Is this FMV - Frank Miller DD 158 page

[Panelfan1]

So -this listing ended right away, but what do you guys think? was the price good? too low ? too high?

it was listed as starting bid $8,900 or buy it now $12,000 but that dissappeared when it was ended. it will either be relisted, or someone contacted the seller and bought it off ebay.

 

daredevil 158 frank miller page

[Bronty]

I don't know, but that's a good page and it seems to me like it was worth the full BIN (maybe more?), but others might disagree.

[comix4fun]

So -this listing ended right away, but what do you guys think? was the price good? too low ? too high?

it was listed as starting bid $8,900 or buy it now $12,000 but that dissappeared when it was ended. it will either be relisted, or someone contacted the seller and bought it off ebay.

 

daredevil 158 frank miller page

 

 

For a lot of Miller DD fans, pages from 158 don't hold the same appeal as the ones that came later. Within a few issues his style and look really evolved. As such, on a purely aesthetic basis, pages from 158 don't hold the same allure as pages from the mid 160's to the late 170's.

 

It is his first issue on the run, even if it's not his first DD, so that holds a lot of appeal to some people...beyond the overall look.

[GreatEscape]

Speaking of FMV...A nice DD 158 page currently on eBay with current bid over $10k

 

Miller DD #159 page

 

 

 

[Nexus]

Still some upside even at full BIN, IMO.

[batman_fan]

Speaking of FMV...A nice DD 158 page currently on eBay with current bid over $10k

 

Miller DD #159 page

 

 

 

Both pages seem to be on the high side in my opinion.

[J.Sid]

Regarding the 158 page:

 

That's a good page.

 

All action. Both line-art panels as well as the silhouette-style panels that he ultimately came to embrace with Sin City (and beyond). Bonus: the page is from a key issue.

 

All in all, I think the BIN ($12k) was in the lower end of the FMV range.

[AKA Rick]

I feel it could have gotten a higher sales price if put in an auction format outside of eBay like with Heritage or ComicLink.

 

I could see something like this breaking the $20k barrier and at minimum hitting the $15k mark.

 

Although the rendering has a lot of silhouettes, it's the film noir style of Frank Miller and is from an iconic 1st issue of his epic title run, which 'tho isn't as treasured as some of the other pages where he was co-plotting/writing, in the same breath it's also material he did full pencil work on that is unlike a lot of his later Daredevil work where he was less involved in the artwork with rough layouts that Klaus Janson did more of the heavy lifting finishing as the embellisher, who later became the primary artist yet the art style seemed to transition near unnoticeable to many fans with issue #185 onward.

 

 

[Eric Seffinga]

Seems to me somebody didn't have a good read on the earning potential of it and sold it a couple grand short.

 

I recently discovered a couple of sale listings that happened a week before I stumbled on them on CAF where a guy listed a couple 90sVertigo pages at high side for 1996 prices. In other words couldn't have been 20% of their current value. They were unsurprisingly snatched up by someone that saw them the day they went up.

 

One was a Muth Sandman page (no Morpheus, but still!), and the other was a Kent Williams Sandman page. $500 a pop. No joke. That's gonna haunt me.

 

Sometimes people just don't keep up with the stuff and think they are lucky to sell for more than they put in.

[alxjhnsn]

On the topic of ebay bargains, for Legion of Super-Heroes collectors (yeah, I know that's not many on the board), Keith Giffen's poster was a top, top item to have. The original art hadn't been seen for decades when it showed up on ebay for BIN @ 6K. I didn't see it soon enough, but a friend did and he got a prize.

 

Click here to see it in Aidan's gallery:

 

Click here to get a big image of the poster from someone's Photobucket account.

 

That my friends was big, big bargain - at least for Legion fans.

[Nexus]

Yeah, I know someone who would have paid multiples of that price. He'd been looking for that piece for over 20 years.

 

On the DD #158 page...I know I've seen it before. Just can't place it off the top of my head. It's certainly been a while (maybe 10 years?), but feel like it had been offered around in the past. In any case, for all the Miller DD pages that are out there, they really don't pop up THAT much. Especially not really good ones. The action on the #159 page is surprising so far, but another indication that the market is hungry.

[alxjhnsn]

Perhaps, it would be worth reviewing what we know about who drew what on Frank's DD run.

 

 

 

On the comicart-l and the CGC OA board, we have had a long conversation on the topic of the work split on the Miller DD run. This write-up is based on e-mails and posting from many people. Foremost among them are: Mitch Itkowitz, Ferran Delgado, Gene Park (notes on 158, 162, 163, 179-180), and Mike O'Halloran (Theory on 182-184), and NelsonAl (photocopies of 182 and 184; see below for their origin). I took notes and created this summary. I believe it represents the best understanding available to us, but it may not be perfect. Other comments are welcome and especially if they come with evidence that I can cite.

 

Hope this helps. Be sure to save and reference!

 

Here's the link to this post:

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=6672890&Number=8098126#Post8098126

 

The consensus of how Miller/Janson exectuted the "Miller" DD run is as follows:

• DD #158-161,163-172: Full pencils by Miller, inks by Janson.
  Notes:
  • Rubinstein was the cover inker for #158
    
  • Ditko did all the art for #162
    
  • Rubinstein was the co-inker (with Janson) for #163
    
  • See discussion of 168 below

  [*]DD #173-184: Layouts by Miller on the same sheet, embellishment by Janson

  [*]DD #185-190: Layouts by Miller on a DIFFERENT smaller sheet, embellishment by Janson. Miller didn't touch the published original art.

  [*]DD #191: Detailed layouts by Miller, finishes by Austin

 

The above summary was derived from a lot of evidence and speculation. I'm going to try and capture that in the following notes:

• Issue 168:
  The issue: GCD lists Miller as breakdown artist on issue 168 while the credits on the issue itself list Miller as artist but Janson as Inker and Embellisher.
  
  • Notes:
• The issue was identified by MikeyO.
  

  [Regarding credits on 168 - ed], I would be hesitant to describe this as the same relationship when it comes to the division of labour where art is concerned in issues 173 on. I think, by looking at the art that what might be described as Miller "breakdowns" are closer to a finished product when it comes to 168, but given the public notations, I thought it was worth mentioning.

• NelsonAI states that he has photocopies that he describes as "full pencils" for this book.
  I have chosen to accept Nelson's claim in my summary above. I'll change it if better evidence comes along.

[*]The style of the art shifted between 178 and 179-184, this made people wonder if the working method had changed.

[*]There was once a theory that since issues 182-184 (Punisher arc) were originally intended for an earlier publication and since we know that from 185 on that Miller provided smaller pages with breakdowns that there might have a mix of (Miller pencils/Janson inks) and all Jansen pages from Miller layouts in those issues. It might be difficult to know who actually did what as the story was altered for the revised publication and changed situation.

[*]Adding to the confusion was this comment posted by Klaus. In it he clearly states:

Just to set the record straight, though, Frank went to 8 and a half inch by 11 inch breakdowns on issue #179, not #185.

[*]MikeyO, the articulator of the theory in the note above, later wrote:

My theory is logical but needs support from other sources. Some one could counter and say the previous art drawn by Miller a year and a half or so ago may have been used as a complete issue (perhaps issue 183?). My guess is that other pages were inserted but I still think verification is necessary.

 

Mitch [itkowitz - ed] had responded that your previous supposition was correct (that Miller went to breakdowns and Janson finished on the same page for 182 to 184), but if you think about the possible rationalization that Mitch is using to assume this you can determine he may be coming to an erroneous conclusion. As Mitch said he got the whole issue of 181 from Janson to sell because he essentially drew the issue, so Mitch would assume any issue he received the complete book would be done in this method and any book where Mitch received only partial pages to an issue would indicate that Miller did breakdowns on the page and Janson finished. The problem with that logic is that as we have discussed that some pages to issues 182-4 would have been done by Miller more than a year ago and obviously returned to him and Janson could still be working the procedure of following Miller layouts on 8 by 11 paper that was instituted with issue 181 on the pages that were added to issues 182-4. Therefore, Mitch would not get a complete book as Miller would get his pages back even though they were done many months ago but Janson could still be the only person that added anything new.

 

Others have said that the Punisher storyline was meant for issue 167 as a one part story. As said, my rationale is that they added pages to make up a two part story. Evidence to lend credence to my theory is given by Grand Comic Book Database that credits Roger McKenzie as the co writer for issue 183 and 184. Roger's last story on DD was issue 167 and after that he was done with the title, so they are obviously crediting him with both issues as they broke up the one issue and expanded into two. Now, the question is was the new art done by the process started in 181 or did Miller work on the same sheet as Janson? It's bending a little towards the former, but not a dunk yet.

[*]New information was presented by NelsonAl in a post on the CGC boards that indicated that he had photocopies of the pencils for issues 168 (described as "crappy") and DD issues 182 and 184. This really galvanized the conversation since it contradicted Klaus' statement.

[*] At the 2014 NYCC, Nelson and Gene discussed the issue with Klaus. Here's what Gene wrote:

A few of us talked at length with Klaus today on this subject. We had some #176 pages with us (that we know are Miller layouts on the board), I brought my #181 page (which was one of the issues that we weren't sure about) and Nelson brought a bunch of his photocopied Miller pencils with him as well. After reviewing the artwork and the photocopies, Klaus believes that the separate sheet layouts started with #185 after all. He said that his & Frank's artistic relationship was a progression, so that when Frank went to the separate sheet layouts, they never went back to layouts on board. As such, since we know from Nelson's archives that #182 and #184 were both Miller pencils on the board, we can deduce that #185 was the start of the separate sheet layouts.

 

Furthermore, Klaus said that the handwritten "DAREDEVIL" at the top of pages was written by Frank when he did pencils on the board (at some point this becomes "DAREDEVIL" using a rubber stamp). But, you'll notice from #185 that it became handwritten again - "DD #___" is what it says for a few issues before it becomes "Daredevil" written in -script. The latter is definitely confirmed to be Klaus' notation on pages done with separate sheet layouts, and it stands to reason that the former is also Klaus, as it's not Frank's writing. I think this bolsters the case for #185 being the start.

 

As for Klaus getting all of the #181 art back, he confirmed that sometimes they would trade off getting full books as opposed to splitting up the pages in each issue. So, even if he got the whole #181 book back, that doesn't necessarily mean that Frank didn't do pencils on the board.

 

Bottom line: I'm satisfied at this point that any stylistic changes we see between #178 and #179-#184 is just the progression of the artwork over time and that separate sheet layouts did begin with #185 after all.

[*]One last comment on this from Gene. It includes the origin of the photocopies from Nelson.

Thanks to Nelson who brought photocopies of Miller's pencils to DD #182, 184 and Wolverine LS #1 to the show today. I don't know if he mentioned it before, but he found these at a garage or yard sale in Brooklyn - apparently the house was rented by a Marvel editor/staffer of some sort, who left behind all these photocopies which were then sold. Amazing that Nelson was able to recover these before they were lost to the world.

 

I can confirm that every page from DD #182 and #184 are finished Miller layouts directly on the board. There are a few of us who are going to try and track down Janson at the show tomorrow

[/and show him that these issues were done directly on the board, and to see if there was a reason #179-#181 were done on separate sheet layouts or whether he was mistaken and these too were layouts directly on the board. I'm going to bring my DD #181 page and the TPB which features the issues in question as visual aids. So, hopefully we can get to the bottom of this tomorrow.

 

As for the Wolvie LS #1, they are definitely finished layouts on board as well. So, I don't know if Rubinstein was exaggerating the level of his involvement on this mini-series or if the later issues got progressively less detailed. But, as far as issue #1 goes, it is definitely detailed layouts and nothing even remotely close to loose shapes or squiggles.

[*]Comment from NelsonAI on 191 reads:

I have some copies of FM pencils from # 191. FM did detailed layouts not full pencils. Austin did finishes.