General and specific question on art at cons 1 1

[skrilla1212]

Hi-

General question: I’m a pretty low level collector, buying art in the mid $100’s to low $1000’s maybe a couple times a year. Late nineties and 2000s era. I don’t attend many if any cons, only the Baltimore con in my area a few times over the years. I had generally assumed in this internet age that most of the published art at cons would be stuff that is available on dealer or reps sites. That the benefit of cons to art buyers is a) Commisions or b) sometimes a handful of high end, marquee, A-Level stuff is coming to market for the BSDs (read: not me)

Am I off there? As it’s harder and harder to find good stuff, are cons a missed area? Do a lot of artists that don’t have reps with sites have published art they sell themselves at cons?

(I think I’ve answered my own question here as I wrote this, I do recall flipping through Ex machina pages Tony Harris had in a stack. But interested to hear thoughts).

Specific question: Over the last couple years I’ve seen Kubert brothers X-men art pop up on CAF after NYCC with a description like “picked up from Adam at NYCC!” Which has me picturing Andy and Adam sitting at a table with portfolios of 20 year old x-men artwork they’ve held onto and selling it. More specifically I’ve seen photos of Wolverine 90 artwork on his Instagram recently. With the other discussion around the Wolverine 75 splash on ComicConnect and X-men 25 desirability ...does anyone have a con report of seeing these pages for sale this year? It looked like it was prepping to be a big deal that it was for sale. And do the bros Kubert carry treasure troves of 90s goodness with them to NYCC every year?

Thanks!

Edited October 6, 2017 by skrilla1212
Words

[Panelfan1]

At sdcc there were kubert 90s art at the essential sequential booth where andy was signing.

In general a lot of dealer stock is online - but many dealers have new art at shows that didnt make it online yet anf if you get it at the show it saves them having to post it.

Also seeing art in person helps a lot. Sometimes a jpeg online can look better/worse than the actual item due to the level of detail and scale that is lost in a thumbnail.

Most artists dont have quality old stock with them at shows.  You can great great new art - but classic stuff at artist tables is an anomoly. The kubert example is one of those anomalies.

Edited October 8, 2017 by Panelfan1

[John E.]

My response reflects awfully close to what Panelfan1 has stated. Actually everything he stated holds true to my experience. I do want to emphasize the "anomaly" aspect of it. Sometimes there are semi-retired artists who happen to find a stack of art lost in their closet two days before the con and will bring it with them. Those who get to the con get first dibs. Also, going to a con gives you the opportunity to ask the artist in person if they have X pages from Y title available. I did this recently to an artist I'm keeping close to the chest here--but he answer was " Yes, but I'm not ready to sell but check back in a year. Here's my card." But I guess you can do this stuff over email, FB, etc. Then there are artists who have a low profile online, so a con is the perfect opportunity to get some artwork.

Lastly, whether it's at cons or online, it's harder to find the art YOU want to collect period (I intentionally avoided writing your verbiage of "good stuff" because one collector's trash is another's...). I feel like the inventory on the market is a paradox--there's a lot for sale (abundance) but never anything that you want to collect (scarcity).

[JadeGiant]

On 10/8/2017 at 8:43 AM, Panelfan1 said:

At sdcc there were kubert 90s art at the essential sequential booth where andy was signing.

In general a lot of dealer stock is online - but many dealers have new art at shows that didnt make it online yet anf if you get it at the show it saves them having to post it.

Also seeing art in person helps a lot. Sometimes a jpeg online can look better/worse than the actual item due to the level of detail and scale that is lost in a thumbnail.

Most artists dont have quality old stock with them at shows.  You can great great new art - but classic stuff at artist tables is an anomoly. The kubert example is one of those anomalies.

I will echo this, specifically at Toronto Fan Expo last month. ES had a couple portfolios of Kubert art that I was offered to look through and it had some really nice art, including a piece I had never seen online that I seriously considered picking up. In speaking the ES employee, he shared that prices were pretty firm due to Kubert(s) not really needing to sell. This led me to believe that is why the art isn’t online – they don’t care if it sells or not.

 

I also know of artists that bring art to shows that isn’t online. Artists aren’t always the most organized bunch so I would presume that most of them have art laying around that isn’t immediately available online anywhere. Paul Pelletier is one of my favorite artists and I consider him a personal friend – he surprised me with a couple pieces of Hulk art that I previously had not seen.

 

In summary – you can definitely find art at shows that you can’t online. Not always a lot but the pages are out there if you are willing to search for them.

[vodou]

15 minutes ago, JadeGiant said:

Artists aren’t always the most organized bunch so I would presume that most of them have art laying around that isn’t immediately available online anywhere.

Oftentimes a case of LIFO for very busy working artists, the stuff stacks up and when they do hit shows the grab off the top. Only years later does the earlier stuff from deeper down start to make it's way out for public sale (or consignment). Stuff like this is what keeps the hobby interesting in a way, you cannot take anything for granted, there are few if any rules!

[skrilla1212]

Thanks for the replies, realize it 's a bit of a rambling topic. 

Jay, you are spot on in replacing "good stuff" with things I want to collect. Funny hobby with that paradox, with a smallish number of people overall, then you layer on your specific interest and your art budgets and what's available, and you're left looking for proverbial unicorns in some cases.  And then it becomes a personal preference of how you want to engage in the hobby.

I go back and forth between waiting to see what each new auction brings, debating whether to reach out to people on CAF, posting wants here...I've had success and failures at all. I probably won't attend more cons, but the idea of finding something not listed for sale or auction at a FMV is tough...but it's happened even for what I consider a modest budget and pretty popular tastes.

Certainly keeps it interesting.

[Funnybooks]

6 hours ago, skrilla1212 said:

Thanks for the replies, realize it 's a bit of a rambling topic. 

Jay, you are spot on in replacing "good stuff" with things I want to collect. Funny hobby with that paradox, with a smallish number of people overall, then you layer on your specific interest and your art budgets and what's available, and you're left looking for proverbial unicorns in some cases.  And then it becomes a personal preference of how you want to engage in the hobby.

I go back and forth between waiting to see what each new auction brings, debating whether to reach out to people on CAF, posting wants here...I've had success and failures at all. I probably won't attend more cons, but the idea of finding something not listed for sale or auction at a FMV is tough...but it's happened even for what I consider a modest budget and pretty popular tastes.

Certainly keeps it interesting.

Study the market. Information is worth its weight in gold in any hobby, but, especially in a hobby that has "one of a kind" collectibles. Good luck.

[Rick2you2]

You can find things at con's which you cannot find on-line; and for the most part, they are from artists who have things which were buried in the basement. But sometimes, you can also find dealer stock which either the dealer did not put on-line or has labelled (or mis-labelled) it in a way which made it impossible to find.

And by the way, one of the nicest parts about going to the con's is to talk to the artists and writers themselves. They will tell you things they would never put on-line (including really juicy stories and some savage opinions). 

[PhilipB2k17]

2 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

You can find things at con's which you cannot find on-line; and for the most part, they are from artists who have things which were buried in the basement. But sometimes, you can also find dealer stock which either the dealer did not put on-line or has labelled (or mis-labelled) it in a way which made it impossible to find.

And by the way, one of the nicest parts about going to the con's is to talk to the artists and writers themselves. They will tell you things they would never put on-line (including really juicy stories and some savage opinions). 

Yep. I was at a recent Con where the artist had some nice covers that he thought were not on is art rep's site. I took photos of them to check, and that was the case. I bought two pages from him (not any of the covers) and asked for his e-mail address, so that if I want to buy any of the covers I can send him an e-mail (assuming someone else hasn't bought them, of course).

[Pete Marino]

It also helps to keep an eye on social media.

NYCC 2012 I randomly saw a post about art being available at NYCC for the 1st time.  I was the 1st at the table waiting for the rep to show up and got one of my personal grails.

I got a few other pages at NYCC that I don't think were advertised online, but they were from modern books, so it's easier to find.  I also found stuff at Spencer Beck's booth that were not on the web page.

So, IMO it's worth it, but it helps to plan, and with Facebook and Twitter it's easy to reach out to artists and ask them what they're going to bring.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Pete Marino

[eewwnuk]

also easier to negotiate in person rather than over email.  

main problem I experience with seeing art in person at show is that there are stacks of them and are generally pretty unorganized making it a hassle to flip through everything.

[malvin]

2 hours ago, eewwnuk said:

also easier to negotiate in person rather than over email.  

main problem I experience with seeing art in person at show is that there are stacks of them and are generally pretty unorganized making it a hassle to flip through everything.

actually one of the things I love to do is flip through stacks of unorganized art.  Kinda like treasure hunting and one of the charms of going to cons for me.

 

Malvin

[JadeGiant]

55 minutes ago, malvin said:

actually one of the things I love to do is flip through stacks of unorganized art.  Kinda like treasure hunting and one of the charms of going to cons for me.

 

Malvin

totally agree

 

I actually enjoy the grind of digging out comic art - both in person and online. It's a low yield venture in terms of volume (lots of grinding for very few returns) but the gems you are able to unearth can be totally worth it ... at least from my experience. 

[Twanj]

Somewhat akin to digging through record crates for the gems 

[malvin]

2 minutes ago, Twanj said:

Somewhat akin to digging through record crates for the gems 

or flipping through long boxes for key comics, in the days when I still collected and read comics!

Malvin