My measly collection of comic book art

[matewan1990]

Please, everyone check out my small collection of comic book art and tell me what you think!

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=3650

I've only been collecting seriously for the past six years. The first piece of art I ever purchased was at a convention in Charleston, W.Va. (one of the first ever held in the state), in 1988 and William Messner Loebs was the guest of honor and he was doing sketches. I wanted to buy one from him, but kept telling him I loved the work he was doing on Elementals. After several minutes of talking with him, he said "I'm William Messner Loebs, the writer of Flash and creator of Journey. You've got me confused with Bill Willingham, creator of the Elementals. I'm not him, although I, too, enjoy his Elementals series." You can imagine how red-faced I was at that time. It embarassed me terribly and I've never sold or traded that piece of art (which cost me $10) because it holds a very special place in my childhood.

The second, third and fourth pieces of art I purchased were by Chuck Wojtkewicz, who came to Charleston at the time he was drawing Justice League America. He sold me a splash and two character pages from JLA for $35.

Then, in 1999, I discovered the wonderful world of eBay and my life hasn't been the same since. I bought anything and everything I could, in the hopes that one day I would have some great, big collection of art. Well, after buying hundreds of dollars worth of pages, I realized that none of it meant anything, because I'd bought items that I really didn't care about. They had no nostalgic value to me. So, I bought one big piece, the Jim Starlin cover art to Miracleman 4 and traded it for much larger items. From there, my collection continued to grow until it got to where it is today.

Some of those pieces of art I bought for $35 and $40 and up to $150 I traded and ended up getting $250-650 for later on.

I hope you enjoy the Michael Browning gallery.

I think there's some pretty cool pieces in there.

[october]

You have a great collection! I especially like the Zeck cover to Deathstroke 4. I remember reading that issue as a kid.

[matewan1990]

You have a great collection! I especially like the Zeck cover to Deathstroke 4. I remember reading that issue as a kid.

 

That cover arrived in the mail Saturday. I loved Deathstroke when I was in college because of the Zeck covers, the Marv Wolfman politically intriguiging stories and Steve Erwin's beautiful art. It was one of only two comics I ever had subscriptions to in my 27 years of collecting. I especially loved this cover because it had the Ravager on the cover. This is also my first Zeck piece of art. I loved his Charlton work and would love to own a cover or a page or two, but those are rare as hens teeth. I'd also like to own a Zeck Captain America and a Zeck Master of Kung Fu cover or page, but I've just never been willing to plunk down the cash to buy one.

My interests, though, lie primarily with DC. I loved DC Comics when I was growing up in the 1980s and the early- to mid-1980s was especially great stuff. So, I've collected covers and pages from that era.

[Alberto1975]

Congrats on the great collection!

It's everything but measly!!!!!!

[matewan1990]

When I started buying art, I wanted a cover so badly. But, many were well over $200 and I just couldn't afford that. So, one of the first times I ever surfed the web I discovered a site that had a cover on sale and I bought it for $95. I thought I had won the lottery. But, it wasn't that great a cover. It was, however, a cover and it's what got me started collecting those over panel pages (which I've all but abandoned these days). I traded away so many covers, some of which I truly regret giving up.

One cover in particular that I regretted trading was the Gil Kane/Steve Leialoha cover art to Ghost Rider 25, which is one of the best GR covers ever drawn. Another was the Starlin Miracleman 4 cover and another was the George Perez Crisis on Infinite Earths 6 cover. I also had a sweet Steve Ditko Ghostly Tales 120 cover that was beautiful and was something I'd intended to keep the rest of my life, but bigger things came my way, so I traded it.

But, with each trade, I get something I don't want to trade or sell because I trade only for pieces I really like.

Gone are the days of buying to just own a piece by an artist... now I collect only what I want. I love Jim Starlin art and I've owned a lot of it. I even owned a Warlock splash (No. 12)... but it wasn't satisfying, because I've never found that piece of Starlin art that I connect with on a nostalgic level. Granted, the Warlock 12 splash was pretty close, but I ended up trading it, too.

I was very blessed to have acquired my grails, the Doom Patrol 1 cover by Steve Lightle from Tom Fleming at www.fanfare-se.com and the Carmine Infantino Flash 323, Red Tornado, Kirby Super Powers and Rich Buckler Super Team Family covers from Jim Cardillo. Much of what I have in my collection are from those two gentlemen (two of the greatest guys in the comic art hobby and even the world).

There are plenty of sites at which you can find original art for sale.

Try going to www.dragonberry.com for a full list of comic art sellers and there are even a few artists on there, too.

[desertdogg]

very nice collection. i love the miller batman. larry

[Norrin_Radd]

Should we start a thread where everyone can post their comic art galleries?

[delekkerste]

Should we start a thread where everyone can post their comic art galleries?

 

How about a thread where people can just post a link to their ComicArtFans.com gallery or personal website (for those like Hari who have them), and maybe their top 1 or 2 pieces (if desired)? When someone updates their gallery, they can just add another post that tells people their gallery has been updated with X and post the link again. Otherwise, if everybody posts all their stuff on one thread, it's going to get unwieldy very quickly.

[Jagull]

could always have a link & updated info in the signature

 

[Norrin_Radd]

Should we start a thread where everyone can post their comic art galleries?

 

How about a thread where people can just post a link to their ComicArtFans.com gallery or personal website (for those like Hari who have them), and maybe their top 1 or 2 pieces (if desired)? When someone updates their gallery, they can just add another post that tells people their gallery has been updated with X and post the link again. Otherwise, if everybody posts all their stuff on one thread, it's going to get unwieldy very quickly.

 

That's what I meant. Links to their ComicArtFans galleries.