art was long gone.

 

undervalued to me - Rick Leonardi is here as well for me. Jeff Purves. Clayton Henry. Sean Chen.

 

 

well, dem's my thoughts

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LastRaven]

Mark Bagley, I agree (and I'm biased), and I noticed his fame increased because of his Spiderman work.

 

Brandon Peterson as well I agree with, and I have to throw in Charles P Wilson III from Stuff of Legends.

 

I'm going to throw in Wellington Alves from his work on Nova and the Annihilation series. Maybe that's a bias as well.

 

Kyle Hotz too. I'm not a fan of horror stuff, but some of the covers he did for The Hood run a few years back were impressive.

 

Pollard I will always give mad props too. So glad I have his Taskmaster MUME and a page from Spiderman 2099.

 

 

CPW3 is underrated? I don't know, I mean, I thought he was really good and has some great skill. Of course I'm a bit biased, but I think he's a very talented guy from when I saw Stuff of Legend. Maybe I've spent too much time reading his stuff, but I really do think he's a great artist and maybe underrated because he's more of an independent guy rather than very "mainstream".

[Rodey]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Not many people know about him unless you follow SOL. So I will remove him off my list.

[LastRaven]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Not many people know about him unless you follow SOL. So I will remove him off my list.

 

Nah, that's ok, the more people that know about him the better. It's a shame that a lot of people who read comics haven't given SOL more of a chance. There's a cult following, but it should be higher than top 300. Maybe top 100 or 50 would be more appropriate.

[Guardian Comics]

Always thought Mike Mayhew stuff was VERY underrated.

 

 

 

 

Jim

 

[Terry Doyle]

Mayhew is really good; I bought the unused Spidey PULSE # 2 cover (featuring the Vulture) directly from him several years ago in an eBay auction. In my CAF, if you want to check it out:

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=363612&GSub=97144

 

A steal at the price I paid, and Mike included a number of prelim drawings in the sale.

 

Another guy I really like is Richard Sala.

[jick]

Thank you all for your contributions so far!

 

Very interesting reading this.

 

I think a lot of daily comic strips are overpriced. They were drawn daily, so how can they command so much?

 

Interesting to see a comment here about Alex Ross. He may be overvalued when you compare him to others who have done painted covers in a regular series such as Matt Wagner (I am biased, i own one of his covers) and Brian Stelfreeze (from Shadow of the Bat). Wagner and Stelfreeze command less that $2000 while the prices of Ross' stuff are way higher.

 

I also do agree that a lot of Kirby stuff is overpriced. His volume of work from his Marvel days are plentiful, and most were inked by others so it's hard to tell how tight his pencils were especially when you look into the days he was pencilling so many titles in a month.

 

I really don't know what to make of J.Scott Campbell, Jim Lee, and Adam Hughes. They are modern artists, and even at their asking prices - people swoop in droves to get them.

 

I do think Curt Swan is underpriced. His contribution to the DC Universe and the Superman is particular is probably as much or more than Romita Sr.'s contribution to Spider-Man and Marvel Comics.

 

Maybe modern day Batman splashes will go down in value. It's not enough to just have a nice pose/pin-up of the Batman. With so many titles going on in one month, and given that Batman is probably the most commissioned character - splashes/covers will come in droves and you have to be picky.

 

There should also be a distinction between overvalued art (meaning art whose transactional amount is quite high) versus art whose asking prices are ridiculously high (but no one is biting so no transaction was made).

 

Just sharing a few thoughts and I hope you guys keep the replies coming.

[Tony S]

Always thought Mike Mayhew stuff was VERY underrated.

 

 

 

 

Jim

 

OK - I'm convinced about Mayhew. Those are some awesome pages! I'll have to go look about and see if there is anything of his I like for sale.

[Mephisto]

Always thought Mike Mayhew stuff was VERY underrated.

 

 

 

 

Jim

 

OK - I'm convinced about Mayhew. Those are some awesome pages! I'll have to go look about and see if there is anything of his I like for sale.

 

I sold the top one last year. I am selling my Venom painting by him in the August Clink auction.