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Byrne Superman Mystery

Started by oldwhy,

22 posts in this topic

CollectingFool

CollectingFool

Posted
Posted
There is a splash page from X-Men that was ruined this way.

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=45207&GSub=18522

 

I think the colors look great. What ruins it for me is that it's a big shot of Arcade. I've had some horribly colored pieces before, Gil Kane covers actually. They still managed to find a home. Coloring is not bad, it's a matter of personal taste. I never had a piece colored but I can understand why someone would. "Ruining" is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

 

 

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alxjhnsn

alxjhnsn

Posted
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For what it's worth, I bought a pen and ink Mutts piece by Patrick McDonnell at the Drink and Draw charity auction for Parkinson's Research at Heroes Con this year.

 

It was really cute and a lot less than the typical Mutts strip. :)

1455035_10200940838307090_1940101957_n.jpg

 

My wife and I were thrilled to win it (and help with the charity) and, as we looked at it, we had an idea!

 

Laura Martin was at the show. If you don't know Laura's work, you are missing a treat. Dave Stevens chose her to color the new edition of the Rocketeer. So, we asked her if she was interested. She was! A small fee and an over night wait and she was done.

 

McDonnell,%20Patrick%20(pen%20and%20ink)%20and%20Laura%20Martin%20(color)%201200dpi%20-%20Mutts.jpg

 

She told me that she was a little concerned about doing it, but as you can see she did a marvelous job. I think she was happy to work on it.

 

Anyway, as much as I like pen & ink, this piece looks a lot better with the color. I doubt that it hurt the value much if at all. Better yet, it's one of my wife's favorites. (Happy wife = happy life.)

 

The point of all this is that coloring a pen and ink piece isn't ruining it - at least not if it's done well.

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Mike Jackson

Mike Jackson

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If you let your child color it, then, yeah, it is probably ruined. But Oliff is a pro, so, no, it looks fine to me.

 

I think for me personally, the "ruining" comes in no matter if it's colored by an ammy or pro- long as it's done after the fact (publication). I'm not a fan in general of adding to pieces later (even signatures)

 

Make no mistake though- there are some sentimental pieces I'm going after, and if it turns out they were colored I'd still go after them (although maybe not as aggressively)

 

I would never do it but I am pretty sure most of the pages Oliff colored happened years ago when art was cheap. Prices have gone crazy since then.

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Bird

Bird

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I agree, the Superman image looks really good, it's a good coloring job, in spite that I think that it's sacrilegious to alter any piece of original art. What I find surprising is that he just colored one panel.

 

well, coloring the rest of that page would be a person_without_enough_empathy!

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Eric Seffinga

Eric Seffinga

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If you let your child color it, then, yeah, it is probably ruined. But Oliff is a pro, so, no, it looks fine to me.

 

I think for me personally, the "ruining" comes in no matter if it's colored by an ammy or pro- long as it's done after the fact (publication). I'm not a fan in general of adding to pieces later (even signatures)

 

I would agree with this more or less whole heartedly. The only thing I would add is I am more a stickler on this for Published work. And that if someone wanted to have the artist sign a page in the margins, that doesn't bother me nearly as much as a sig in the published area.

 

Also having another artist color a sketch done for yourself is a LOT different (to me) than having them color something that was never coloreddirectly on the art for publication. I don't care who did the coloring, or if they even we involved in the book to begin with. If I want a colored piece I buy one that was colored intentionally in the first place. Not one done after publication.

 

Adding stuff to production art, to me, robs it of what it is/was in the first place. And I dont care how good intentioned the coloring job on uncolored published art is, 9 times out of 10, it is a few small steps away from

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/aug/22/spain-church-mural-ruin-restoration

 

I like to think the art I leave behind will be able to be enjoyed by future generations of folks that will find some joy in having it around as it was produced.

 

Sure much of what is out there is destined for the dustbins of history, and future Salvation Army finds, but we don't have any way of knowing or predicting what these will be. Yes, I bought the art and it is my property. I could scrawl my name on it. Paint on all the figures. Fill in Mignola's gray splotchy inks with rich blacks, and let my nephew color all my Sandman pages. But then I think I'd be an for it. I see myself as caretaker as well as owner, and anything else is disrespectful of the work (assuming an owner genuinely artistically respects it in the first place). And if I'm not letting a kid color it, I'm not letting Oliff near it either. I can always commission something for that purpose, that doesn't have any previously published significance, and he can color til the cows come home. OR I can give them a copy on bristol to color.That way I keep the published piece whole, and still get to see what a pro colorist might do with it.

 

Some pieces were colored, badly restored, modified, etc. and there is no going back from that. I have no problem with people that enjoy them, giving them a good home if they find them appealing. But there is no reason or need for any others to be put to that same fate though. I thought it was a bad move back in the day, and I think it a worse one now.

 

My .02 of course.

 

-e.

 

 

 

 

 

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CollectingFool

CollectingFool

Posted
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Adding stuff to production art, to me, robs it of what it is/was in the first place.

 

I think you're losing site of what this "art" actually is. I wouldn't do it myself now or at least I don't think I would. You are missing the fact that this art was drawn with the intention of it being colored. This isn't ART. It's a byproduct of a production process and the only reason it was kept was because they didn't know what else to do with it. You were never meant to see it in this state. Collecting comic art is not collecting art it's collecting comic book artifacts and collectibles. I believe a lot of it was done with more artistic talent than many fine art pieces but that doesn't make it "art". It's a piece of a whole. Coloring it might "damage" it in your eyes but to someone else it's fulfilling the original intent.

 

This is the opposite of what I told someone in another thread. They were looking to get a Kirby FF cartoon storyboard lightbox inked. In that case I said I wouldn't do it because the piece was never intended to be inked. What you see is what the artist intended you to see. With comic book art what you see is only part of what the artist intended you to see. Well, actually what you see is only part of what the commissioner/publisher intended you to see.

 

BTW, I'm also of the opinion that once you own it, you do whatever the hell you want with it. If you paid for it you can color it, ink it or cut it up for a collage. I wouldn't but who am I to tell someone else what they can or can't do with something they paid for?

 

 

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Eric Seffinga

Eric Seffinga

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As I said over and over again, it was my opinion and my view of the situation. Others can do what they are going to do. There is no law against it, but I would never take part in it or buy a piece altered in that way.

 

And I do see comic books as an art form in much the same way as films or novels are art. And yes I get that much of it was intended to be colored after the fact, though there is generally, especially in old work, a separate process for that. I don't personally need or want pieces that someone "fixed", because they think colors are pretty. If I want to see the colored book, I can read the comic, but if I want to see what Kirby did, I don't want to see Oliff's 80s glossy color all over it. If someone bought a movie prop or an original poster artwork, I wouldn't like to see that altered either, even if the final product (the film, poster, etc) is different than the piece.

 

I also believe strongly in the facet of these as "comic book artifacts", with the key word here being artifacts. These are one of a kind items that once altered or destroyed do not exist again. How many people think they are going to live forever? knock on wood, these things will outlive us.

 

There have been plenty of instances of comic creators revising and destroying their own work before, during and after production. And I am sure there are plenty of instances of it happening in the hands of owners after they have bought it.

 

And as I said, I am certain any historical significance that most of the work has is cuturally speaking, ultimately going to be nil to none, but who is to judge what is OK to destroy? How many books and commercially produced but historically fascinating if not completely significant items have been lost to the ages through neglect and misuse? How many old films lost to the ages, never to be seen again and now only known by the writings and or press clippings someone made and saved about them? Books, paintings, movies... It happens. It is a tragedy when it is a fire, or flood. I see willfully altering a comic page as just as disappointing. If Watterson had destroyed all the original Calvin strips after publication was over, that would have been a travesty.

 

If somone had been given a C&H strip and asked Boris to paint over it, that would also be a travesty.

 

I thought some of Frazettas repaints in later years were a travesty, and he was Frazetta!

 

;)

 

These are still all my opinions. Im not telling anyone else what to think, just what I personally think of the practice, and how I chose to proceed a long time ago. much of which came from conversations with Jeff Jones back on the old Comicart-L. FWIW to anyone.

 

 

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alxjhnsn

alxjhnsn

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I had Laura color an Atomic Robo sketch I had gotten at HeroesCon a couple years back.

 

As usual, she brought it and did a phenomenal job. Whether digital or the old fashioned way, she's one of the best out there imo.

Yep.

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CollectingFool

CollectingFool

Posted
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m not telling anyone else what to think, just what I personally think of the practice, and how I chose to proceed a long time ago. much of which came from conversations with Jeff Jones back on the old Comicart-L.

 

Six Inches!!!! I remember Jeffrey ranting he'd come to your (collector modifying art) house and beat your head with a hammer if you modified art any closer than six inches from the outer edge of the line art. All in jest of course but he was very passionate. He also had definite opinions on what color mats to use and how to display in general. There were a couple of years there where he was in good spirits and actively participating in discussions. Fun times. Of course this was back when I bought a Kirby/Romita Kazar cover for $453 on eBay. Feels like 100 years ago.

 

 

 

 

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Eric Seffinga

Eric Seffinga

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Indeed!

 

And for modern art, stuff like Preacher pages out of the Wildstorm catalog for $50 and splashes at $85 from the first dozen issues or so. Just picking through a couple old catalogs, I see a Bill Sienkiewicz Moon Knight #5 cover for $250. Byrne Hulk splash for $220, Colan DD large art action pages, $200 and less. I just saw a Worlds Finest Adams cover with Bats and Supes for $1350. Dave Johnson Aquaman #19 - $135. Cockrum X-men 164 splash - $200, a great Hellboy page from the Christmas special for $300, II gotta stop looking at these things.

 

But it was the L discussions that would drag out for days and weeks on end. Not money discussions, but really passionate art discussion. Jeff and I had some good discussions off list. I think it may have been my commission from back in the day, and the people I sent to Jeff when they found out he was amiable to doing them, that brought him over to the L. Though I think it was ultimately on someone else's actual invite. Jeff did always bring about some provocative ideas.

 

I miss that time and place more than a bit.

 

-e.

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