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Original art.. what is the difference?

Started by AlexanderM,

82 posts in this topic

AlexanderM

AlexanderM

Posted
Posted

Am I correct in my understanding that original art for say... X-men 105... would have the original drawing by the artists... and then also the acetate transparency for the printing?

 

Both would be unique, but the original drawing would be worth perhaps $100 per page, while the transparency might be worth only $20?

 

Is that at all correct?

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valiantman

valiantman

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Yes - generally speaking - art is more valuable based upon the amount of time that the creator puts into the creating.

 

From a blank page to a pencil drawing is one amount of time... and usually the maximum amount of creating.

From a pencil drawing to the inked page is another... and the creating occurring here is sometimes less "creative" than going from a blank page to something.

Some inkers actually make the artist's work better than it was, though, so inking can be more creative in some cases.

 

Art which combines both of these from the same creator is generally more valuable than the two items separately.

Some inkers do their inking on a xerox of the pencils, not the original pencils.

Ink over xerox pencils is normally less valued than ink over original pencils.

 

Coloring may occur over the inks or over a xerox of the inks.

Colored pages are valued based upon those factors.

 

Above all, though, art is valued by its content.

Is it a fantastic page or a ho-hum page?

Did the events on the page matter, or were they generic?

Is it the cover of a comic, or an interior page?

Is the main character shown? What is he/she doing?

Was the page published (and final), or is it a preliminary/alternate page?

Etc.

 

The acetate transparency has no creator time put into it.

It's a part of the production process, so it is usually unique, but it lacks a creator's touch... literally.

 

Oil painting on canvas does occur for comic books, too, so you get into a whole other realm with that type of item.

 

Creator time is not the only factor though.

A 5-minute sketch by Frank Frazetta with only a few pencil lines could easily be more valuable than a full page of art that took hours by a lesser-known artist.

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AlexanderM

AlexanderM

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Yes - generally speaking - art is more valuable based upon the amount of time that the creator puts into the creating.

 

From a blank page to a pencil drawing is one amount of time... and usually the maximum amount of creating.

From a pencil drawing to the inked page is another... and the creating occurring here is sometimes less "creative" than going from a blank page to something.

Some inkers actually make the artist's work better than it was, though, so inking can be more creative in some cases.

 

Art which combines both of these from the same creator is generally more valuable than the two items separately.

Some inkers do their inking on a xerox of the pencils, not the original pencils.

Ink over xerox pencils is normally less valued than ink over original pencils.

 

Coloring may occur over the inks or over a xerox of the inks.

Colored pages are valued based upon those factors.

 

Above all, though, art is valued by its content.

Is it a fantastic page or a ho-hum page?

Did the events on the page matter, or were they generic?

Is it the cover of a comic, or an interior page?

Is the main character shown? What is he/she doing?

Was the page published (and final), or is it a preliminary/alternate page?

Etc.

 

The acetate transparency has no creator time put into it.

It's a part of the production process, so it is usually unique, but it lacks a creator's touch... literally.

 

Oil painting on canvas does occur for comic books, too, so you get into a whole other realm with that type of item.

 

Creator time is not the only factor though.

A 5-minute sketch by Frank Frazetta with only a few pencil lines could easily be more valuable than a full page of art that took hours by a lesser-known artist.

 

Thanks for clarifying. (thumbs u

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rob_react

rob_react

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Am I correct in my understanding that original art for say... X-men 105... would have the original drawing by the artists... and then also the acetate transparency for the printing?

 

Both would be unique, but the original drawing would be worth perhaps $100 per page, while the transparency might be worth only $20?

 

Is that at all correct?

 

For the most part, the original art is the piece of 17 by 11 bristol board that has inked line drawings executed directly on it by an artist or penciler/inker team of artists. That's what the people in the original art forum are talking about.

 

Everything else is not original art. It's a byproduct of the production process.

 

 

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rob_react

rob_react

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Posted
Plus a nice page of art from X-Men #105 is probably going to fetch something more like $10 - 20k, as opposed to $100.

 

And, yeah, the spread would be a lot more than 5:1 for the original art and the production stuff. If the original art only sold for $100, you couldn't give production material away.

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miraclemet

miraclemet

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Pretty much all of the 'production art' on ebay are fakes.

 

or copies of copies of copies.

 

If a piece of production art is a copy, who's to say if its the 1st or the 101st copy?

 

outside of pencil pages, or inked pencil pages there's very very little collectability of (or value attributed to) any of the other production "art"

 

with modern OA be aware that thanks to computers (and email and scanners) there are many "Blue line" pages out there, these are pages that the inker inked, but do NOT contain the hand touched pencils. The penciler scanned in his work, emailed it to the inker who converted it to blueline and then printed it out and inked it. Inked blue line pages do have some value, but its obviously less than inked pencil pages.

 

 

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Weird Paper

Weird Paper

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US presses didn't (don't) use acetate transparencies for printing. They might have used negatives to make plates, but not acetate transparencies. Film positives were sometimes used on printing in other countries, but not on web presses here. You could possibly have a black clear positive which is 1/4 of a flap (color key) proof, but if it were from X-Men 105, that would make it, what, like almost 40 years old, so if it was real, it would probably be yellowed or faded. These items were not made to be archival.

People who sell transparencies on ebay, etc, are generally selling fakes. Buy them if you want, but know what you're getting.

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RCheli

RCheli

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I have some neat production art (though they're not valuable). In the 70s, when DC was reprinting older romance stories, they had people update hairstyles and clothes on the women in the stories. So I have some pages where longer hair, bigger collars, etc., were either pasted over or corrected.

 

Again, not original art per se, but pretty cool nonetheless.

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kpaqu1

kpaqu1

Posted
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Pretty much all of the 'production art' on ebay are fakes.

 

or copies of copies of copies.

 

If a piece of production art is a copy, who's to say if its the 1st or the 101st copy?

 

outside of pencil pages, or inked pencil pages there's very very little collectability of (or value attributed to) any of the other production "art"

 

with modern OA be aware that thanks to computers (and email and scanners) there are many "Blue line" pages out there, these are pages that the inker inked, but do NOT contain the hand touched pencils. The penciler scanned in his work, emailed it to the inker who converted it to blueline and then printed it out and inked it. Inked blue line pages do have some value, but its obviously less than inked pencil pages.

 

 

Blue lines and gray lines can also refer to the color art process used in the 1980s and 90s. It's good to differentiate and call them "inked blue lines" and "color blue lines."

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bluechip

bluechip

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I've seen this question raised periodically and it always goes something like the way it's gone here.

 

Some people help to define what production art actually is, to differentiate which might have value and which do not. While others just want everybody to believe that no copy of original art could possibly have any more value than any other copy.

 

The facts are that things called "Production art" can be many things:

 

 

1. copies of art that are created as part of the production process, sometimes used to create the actual images used to publish the book.

 

2. copies of art made by the publisher during the original production and kept on file for use in reprints or foreign editions, etc.

 

 

Or they can be...

 

 

3. Copies created more recently for use in producing modern reprints.

 

4. Copies created last week by guys who had a scan of the original art.

 

 

3 and 4 have little to no value, but are often passed off on ebay as being 1 or 2. The copies on acetate are generally about as valuable as a scan you could make yourself at Kinkos.

 

 

1 or 2 have value, as memorabilia. But their value is greatly diminished because of the scam artists who sell 3 and 4 on ebay.

 

To most people there would be a big difference in value between some acetate scan that a guy made on his home printer and, say, the Marvel office stat made in 1962 of Steve Ditko's unused cover to Amazing Fantasy 15

 

But to some extreme purists, they are one and the same.

 

 

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Garf

Garf

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It's like sports memorabilia-so flooded with fakes why even try to buy?

 

There are places you can buy them from where you are actually going to get what you paid for... http://www.anthonyscomicbookart.com/ArtistGalleryRoom.asp?ArtistId=1968

 

As opposed to ebay...

 

http://www.ebay.com/usr/leadpink

 

Sure the seller may have some guides mixed in there but I fail to understand how the production "art" is using the same process decades apart in the examples below... ok ok let's entertain the possibility that one was used for an ASM masterpiece edition then it is a copy of a copy... even so they would have still been printed 6 years apart. doh!

 

Seller just so happens to have anything hot or key, payment must be made within 24 hours, all the scans look perfect without any blemishes or tears or wrinkles. meh

 

 

782890749_o.jpg

 

782881994_o.jpg

 

 

 

... but with that many sales and considering the prices they sometimes go for it's easy to see why people would want to do this and retire. hm

 

There are original art pages that sell for less. I don't understand why people go for these, just print your own one out. Job done. Have seen someone on facebook post their ASM238 pristine production art purchase. It makes me ill to think that they probably paid a couple of hundred dollars for it. Possibly more.

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