A few pics from NYCC

[JadeGiant]

Is this really just a shell game?

Mostly yes. But not 100%. There is some new (non-comics) money coming in. I do not have the full picture (nobody does) but my guess would be less than 10% of $50k+ cash transactions come from outside.

 

Thanks. Odd market, hard to figure

[suspense39]

there's a fair amount of art that has been sitting on dealers sites for a while in these auctions....it really seems like the auction houses are creating more competition for them as of late, instead of acting as suppliers for their inventory.

[JadeGiant]

there's a fair amount of art that has been sitting on dealers sites for a while in these auctions....it really seems like the auction houses are creating more competition for them as of late, instead of acting as suppliers for their inventory.

 

If so, that is good as the market needs competition IMO

[vodou]

Is this really just a shell game?

Mostly yes. But not 100%. There is some new (non-comics) money coming in. I do not have the full picture (nobody does) but my guess would be less than 10% of $50k+ cash transactions come from outside.

 

Thanks. Odd market, hard to figure

Makes sense to me. The nostalgia draw is heavy. Making the "art" argument outside the hobby is pretty hard. It doesn't look like what people call "art". So the price, low/hi/whatever but pretty much all of it, is fanboy(girls too) nostalgia. That's what keeps it in the family. Even new art from a book two weeks old is priced to stand on the shoulders of those that came before. Anything over $100 is not inviting to the casual newbie...that's my point right there. Not that it should be either, just that comic art is not something most people can drop a few bucks on, 'give it a try', like they would a poster or even a signed print from their local MFA scenario. It's not particularly inviting for many, many reasons and big numbers certainly don't help.

[Mercury8989-migration]

Is this really just a shell game?

Mostly yes. But not 100%. There is some new (non-comics) money coming in. I do not have the full picture (nobody does) but my guess would be less than 10% of $50k+ cash transactions come from outside.

 

Thanks. Odd market, hard to figure

Makes sense to me. The nostalgia draw is heavy. Making the "art" argument outside the hobby is pretty hard. It doesn't look like what people call "art". So the price, low/hi/whatever but pretty much all of it, is fanboy(girls too) nostalgia. That's what keeps it in the family. Even new art from a book two weeks old is priced to stand on the shoulders of those that came before. Anything over $100 is not inviting to the casual newbie...that's my point right there. Not that it should be either, just that comic art is not something most people can drop a few bucks on, 'give it a try', like they would a poster or even a signed print from their local MFA scenario. It's not particularly inviting for many, many reasons and big numbers certainly don't help.

 

The good thing about comic art is that there is something for everyone. This makes it somewhat inviting for anyone who wants to get their beak wet. Also, comic art now reaches over 100k in many instances. I was looking at Heritage's current contemporary art sales with Lichtenstein and Warhol where the estimates are 60k - 80k so Im not sure it matters if people outside our universe call it Art with a capital 'A'. It seems people assuredly do like the genre.

[Peter G]

Is this really just a shell game?

Mostly yes. But not 100%. There is some new (non-comics) money coming in. I do not have the full picture (nobody does) but my guess would be less than 10% of $50k+ cash transactions come from outside.

 

Thanks. Odd market, hard to figure

Makes sense to me. The nostalgia draw is heavy. Making the "art" argument outside the hobby is pretty hard. It doesn't look like what people call "art". So the price, low/hi/whatever but pretty much all of it, is fanboy(girls too) nostalgia. That's what keeps it in the family. Even new art from a book two weeks old is priced to stand on the shoulders of those that came before. Anything over $100 is not inviting to the casual newbie...that's my point right there. Not that it should be either, just that comic art is not something most people can drop a few bucks on, 'give it a try', like they would a poster or even a signed print from their local MFA scenario. It's not particularly inviting for many, many reasons and big numbers certainly don't help.

 

The good thing about comic art is that there is something for everyone. This makes it somewhat inviting for anyone who wants to get their beak wet. Also, comic art now reaches over 100k in many instances. I was looking at Heritage's current contemporary art sales with Lichtenstein and Warhol where the estimates are 60k - 80k so Im not sure it matters if people outside our universe call it Art with a capital 'A'. It seems people assuredly do like the genre.

 

I agree. "Super Heroes" and the genre has historical significance and new found marketing muscle with the idea that comic characters have become geek shiek and fashionable.

 

But your not gonna be able to convince some here that this is valuable and important art. I don't fully understand exactly why this seems to be the case? My working thesis is that it doesn't fit their traditional ideas of "art". Otherwise, I have a hard time understanding the disbelief that original comic art can and will regularly at some point in the near future cross the million dollar price point for certain pieces on a regular basis.

[vodou]

(Emphasis mine.)

But your not gonna be able to convince some here that this is valuable and important art.

Who here? Not me. I certainly consider it art, have never had a problem calling it that. Bringing the outside world into our little circle...selling them on "it's ART!!"...that I think is much more difficult.

My working thesis is that it doesn't fit their traditional ideas of "art". Otherwise, I have a hard time understanding the disbelief that original comic art can and will regularly at some point in the near future cross the million dollar price point for certain pieces on a regular basis.

Sorry another bait 'n switch there Peter. Or if you prefer...sloppy (il)logic? Price climbing to new highs ($1m) and staying there for certain pieces has nothing to do with whether anybody here or there thinks comic art is "art".

[Bronty]

Not a discussion I need to get drawn into, but FYI it's Geek chic French, not Arabian.

[Bronty]

Bringing the outside world into our little circle...selling them on "it's ART!!"...that I think is much more difficult.

 

Selling anybody on anything other than what they collect right now is so much more difficult than people think. For the most part, if it isn't in their little niche, they do. not. care.

 

Peter, think of 'fine art respectability' as the hall of fame for baseball. If you think those interested in fine art are going to care, then its as if you're championing cricket players to Hall and saying they should get let in, they were tremendous athletes that played with a ball and a bat, too. The gatekeepers are going to look at you, whiz themselves laughing, and respond they aren't even playing the same sport.

 

That's not "fine art snobbery" or whatever you called it, that's just the truth - comic artists were doing their thing and have their own history and fine artists were doing their own thing and have their own history. They aren't suddenly going to have a combined hall of fame. You wouldn't let them into the cricket hall, why should they let you into the baseball hall?

 

Fine art and illustration just have different histories. Doesn't mean illustration can't sell for a lot of money. The hulk 181 cover tomorrow would crush the 7 figure barrier like a gnat. But that doesn't have much to do with anything other than the price of the hulk 181 cover.

 

I like the line Dan Forman has used... something along the lines of comic art isn't fine art, its better. And it is! Much more fun, at least for me.

 

 

[Peter G]

Not a discussion I need to get drawn into, but FYI it's Geek chic French, not Arabian.

thanks for the pointer. I get sloppy sometimes when I'm multi tasking tasking.

[vodou]

...something along the lines of comic art isn't fine art, its better. And it is! Much more fun, at least for me.

Too bad you feel that way hoss, there's a lot of exceptionally fun fine art you must have missed then! (All of which takes nothing away from comic art btw!)

[Bronty]

I'm sure there is. Just don't know enough about it really, and at this stage don't really want to. Museums not being too close and such.

 

[vodou]

Not a discussion I need to get drawn into, but FYI it's Geek chic French, not Arabian.

thanks for the pointer. I get sloppy sometimes when I'm multi tasking tasking.

Actually frenching anything up seems to make it cooler (I guess?)

So how about we coin (right now!) Gique/Cique?

Oh yeah C-in-circle, TM, R and all that

[vodou]

I'm sure there is. Just don't know enough about it really, and at this stage don't really want to. Museums not being too close and such.

Lazy man's answer right there

[Peter G]

(Emphasis mine.)

But your not gonna be able to convince some here that this is valuable and important art.

Who here? Not me. I certainly consider it art, have never had a problem calling it that. Bringing the outside world into our little circle...selling them on "it's ART!!"...that I think is much more difficult.

My working thesis is that it doesn't fit their traditional ideas of "art". Otherwise, I have a hard time understanding the disbelief that original comic art can and will regularly at some point in the near future cross the million dollar price point for certain pieces on a regular basis.

Sorry another bait 'n switch there Peter. Or if you prefer...sloppy (il)logic? Price climbing to new highs ($1m) and staying there for certain pieces has nothing to do with whether anybody here or there thinks comic art is "art".

 

I assure you that my thoughts are not illogical. Nor am I pulling a "bait and switch". I think you have a hard time following because you disagree with my thesis. Perhaps, I am partly at fault because I don't unpack all my ideas and try to convince anybody of anything. Buy comic art or don't. I don't care what anybody does . And I certainly won't bother trying to persuade you or connect the dots for you. Your on your own. Just remember this conversation in due course and watch as The illusion becomes real, and the more it does, the more the art people will want it.

[suspense39]

(Emphasis mine.)

But your not gonna be able to convince some here that this is valuable and important art.

Who here? Not me. I certainly consider it art, have never had a problem calling it that. Bringing the outside world into our little circle...selling them on "it's ART!!"...that I think is much more difficult.

My working thesis is that it doesn't fit their traditional ideas of "art". Otherwise, I have a hard time understanding the disbelief that original comic art can and will regularly at some point in the near future cross the million dollar price point for certain pieces on a regular basis.

Sorry another bait 'n switch there Peter. Or if you prefer...sloppy (il)logic? Price climbing to new highs ($1m) and staying there for certain pieces has nothing to do with whether anybody here or there thinks comic art is "art".

 

I assure you that my thoughts are not illogical. Nor am I pulling a "bait and switch". I think you have a hard time following because you disagree with my thesis. Perhaps, I am partly at fault because I don't unpack all my ideas and try to convince anybody of anything. Buy comic art or don't. I don't care what anybody does . And I certainly won't bother trying to persuade you or connect the dots for you. Your on your own. Just remember this conversation in due course and watch as The illusion becomes real, and the more it does, the more the art people will want it.

 

there already are art people that want it. For the most part though, what they collect is just not the same art and artists that are generally discussed on this board.

[Peter G]

(Emphasis mine.)

But your not gonna be able to convince some here that this is valuable and important art.

Who here? Not me. I certainly consider it art, have never had a problem calling it that. Bringing the outside world into our little circle...selling them on "it's ART!!"...that I think is much more difficult.

My working thesis is that it doesn't fit their traditional ideas of "art". Otherwise, I have a hard time understanding the disbelief that original comic art can and will regularly at some point in the near future cross the million dollar price point for certain pieces on a regular basis.

Sorry another bait 'n switch there Peter. Or if you prefer...sloppy (il)logic? Price climbing to new highs ($1m) and staying there for certain pieces has nothing to do with whether anybody here or there thinks comic art is "art".

 

I assure you that my thoughts are not illogical. Nor am I pulling a "bait and switch". I think you have a hard time following because you disagree with my thesis. Perhaps, I am partly at fault because I don't unpack all my ideas and try to convince anybody of anything. Buy comic art or don't. I don't care what anybody does . And I certainly won't bother trying to persuade you or connect the dots for you. Your on your own. Just remember this conversation in due course and watch as The illusion becomes real, and the more it does, the more the art people will want it.

 

there already are art people that want it. For the most part though, what they collect is just not the same art and artists that are generally discussed on this board.

 

I confess I don't really know what Vodou has a problem with as regards what I write. He always disagrees. Tells me I am illogical and pulling a bait and switch. Oh, and I'm looking for a "free pass", whatever that means. But I never tells me exactly what he disagrees with that I post other than that he doesn't think I'm right. About what, I'm not exactly sure. He never tells me.

[vodou]

...But I never tells me exactly what he disagrees with that I post other than that he doesn't think I'm right. About what, I'm not exactly sure. He never tells me.

Sure I do. Every time. Lately your posts have been so full of hot air, I've had to break them down to address each section by section. You make fabulous leaps of logic (which is illogical, of course) and then -when called out on it- backpedal to something about not upacking the full idea, "that's what makes a market" and other trite observations. Disagreeing is one thing, I don't have a problem with that and I'm a very open-minded individual, always seeking other opinions to broaden my own perspective, etc. But what you do, I won't leave alone, it's sloppy at best.

 

From your recent:

 

Who here doesn't think comic art is art? You wrote "some"...okay...who

 

Then you go on to make posit assumptions about people's (again, who -exactly, please?) "traditional ideas of art" What ideas are those? You already know not mine. I told you so. Who else, and what ideas? Please. I've not seen any of those posts here by others, that comic art isn't art because it's not part of some traditional idea. I think everybody here agrees comic art is art. It's the art world that isn't. Excepting Crumb, Chris Ware and some other more biographical type of storytelling, usually by a single writer/artist not the hodge-podge of corporate comic "production" we all know (and love) as the more common and popular the last hundred years (that you mark as the comics century of history, of appeal).

 

Finally you jump from that (above) to somehow those same people (who again??) not believing in million dollar comic art because they don't think it's fine art? Huh??? Big leap over a wide canyon there. $1m can happen this Heritage, and eveyr Heritage that follows, which would still neither make or break the thesis (or any arguments to the contrary) that comic art is art. Two different subjects.

 

Surely this rehash of what I already wrote, in greater (and excruciating detail) tells you what I have disagree with?

[Bronty]

I'm sure there is. Just don't know enough about it really, and at this stage don't really want to. Museums not being too close and such.

Lazy man's answer right there

 

Just being practical. Only so many hours in the day and I already use too many of them for art.

[vodou]

I'm sure there is. Just don't know enough about it really, and at this stage don't really want to. Museums not being too close and such.

Lazy man's answer right there

 

Just being practical. Only so many hours in the day and I already use too many of them for art.

Not all the interesting/cool non-illustrative art is in museums...but it's okay, MTG all the way ( )