Why comic OA is better than fine art 1 1

[Dick O.]

Great conversation! Couple quick points:

1. I think OA (and collectible comic book) collecting's best long-term hope is that comic movies/TV shows/videogames result in a Star Wars-like market for comic characters' memorabilia. What I mean is this -- Episodes IV, V & VI spawned a rabid, multi-billion dollar Star Wars memorabilia collector market, and maintained it for 26 years between new theatrical releases. And since 1999, that market has only grown, with new generations of memorabilia collectors arising from Episodes I, II & III and presumably, Episodes VII, VIII & IX. 

2. I agree that in the medium-term, the best way to sustain and grow the OA collecting hobby is to convert current comic book collectors. To that end, I encourage all OA collectors to actively promote our hobby and if possible, become OA-related content producers!

 

[suspense39]

2 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

The fine art market, at its core, is a tax dodge and investment market. It's a store of value for liquid assets, for the most part. It's also a status symbol. There are a few OA artists who are breaking through into that realm, such as Frazetta and Crumb. And I expect a few more will eventually. 

 

this is just WAY to simplistic and it's using an economic viewpoint as a blanket thesis, I'm not saying that there isn't an aspect of what you are pointing out (unfortunately it's the part that gets the most press) but it's much more nuanced than that. And Crumb, yes, has crossed over as has been crossed over for quite a while, Frazzetta, not so much

Another thing, what most people here address as "modern art" is actually called "contemporary art". Modern art was a period that ran approx. from the late 1800's through the late 60's/early 70's

[zhamlau]

7 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Most of the categories you mention are in secular stagnation now at best, with some in outright secular decline.  Think about what will happen to the antiques market and other hobbies favored by the Baby Boomers, some Gen Xers and the remnants of the Greatest Generation. Trust me, kids today aren't going to grow up wanting Revolutionary War furniture, Tiffany lamps or 99.999% of books and stamps.

 

I'm not saying that no one will be interested, but it will be fewer people with less money and more scattered interests. Prices will have to fall for markets to clear. Beyond obvious. 

I find I agree with you on most things....except here. Tiffany Lamps are "Spoon"ing beautiful. If people stop collecting functional works of high art like that, we should give up a little on the entire notion of anything that isn't food/weapons/water having any value....cause damn they are sweet.

[Bronty]

7 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Most of the categories you mention are in secular stagnation now at best, with some in outright secular decline.  Think about what will happen to the antiques market and other hobbies favored by the Baby Boomers, some Gen Xers and the remnants of the Greatest Generation. Trust me, kids today aren't going to grow up wanting Revolutionary War furniture, Tiffany lamps or 99.999% of books and stamps.

 

I'm not saying that no one will be interested, but it will be fewer people with less money and more scattered interests. Prices will have to fall for markets to clear. Beyond obvious. 

 

About those then & now episodes.    I agree the returns are terrible but I see some other factors at play.   Anyone know antiques well enough to comment?   These are some of the things I've noticed

- The then & nose are largely pre and post internet.    I would speculate that average run of the mill antiques have been hit hard the same way average run of the mill comics have by the ubiquity of online supply.    This is an important source of skew.      The best quality antiques and that which is truly rare (art etc) have generally appreciated.      Perhaps not amazing returns on 15 year holding periods , but appreciated.   

- antique furniture is not valued by the modern homeowner and all but the very very very best (and often even that) has cratered

- items with high gold or gem contents have appreciated just based on the value of the materials

- watches have done fine

- Asian and Russian antiques have exploded based on new money there

 

etc.

ie there are noticeable and significant trends within the overall decline the most important of which IMO is pre and post internet.    I'd suspect an overall loss of interest but perhaps not as great as the then and nows show as there is perhaps both decline and shifts happening concurrently

Any antiques collectors able to chime in?

 

[delekkerste]

2 hours ago, vodou said:

Huge assumption (underlined) here...I think we see the softness occur after the first year of this.

 

To the underlined...likely viewed as horribly misogynistic and both genders stereotypical (thus disgusting). They may just end up hating us for "taste" in art

I mean hugely higher prices than when the Tony Christopher collection was liquidated. 

[delekkerste]

2 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

A lot of that art means something to me, I just refuse to pay such prices (at least, so far... I'm sure many are aware of the struggle). I'll content myself with modern OA and play the role of vulture if this predicted crash ever comes in 10 or 20 years.

Prices won't tank overnight in all likelihood. You'll probably get a period of secular stagnation followed by a long, drawn out secular decline. By the time prices eventually get to where they're going, few here will still care about buying OA. 

[delekkerste]

2 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I also think a lot of it has to do with the business model. When guys like Albert and Anthony Snyder retire, and you get a more Millennial friendly generation of dealers, I think you may see a different result. Much of it has to do with Marketing. Guys like Felix are going to make inroads with the new generation, I feel (although he's a rep, not a second hand dealer). And there is a lot of potential there.

 

Who are these Millennial friendly dealers you are imagining?  There is a real question about who replaces Albert, Burkey, etc. when they call it a day.  Yes, there are some younger dealer/rep types, but none of them look to have the kind of knowledge and/or financial capitalization required to fill the shoes of the current vintage dealers who got in on the ground floor or close to it. I wouldn't assume anything about there even being a next generation of star vintage dealer/collectors. 

[suspense39]

5 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

Who are these Millennial friendly dealers you are imagining?  There is a real question about who replaces Albert, Burkey, etc. when they call it a day.  Yes, there are some younger dealer/rep types, but none of them look to have the kind of knowledge and/or financial capitalization required to fill the shoes of the current vintage dealers who got in on the ground floor or close to it. I wouldn't assume anything about there even being a next generation of star vintage dealer/collectors. 

This is an excellent thing to bring up, and something I haven't even thought about until you just brought it up.....the next generation of dealers.....hmmmmmm

[delekkerste]

2 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Well, that's because there has been no publicly released comprehensive market study done. People are speculating based on sales figures. But, how many people are going to these comic book films, or watching these TV shows? A whole lot. It seems logic that at least SOME percentage of them would be converted to reading the source material, and then collecting the OA. And not all of them are necessarily lapsed comic readers from the 70's, 80's or 90's.

This is simply not happening no matter how many people want it to be happening.  I mean, yeah, I know of the one guy who is kind of the exception that proves the rule (a Boardie told me about him a year or two ago, and now he is in the market in a big way of late), but he is not some random guy who saw a movie and followed the process you described above. 

[delekkerste]

2 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

 

The real unaswerable question though... what percentage of library borrowers even start buying comic books or graphic novels, let alone OA? It is all very hard to predict.

Nobody who reads graphic novels at the library as his or her only involvement in the medium is spending $1K, let alone $10K or $100K on art.  Let's get real, folks... 

[Skizz]

4 hours ago, delekkerste said:

A few lost souls wander into Artists Alley and some even buy Modern art from their favorite niche indie titles and such. But then you go hang out at Albert's or Burkey's or Bechara's and there's no Millennial wanderers there. And why would there be when there's all this art that means little to them personally, stickered at 4, 5 and 6 figures. 

 

 

If I can give a real world perspective on this as a new-ish collector and a millennial (albeit one of the older ones, having been born in the mid 80s).  

I was at London Super Comic Con this  weekend.  And I did stop by at Bechara's. I have to admit I didn't recognise most of the art/pages on display. And I didn't even like a lot of it; it looked, for lack of a better word, "old" and not all that different from the next page.  It was like trying to watch old John Wayne westerns now. 

But there was one "old" art and artist I immediately went to check out, with a very strong desire to buy a page, if there was something available that was both affordable and to my liking.  And that's Jack Kirby. 

I have thought about why I am so drawn to Jack Kirby, when my eye glosses over all the other vintage art and I have come up with three answers:

1. As the creator of so many enduring characters that is very much part of the zeitgeist at the moment, I view him as a auteur along the likes of Stanley Kubrick and I feel I'd be honoured to possess anything drawn my him.  This doesn't apply to almost anyone other older comic artists.

2. I feel enough people my age or younger will come to this conclusion such that I would not be alone in spending a somewhat larger sum on this, so art by Jack Kirby won't devalue to drastically in the future.  Again, I do not think this will apply to art by other silver Bronze Age artists like Neal Adams, Jim Starlin or even John Byrne or Perez. So whilst I can't yet afford to drop five figures, I'd certainly try to find something in the low four figures by Kirby. And Bechara did have some of that. 

3. Despite my disinterest interest older art or comics. I can objectively say that Jack Kirby's work stands in a league of its own. Now admittedly I haven't read any golden/silver/Bronze Age comics. But I can always tell when it's  drawn by Kirby. It is is distinctive and evocative and still feels modern. Can't say the same about the writing in the comics he worked on though.

I cannot speak for all millennials, and certainly not for the younger ones.  But overall I don't think my position is a special case. Overall the things (art) millennials of today will be willing to throw stupid money at 30 years from now will be things they are growing with now, except for a few special cases like Kirby/Ditko/Action Comics 1 etc (assuming those characters are still relevant).

As an aside, I should mention that my personal (albeit limited) experience is that vintage dealers are not particularly welcoming of younger people.  Five or six years ago (I was a student and in my mid 20s) , I wandered over Bechara's table  and asked how much something was. The reply I got was something along the likes of "too expensive for you". He was right, but it left a distaste. That was my first experience of vintage art/dealer and it was very different from how welcoming pretty much anyone behind a table at comic cons usually is (at least here in the UK). 

 

Edited August 28, 2017 by Skizz

[kav]

5 hours ago, delekkerste said:

You are wrong if you think that the future is completely unknowable.  Many times, the long-term trends are easiest to predict.  Like the fact that everyone here will be dead in 150 years.

This is not necessarily true:

https://www.google.com/search?q=if+you+are+alive+in+40+years+you+will+be+alive+in+1000+years&rlz=1CAACAC_enUS695US696&oq=if+you+are+alive+in+40+years+you+will+be+alive+in+1000+years&aqs=chrome..69i57.13081j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[vodou]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

By the time prices eventually get to where they're going, few here will still care about buying OA. 

Just like the sheet I buy all day long, I get in for pennies because nobody cares anymore (from the old crowd) and I sell to folks like me that can appreciate a nice attractive object at a competitive price, but don't have my time or skill in ferreting out the gems. I pass on much, much more than I take down. The out of favor rotation is brutal in 'fine' art.

[vodou]

1 hour ago, suspense39 said:

This is an excellent thing to bring up, and something I haven't even thought about until you just brought it up.....the next generation of dealers.....hmmmmmm

As disaggregated as everything else seems to be in the 20th century? Maybe it'll just be overweight collectors acting as temporary dealers (for a day) as this thing plays out over the next 20+ years (since Mike and the rest aren't that old yet!)

[delekkerste]

43 minutes ago, kav said:

This is not necessarily true:

https://www.google.com/search?q=if+you+are+alive+in+40+years+you+will+be+alive+in+1000+years&rlz=1CAACAC_enUS695US696&oq=if+you+are+alive+in+40+years+you+will+be+alive+in+1000+years&aqs=chrome..69i57.13081j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

So, if that happens, it WILL be different this time?  

In any case, you can bet the farm that predictions about 1000 year lifespans will turn out to be bullsheet. 

[PhilipB2k17]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

Who are these Millennial friendly dealers you are imagining?  There is a real question about who replaces Albert, Burkey, etc. when they call it a day.  Yes, there are some younger dealer/rep types, but none of them look to have the kind of knowledge and/or financial capitalization required to fill the shoes of the current vintage dealers who got in on the ground floor or close to it. I wouldn't assume anything about there even being a next generation of star vintage dealer/collectors. 

I don't know. But, there would be a market opportunity for someone to really target Millennials.

[PhilipB2k17]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

This is simply not happening no matter how many people want it to be happening.  I mean, yeah, I know of the one guy who is kind of the exception that proves the rule (a Boardie told me about him a year or two ago, and now he is in the market in a big way of late), but he is not some random guy who saw a movie and followed the process you described above. 

It may or may not be happening. I can give you a pretty good rationale for why its not necessarily helping individual comic book sales. Millennials generally wait until the Trades come out and would rather read complete story arcs, rather than buy books month-to-month. They buy them second hand. They borrow them from friends. They read them at the library. They read them online. As I said, the only way to know is to do a comprehensive market study.

How many Millennials who like to read comics even KNOW they can buy the OA to the books they like? I bet the percentage is quite small. I think OA is the kind of thing that would appeal very strongly to Millennials. So, what I expect to happen is that the middle and lower end of the secondary market will go down quite a bit, which will then make the barrier to entry easier, and it will draw in more collectors.

As I pointed out, the best bet for the future of OA collecting is modern OA that is from well-regarded comic titles. The nostalgia driven boomer stuff is in for a major correction. Except, as our young OA collector pointed out, the truly classic stuff like Kirby.

Edited August 28, 2017 by PhilipB2k17

[vodou]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

Nobody who reads graphic novels at the library as his or her only involvement in the medium is spending $1K, let alone $10K or $100K on art.  Let's get real, folks... 

Haha Gene...you just identified "me". I don't buy anything but art anymore, why "buy" comics when you can borrow them and use the $$ to buy more art?!!

[kav]

39 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

 

In any case, you can bet the farm that predictions about 1000 year lifespans will turn out to be bullsheet. 

One nanobiotech gets off the ground, it will be simple.  Matter of when not if.  

[delekkerste]

18 minutes ago, vodou said:

Haha Gene...you just identified "me". I don't buy anything but art anymore, why "buy" comics when you can borrow them and use the $$ to buy more art?!!

I actually borrow the occasional trade from the library as well. But, you and I are already in the hobby.  Nobody who isn't in the hobby, doesn't want to shell out $14.99 for a TPB, and either borrows from friends or the library is going to be dropping any money on OA, serious or otherwise. So who cares if these people are.nit being counted in the sales figures is my point!

It's also not like borrowing comics started with trades and libraries either. My introduction to comics back in 1983 was from reading borrowed comics. So, there have always been readers not captured by the circulation figures.