Can high-dollar "cover artist keys" maintain their value? 0

[JTLarsen]

Over the years, I have seen many hot artists get heavily collected then fall by the wayside. Just a few examples:

 

John Byrne

Mike Grell

Barry Windsor-Smith

Rob Liefeld

Michael Golden

Mike Deodato

Sam Keith

Greg Horn

Alex Ross

 

Now, there are still those who appreciate these artists, but for the most part, the comics with their art no longer command a premium over other issues in a title or other books from the same time period.

 

What those artist didn't have is ratio'd variants or store exclusives, which is a huge factor in the price of many modern comics. Not every Dell'Otto comic commands a premium, mostly those that have a ratio'd distribution or are a retailer exclusive for specific characters. This is true of Adam Hughes and J Scott Campbell too. It is the combination of artist, scarcity, and character. Very rarely is it the artist alone, the scarcity alone, or the character alone.

 

So, I believe today's cover artists "keys" can maintain their value or premium, but it will be on books that have a combination of these 3 things. A book without all 3 things going for it probably won't maintain its value or rather, its peers will eventually catch up to it. (What I mean by this is very rarely does a book 'fall' in value. What happens is that book stagnates and eventually the surrounding books catch up to it in value. Look at Uncanny X-Men prices over the years to see what I mean. At one time, an X-Men comic commanded a premium over other books from the same period because X-Men were "hot". But eventually, those other books caught up to the X-Men books in prices when the X-Men were no longer "hot".)

Dead on with the "where are they now" artists list. When I first started seriously collecting in the early 1980's BWS was one of the kings of the high priced back issue bins along with Neal Adams. Still to this day Smith's run on Conan is one of the most beautiful (and modern collector $$$ speaking under appreciated) works of art that Marvel had ever put out. The oversized Marvel Treasury Editions from the 70's with BWS reprints are worth picking up just to appreciate the art and see it larger than usual

 

Early Byrne and BWS stuff still command a premium. At some point Byrne was doing so many titles it become not a big deal. As for BWS... he peaked in the early 70s and then disappeared for a while. Weapon X was interesting, but his stuff after that...it was ok, but nothing "wow" like those early Conan books seemed like back in the day.

 

Byrne was not helped by the fact that his stuff just did not look as good without Terry Austin inking it.

 

What Alex Ross stuff was expensive? Was his run on the Terminator books expensive at some point? Marvels wasn't. Popular, yes.

 

Also, I'm not sure how many of those artists did covers that generated big price runups in the first place. They mostly drove prices by doing interiors, I think, and I would guess have plateaued more than plummeted.

[ygogolak]

There's a big component missing when making the comparison to earlier artists, maybe it's been mentioned, but they were not producing variant covers.

[rjrjr]

There's a big component missing when making the comparison to earlier artists, maybe it's been mentioned, but they were not producing variant covers.

 

I did mention it.

[the blob]

Right, Neal Adams and maybe Wrightson were the guys who did covers that command a premium and many of them still do. And they weren't variants.

 

Any others? I guess Kaluta did covers, but they didn't command a premium.

 

I guess for some brief period Byrne was also doing extra covers and those books were a little more in demand when he was at his peak, but it wasn't anything like now.

 

Kane was a "cover" artist, but given that he did virtually every cover for Marvel for like 3 years nobody cares

Edited February 1, 2017 by the blob

[the authority]

Frank Miller has a few covers that bring a little money...

 

Captain America 241

[Alondo]

I know that a lot of their stuff was produced in "mass quantities" during the boom and then crash of the early 90's, but I still believe that some of Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane's work are pretty iconic.

[rjrjr]

I know that a lot of their stuff was produced in "mass quantities" during the boom and then crash of the early 90's, but I still believe that some of Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane's work are pretty iconic.

 

Both Lee and McFarlane's art have survived the test of time. But, not all artists' work does. Some of today's hot artists might still be important in years to come, most probably will not be.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I think the best option is to pick a book with a hot artist working on a popular character with a rare variant cover. If interest in an artist begins to wane because someone else comes along who does it better (look how Alex Ross is no longer the painted cover artist to collect for example), dump those books that don't have the other 2 components (popular character + rare variant cover) as I would expect the values to stagnate.

 

Cheesecake artists seem to survive the longest IMHO. So, I would expect Adam Hughes, Frank Cho, and others of that ilk to be good bets. It is important that a cover artist has a considerable body of work as well, otherwise ... "out of sight, out of mind." And that body of work needs to be on mainstream popular characters. Dave Stevens would have benefited considerably from a run on a Marvel or DC character. Even so, his cheesecake work should keep interest in his work for some time to come.

[SquareChaos]

McFarlane art, ASM / Spider-man specifically, has seen a decent drop in the OA world. I'm not sure how that translates to general popularity or collectibility, but it seemed worth mentioning here.

 

Here's an informative thread from the OA forum with the most recent annual update post by D ick O.

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=48&Number=9662684&Searchpage=2&Main=326317&Words=McFarlane&topic=0&Search=true#Post9662684

[Alondo]

Gotta admit that I'm shocked to hear that McFarlane Spider-man OA prices are falling. He doesn't do that many signings and rarely sketches Spider-man nowadays.

 

His fluid rendering of the web-slinger's body changed the way I imagined his movements, even when they teetered on the brink of impossibility.

 

[SquareChaos]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it means. I'm still a fan too. It may just have to do with the flailing nature of the comic and movie series over the last decade or more, who knows?

[the blob]

Frank Miller has a few covers that bring a little money...

 

Captain America 241

 

Being an early/cool punisher cover, before he was on 7 covers a week, probably meant more than that being Miller, although Miller helped. There are Miller covers out there nobody cares about because they are nothing covers.

[ygogolak]

Frank Miller has a few covers that bring a little money...

 

Captain America 241

 

Being an early/cool punisher cover, before he was on 7 covers a week, probably meant more than that being Miller, although Miller helped. There are Miller covers out there nobody cares about because they are nothing covers.

 

This one is certainly not "nothing"

Edited February 2, 2017 by ygogolak

[Jaydogrules]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it means. I'm still a fan too. It may just have to do with the flailing nature of the comic and movie series over the last decade or more, who knows?

 

I think an over saturation of McFarlane art is the most obvious and likely answer.

 

-J.

[SquareChaos]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it means. I'm still a fan too. It may just have to do with the flailing nature of the comic and movie series over the last decade or more, who knows?

 

I think an over saturation of McFarlane art is the most obvious and likely answer.

 

-J.

 

There isn't that much McFarlane Spider-man art in the grand scheme of things.

[natevegas]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it means. I'm still a fan too. It may just have to do with the flailing nature of the comic and movie series over the last decade or more, who knows?

 

I think an over saturation of McFarlane art is the most obvious and likely answer.

 

-J.

Not to pick on JSC specially but the same could be said about his covers. Not rare and all over the place.

[ygogolak]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it means. I'm still a fan too. It may just have to do with the flailing nature of the comic and movie series over the last decade or more, who knows?

 

I think an over saturation of McFarlane art is the most obvious and likely answer.

 

-J.

Not to pick on JSC specially but the same could be said about his covers. Not rare and all over the place.

 

The topic was in regard to original art prices.

[natevegas]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it means. I'm still a fan too. It may just have to do with the flailing nature of the comic and movie series over the last decade or more, who knows?

 

I think an over saturation of McFarlane art is the most obvious and likely answer.

 

-J.

Not to pick on JSC specially but the same could be said about his covers. Not rare and all over the place.

 

The topic was in regard to original art prices.

Maybe so but my response is still valid. There is over saturation everywhere on these "hot" artists

[ygogolak]

Doesn't seem to be hurting the prices of the harder to find stuff.

[SquareChaos]

If the art is truly good, then the art is good. I don't think a talented artist can produce enough new material in a short enough time to cause fatigue among their fans.

 

I think the problem comes on when they start producing sub-par work chasing the money. They need to turn some stuff down and put more hours into the work they take to maintain quality.

 

I've never been a fan of JSC, but I've seen a lot of complaints recently that some of his covers have been lazy in execution.

[Broke as a Joke]

It could also be that the people that really do like many of the current "hot" artists don't go after OA like older fans do. A JSC fan may very well be still in his 20's and not have the disposable income to cause some of these pieces to go even higher than they do now.

 

To me, an artist that actually had a long stint on a book (interior) has a better chance to be remembered than a guy who just draws covers. But I enjoyed reading comics and not just looking at cover images.