IMPOSSIBLY BAD FAKE NOREM SAVAGE SWORD COVER ON EBAY 1 1

[ThothAmon]

Love me some Norem and have purchased many pieces of his over the years.  Most of them directly from his Estate which is located a town over from me in Connecticut.  Also love Conan and always have my eye out for Savage Sword or other Conan art.  Recently noticed this listing on Ebay.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/Earl-NOREM-Painting-Conan-the-Barbarian/222728218183?hash=item33dba2e647:g:DV8AAOSw5dlaFH39  After examining the piece next to the original that sold in 2007 on HA  https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/earl-norem-the-savage-sword-of-conan-86-cover-original-art-marvel-1988-total-4-items-/a/827-43440.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515  and some writing on pieces I own I do not believe the ebay auction to be genuine.  It's cool but worth no more than a couple hundred dollars in my estimation.  Messaged the seller about it but haven't heard back.  Guess I'm not alone as it appears that this has been for sale for awhile and if it were real the piranha would have picked it clean! 

Edited November 29, 2017 by ThothAmon

[robert frey]

i would disagree with that- the ebay one says "red version"- maybe it is just an unused, non-published version of what eventually became the cover?

 

[aokartman]

That is one dedicated fakester (if true). 

He also has a Modigliani, Rothko, and Leger. 

I am not connected or interested in this type of art, but I do appreciate your notice to the collecting community!

Best, David

[ThothAmon]

I own a number of norem paintings  and have examined all his prior works sold on Heritage . Imho the writing doesn’t match up,  the figures are imprecise in comparison and most telling is that every other Norem I’ve seen has lines squaring up the paintings in the corners. The ebay auction doesn’t. Further all the pieces I have include the month and year not just the year. 

[SquareChaos]

The work in the HA piece is certainly much, much finer than the one in this 'red' eBay auction - if they are connected at best you'd have to think it was a prelim of some type. Always interested to see these type of discussions by collectors that known a particular artist's work quite well.

[comix4fun]

2 hours ago, robert frey said:

i would disagree with that- the ebay one says "red version"- maybe it is just an unused, non-published version of what eventually became the cover?

 

Look at the faces, the details, the fine lines.....it's really rough compared to the published version. It almost doesn't look like Earl's style but a rough copy. 

[ThothAmon]

 It’s not my place to judge the motives of the seller. Only the Shadow can do that. My strongest argument is that as part of Earl Norem’s process, at least for illustration assignments, was to draw lines, this piece doesn’t have them.   Here are a few illustrations which illustrate my point. 

[ThothAmon]

[delekkerste]

1 hour ago, SquareChaos said:

The work in the HA piece is certainly much, much finer than the one in this 'red' eBay auction - if they are connected at best you'd have to think it was a prelim of some type. Always interested to see these type of discussions by collectors that known a particular artist's work quite well.

I used to own the actual SSOC #86 cover by Norem as well as the two prelims he did for the piece. 

The piece in the eBay auction is a fake, and a poor one at that.  It looks nothing like Norem aside from ripping off the image. 

[1950's war comics]

never heard or seen of Norem before but WOW his art has amazing action !!

[ESeffinga]

I'm no Norem expert at all. In fact I've only seen a handful of his pieces over the years.

But even I can look at the eBay and the Heritage scans, and say I'm pretty certain that the eBay piece is from a different hand. It can't even be a prelim. The person painting that eBay piece was clearly looking at and struggling with copying the shapes of the actual final image. It's pretty easy to spot a practiced hand and seeing how they are working things out in their prelims, vs seeing someone trying to ape something after the fact. That hand wrapped around the sword hilt is a dead giveaway.

What's more, the medium is all wrong. From everything I've seen, Norem is using heavy illustration board to paint on. The eBay piece is on primed canvas. Super toothy stuff. Look at  Norem's pieces. Granted, I've only seen what is probably a very small portion of his output, but between the hack copying, the wrong medium and substrate, poor choices in color, lighting, reflection, not to even get into detail and overall painting technique, etc. are enough flags that i'd personally I'd steer well clear if this was an artist I was into, barring some kind of blessing from the man himself... and even then, it's such an amateurish example, I'd skip it anyway and keep looking for something that better reflects his actual skillset.

Edited November 28, 2017 by ESeffinga

[PhilipB2k17]

"Possible?"

[Bronty]

I don't believe it to be legit either.   Not at all.

 

[comix4fun]

On 11/27/2017 at 3:44 PM, ThothAmon said:

Love me some Norem and have purchased many pieces of his over the years.  Most of them directly from his Estate which is located a town over from me in Connecticut.  Also love Conan and always have my eye out for Savage Sword or other Conan art.  Recently noticed this listing on Ebay.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/Earl-NOREM-Painting-Conan-the-Barbarian/222728218183?hash=item33dba2e647:g:DV8AAOSw5dlaFH39  After examining the piece next to the original that sold in 2007 on HA  https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/earl-norem-the-savage-sword-of-conan-86-cover-original-art-marvel-1988-total-4-items-/a/827-43440.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515  and some writing on pieces I own I do not believe the ebay auction to be genuine.  It's cool but worth no more than a couple hundred dollars in my estimation.  Messaged the seller about it but haven't heard back.  Guess I'm not alone as it appears that this has been for sale for awhile and if it were real the piranha would have picked it clean! 

 

 

Guess you got your answer...relisted at a slightly lower price...still 20 times what a forgery would be worth. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/222736357791

[SquareChaos]

27 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

 

 

Guess you got your answer...relisted at a slightly lower price...still 20 times what a forgery would be worth. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/222736357791

"This item is being sold without any authentication or C.O.A.  It is being sold as found.

Being sold as an "in the manner of" the artist, due to no known provenance."

[comix4fun]

6 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

"This item is being sold without any authentication or C.O.A.  It is being sold as found.

Being sold as an "in the manner of" the artist, due to no known provenance."

Yeah, he had that disclaimer in the old auction text too. 

It was after having Earl Norem in the title of the auction, the first line of the description, the 4th line of the description, then Earl Norem's wikipedia bio. 

If he was trying to be clear that he wasn't saying this was Earl Norem I don't think he hit the mark. 

[comix4fun]

And when I read that auction title and description and then, buried towards the bottom that disclaimer it sounds a lot like:

 

 

[SquareChaos]

5 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

And when I read that auction title and description and then, buried towards the bottom that disclaimer it sounds a lot like:

Pretty much.

[delekkerste]

IMPOSSIBLY BAD FAKE NOREM SAVAGE SWORD COVER ON EBAY