July Heritage Auction Sorta Shaping Up! 3 3

[tth2]

8 hours ago, Bronty said:

yeah.   Who wouldn't want the OA to action 1?   As art its incredibly uninteresting.   But context matters.

I think the image of Action 1 is great. 

[Rick2you2]

9 hours ago, Michael Browning said:

Why wouldn't it be fair to the artists? The images are Marvel's to use as they please. I'm not sure what is unfair about that. Jack Kirby got paid to draw this for Marvel. He got paid well. He knew that it could be used in other publications. Why is it unfair to him?

First, they were NOT well paid and market conditions at the time did not give him any choices: my way or the highway. Besides, Marvel hired him to do art for specific comics, and is undoubtedly free to republish the pages he did for their intended use as part of post- 1975 contracts. But It remains his creative work, so Kirby should have the right to make some money off it for other uses if he were alive.

[ESeffinga]

11 hours ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

Did you see the cover to #8 in person?

Ages ago. And a few of the covers, not just #8. I mentioned 8 because the fake vines that were later added to it would drive me mental if I were to look at it every day. For me the real kick in the gut was Death painting just underwhelmed me, when I saw it. It is what it is. Everyone was gushig over it. I followed the advice of if you don't ahve something nice to say...  At one point (maybe in my 20s), I was in awe of McKean's painting skills at the comic level. It didn't take long for me to outgrow that though. Everybody knows a kid in school who is like the best drawer evar!  Like I said, IMO, Dave's real painting skills and style developed later. At this stage he's just doing illustration (which most comic art is, of course), but his unique voice and painting artistry comes later. I actually like the Dee painting (the one up for auction now) better than the Death. But of course you have those folks who fetishize (oooooh, it's first Death, must have!). That just ain't me. I am still in awe of Dave's audacity (and that of DC Comics) to run his cover art. It was groundbreaking. And I can appreciate it. I genuinely appreciate the Constitution too. I don't have a copy hanging on the wall at home.

Normally I LOVE process. I like seeing stats on panel pages and covers. Whiteout, pasteovers, you name it. Duncan Fegredo's pages for the Enigma mini-series are one of my greatest collecting regrets, as Scott Eder used to have stacks and stacks of those pages (he also coincidentally owns the first 2 Sandman covers), and those Enigma pages were a downright patchwork. This was right after publication, and I wasn't in a headspace where I appreciated that cut up stuff, I was bummed. I wanted it to be cleaner like most of my other comic art pickups had been. Those early to mid 90s years where art was cheap, and you could afford to turn your nose up at work because none of it had any real value, and so you could pick and choose the best of the best based on superficial aesthetics alone.

Only I was wrong. Because sometimes the pasted together stuff is it's own art form. Sometimes the cool thing isn't the painting, but the reproduction of that painting as photograph, taken after the lens was smeared with pretroleum jelly, and manipulated in the developer, and fix, and then drawn over with a pencil. Or in the case of those Fegredo pieces, the working method was absolutely fascinating. But I had to grow up a bit first, before I truly came to appreciate the art form.

And even with that later appreciation, I just don't care for the Sandman covers enough to want one on the wall. If I could have grabbed one of the first 8 in 95, sure, I'd have done it. I probably would still have it. It was cheap, and bragging rights, etc. But I have sold so much art over the years because of things that grew to bother me about it. Things that I outgrew. Or things that worried me (like marker use), given that I hang my art at home. I can't say for certain I wouldn't have sold that early cover by now too. I sold the other Sandman cover I had. I've passed on a couple opportunities at others.

Maybe it's just me, and I'm broken? I dunno. People go all gaga over first appearances and keys. I was never a proper comic collector. I have always been a comic reader, and lover of the storytelling form. I never sat around and had discussions of what character would beat who in a super powered fist fight. Or debated what comic should sell for more. I wondered how did the artist get that effect in the ink, or wondered at how a composition was constructed, or the flow of the art in the panels. I was more interested in the stories and process, and how engaged they made me feel on a personal level. And that's where I've stayed. With the comics I still choose to read, and the art I choose to keep and hang. And if the process is part of the engagement, the better. But the blocked in board constructions that had to be made in order to turn what were pieces that were shot for reproduction as a Sandman comic cover, into something that could be hung on a wall... I love them on paper and in theory, but in reality, they might as well have pink frames with clowns and donkeys painted on them. Doesn't matter the bit that's in the center, it's the other bit that totally distracts me from enjoying that center bit.  I can't engage in the piece properly. It's why I like frames that get out of the way of the art. Let me look at the art and tune out the rest.

I think Eder's covers are cool as hell. I just have to mentally block the outside parts. haha.

Once something bugs me about a piece, it's hard for me to enjoy it. All I ever see it the part that is distracting. It's like having something wrong with a tooth, and you cant stop yourself running your tongue over the spot. Even subconsciously. It just goes there. And that's no fun.
 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by ESeffinga

[Bronty]

5 hours ago, tth2 said:

I think the image of Action 1 is great. 

The ONLY reason you find it 'great' is because you are a fan of the medium.    Divorce it from its context and put it into an early 40s issues of Ladies Home Journal and suddenly its not interesting.

Which is to prove... there's nothing interesting about the image without the context.    Ergo, its entirely context.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bronty

[jjonahjameson11]

5 minutes ago, Bronty said:

The ONLY reason you find it 'great' is because you are a fan of the medium.    Divorce it from its context and put it into an early 40s issues of Ladies Home Journal and suddenly its not interesting.

Which is to prove... there's nothing interesting about the image without the context.    Ergo, its entirely context.

Except for the fact that the image of a man (any man) singlehandedly lifting a car over his head would be far more interesting to me than whatever was on the cover of Ladies Home Journal.

hows that for context?

Edited June 25, 2020 by jjonahjameson11

[Bronty]

1 minute ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

Except for the fact that the image of a man (any man) singlehandedly lifting a car over his head would be far more interesting to me than whatever was on the cover of Ladies Home Journal.

hows that for context?

Sexist!

[Bronty]

8 minutes ago, Bronty said:

The ONLY reason you find it 'great' is because you are a fan of the medium.    Divorce it from its context and put it into an early 40s issues of Ladies Home Journal and suddenly its not interesting.

Which is to prove... there's nothing interesting about the image without the context.    Ergo, its entirely context.

Now don't get me wrong, if forced to choose between context and image I'll choose context every time.    Image is almost meaningless without context.    

But image is NOT the reason we want or like the A1 cover.    If it was anything else published anywhere else, we wouldn't care.   But it is, and we do.

[Carlo M]

22 hours ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

S. Buscema Defenders 6 cover = $8.4K (thought I'd include this one for all the Sal lovers in the world)

It is a great cover, IMHO.  Excellent layout, some key early Defenders characters, usual impeccable anatomy by Sal.  Villain is a bit lame, but I find it a very accomplished cover.  I think it will do well.  Anybody knows if all these early Defenders covers we have seen recently come from one single collection? I think we have seen issues 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 in a matter of a couple of years.  Can we expect more to come?

[jjonahjameson11]

40 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Sexist!

Labelist!  🤣

[ESeffinga]

1 hour ago, Bronty said:

The ONLY reason you find it 'great' is because you are a fan of the medium.    Divorce it from its context and put it into an early 40s issues of Ladies Home Journal and suddenly its not interesting.

Which is to prove... there's nothing interesting about the image without the context.    Ergo, its entirely context.

I should have clarified. Great as a piece of history. For it's context. And by in a museum, I meant like the American History museum, not an art gallery. Perhaps that explains my stance. I don't think it is a great work of standalone art. I think I made that bit clear. I'm not negating that context matters. Just not in its necessary importance to me. I weigh that differently than most, clearly.

 

As a different analogy... meeting famous people. I know many MANY people that get googly eyes when meeting a "hero" personality. I see people go gaga and gush, and cry, and get all flustered at their apparent majesty. It's a response I apparently lack. To me they are people that have a very high profile job, and some of them are warm and kind, and some are distant, but I don't put them on a pedestal the way many many people do. I might be wired different, but my reaction is the same as meeting anyone for the first time. Their context means little to me. Even when I am in awe of the deeds of some.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by ESeffinga

[ESeffinga]

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

Image is almost meaningless without context. 

I know you said almost, but as someone that has seen people moved to tears more than once in their lives, by a simple painting, photograph, or piece of music... that's horsepucky.

I mean how do you want to define context? Context in that we are all human beings and have many shared experiences, having never met each other on opposite sides of the globe?

Or do you actually mean context in that A1 being what book it is, representing what it represents to American history? That second kind of context is what I don't subscribe to in my collecting. I can appreciate it where it sits in history without feeling it's drive in my choices. I know this is the vast gulf between you and I.

We can't really avoid the context of being human and having human thoughts, etc.

And when viewing work there is all the baggage we bring to viewing a particular piece. Especially "blind" for the first time, and absent any back story. When something can move you, make you ache or feel. THAT is an artistic reaction. The give and take of the work and the viewer. That's what I respond to most in art. And in comics. My love of Sandman wasn't because it was a fun read. Or mind blowingly technical in literacy. It was because I connected with it on a human gut visceral level. The stories, the art, etc. That is it's own kind of context I suppose, but I consider it the human condition.

The accolades for Sandman, it's watermark in history, the bandwagon jumping all came after I was well entrenched. The only context for me and Sandman was seeing the McKean cover and picking it up. It's a shrewed effective marketing move made by an artist who really just set out to make art. That context I appreciate on the historic side of my brain. The one that doesn't go doe eyed at talking to Neil Gaiman or Dave McKean. The side that would rather spend the $50-60K this Sandman cover may easily bring at auction on work that few will care about, but would work me over mentally and emotionally by living with it. Rather than spending 50-60K on a piece that almost everytime I looked at it would go "wow that's cool. I own that piece of history. Look at that gaffer tape!" 

I've explained that I love process, and fully admit this is my blind spot. The area where it just doesn't work for me.
By all the laws of Context, I should love this cover. I even like it more than at least half of the early covers, including some infamous ones. And yet, I say meh... can't help it.

 

And apologies to everyone that read this far, for derailing the thread with my own philosophical horsepucky. I feel like I am abusing you with longnonsense I'd love to chat about in person some day. If we can ever get the world back to normal.

Edited June 25, 2020 by ESeffinga

[Bronty]

The context around the work, not the context around whether we are all human beings FFS

I get that in the type of work you enjoy human experience may matter more.    With most comics.... and most illustration period, we aren't exactly delving too deep into the human condition.

Publisher, year, character, notable plot events, artist, other works by the artist, size, yada yada yada.    The things that separate the Mad 1 cover from the Panic 1 cover, or the Panic 1 cover from a Popular Mechanics cover.

(Mad was a big deal, Panic was short lived.    Panic may have been short lived, but there's more interest in artwork from comics than from Popular Mechanics.   etc.   All of those things drive interest but are not associated with or dependent on image.    Like, say, being published on the cover of the most important comic of all time vs the back pages of Ladies Home Journal, to bring it back to the start.).

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bronty

[ESeffinga]

7 minutes ago, Bronty said:

I get that in the type of work you enjoy human experience may matter more.    With most comics.... and most illustration period, we aren't exactly delving too deep into the human condition.

Publisher, year, character, notable plot events, artist, other works by the artist, size, yada yada yada.    The things that separate the Mad 1 cover from the Panic 1 cover, or the Panic 1 cover from a Popular Mechanics cover.

(Mad was a big deal, Panic was short lived.    Panic may have been short lived, but there's more interest in artwork from comics than from Popular Mechanics.   etc.   All of those things drive interest but are not associated with or dependent on image.    Like, say, being published on the cover of the most important comic of all time vs the back pages of Ladies Home Journal, to bring it back to the start.).

 

I actually agree with you 100%.

It's just that while I can love Mad and Popular mechanics as humorous/engaging reading material, I don't generally want to hang it, and ultimately have sold all such material from my collection. And the comics that delve more creatively deeply into the human condition, or push the artistic boundaries of the medium are the ones that I find most interesting. So you've put your finger on the through line for me. Perfect.

It's entirely possible (for some) to not be hung up on the context, and still collect comic art.
And that the artistically driven comics scene is a thriving one. And those single-artist human condition books are the self same that seem to get a grudging acceptance by the Art Museum crowd.
 

And one can extol the virtues of a poorly drawn piece of to the moon and back, heaping on context to justify buying it or it's price.
Maybe not coincidentally, that's how much of the Contemporary Art market is sold by "Fine Art" galleries. 
 

 

[tth2]

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

8 hours ago, tth2 said:

I think the image of Action 1 is great. 

The ONLY reason you find it 'great' is because you are a fan of the medium.    Divorce it from its context and put it into an early 40s issues of Ladies Home Journal and suddenly its not interesting.

Which is to prove... there's nothing interesting about the image without the context.    Ergo, its entirely context.

You just described all illustrated art.  None of it is particularly great art taken out of context.

I'm saying that within the context of comic art, I think Action #1 has a great cover and not just because it's the cover of the most important comic book there is.  I don't understand why people dis it all the time.  Imagine going back to 1938 and seeing this image of a guy in a costume picking up a car, and people fleeing in panic.  It's a great image that did exactly what it was supposed to do--attract eyeballs.  In addition, it's got solid composition and I am a fan of the clean, simple lines.   

In contrast, the Detective #27 cover is equally iconic, but I'm not a fan of it at all.  Never liked Bob Kane's style.

[vodou]

THE Art World is huge. Limiting one's appreciation of THAT World to just one's personal closet of nostalgia (aka stuff that gave you massive wood when you were 12) is terrifically self-narrowing. But then this is a CGC (Comics Guaranty Corporation) web site and forum so...it's to be expected what the majority opinion/interest of actively posting members would be on the matter. I'll never let go of voicing my general dismay that so many of you show nascent 'taste' but don't really allow yourselves to apply it outside of hobby/context terms; again, THE Art World is just so much bigger than that. You're just missing out on so much art fun.

[Bronty]

13 minutes ago, tth2 said:

You just described all illustrated art.  None of it is particularly great art taken out of context.

I'm saying that within the context of comic art, I think Action #1 has a great cover and not just because it's the cover of the most important comic book there is.  I don't understand why people dis it all the time.  Imagine going back to 1938 and seeing this image of a guy in a costume picking up a car, and people fleeing in panic.  It's a great image that did exactly what it was supposed to do--attract eyeballs.  In addition, it's got solid composition and I am a fan of the clean, simple lines.   

In contrast, the Detective #27 cover is equally iconic, but I'm not a fan of it at all.  Never liked Bob Kane's style.

D27 cover is not great, I agree.   Has anyone ever really liked it much? 

A1 - you're kinda proving my point.    Image wise its okay, better than D27 for sure, but the interesting part is the novelty at that time.   

Yes, I'm describing all illustration.   Because that's where comic art fits.    Even within the limited context of golden age comics in particular, I'd argue that image wise the cover is 'fine' but not amazing on pure image only.    Contemporary books like Silver Streak 6 and Superman 1 and many others have better covers IMO.    But you can't top the action 1 for the context around it.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bronty

[ESeffinga]

17 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yes, I'm describing all illustration.   Because that's where comic art fits.    Even within the limited context of golden age comics in particular, I'd argue that image wise the cover is 'fine' but not amazing on pure image only.    Contemporary books like Silver Streak 6 and Superman 1 and many others have better covers IMO.    But you can't top the action 1 for the context around it.

Illustration doesn't have to be such a nasty derogatory word. The "Fine" art market has tried to make it so. Work created for money, vs work created for the pure pleasure of it is a kind of myth and misnomer. There are artists (including the comic variety) who do their work with an eye towards commerce be damned, I just have to do this project.
But most folks in the "Fine" art world are as guilty as anyone of work-for-money. It's just work for a specific gallery to sell on for them. Often thee "Fine" artists are just flogging more of the same thing that got them noticed, or a new gimmick, to sell more art widgets.

I've shared it before, but if anyone wants to read a very highly informative blog about the worlds where art and illustration collide, should be following David Apatoff's wonderful illustrationart.blogspot.com

He regularly delves deep into extolling the virtues of many a form of illustration, and also calling out lazy work as well. With examples. And it's one of the few places on the internet, where the comments section is often as interesting and vibrant as the article itself. He doesn't do them a lot, and some are better than others, but I've been a fan for years. And he does occasionally have comic art based articles. He is a collector himself. Also author of several books on illustrators.

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by ESeffinga

[Bronty]

2 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

Illustration doesn't have to be such a nasty derogatory word.

 

Not to me!

[Bronty]

1 hour ago, ESeffinga said:

Illustration doesn't have to be such a nasty derogatory word. The "Fine" art market has tried to make it so. Work created for money, vs work created for the pure pleasure of it is a kind of myth and misnomer. There are artists (including the comic variety) who do their work with an eye towards commerce be damned, I just have to do this project.
But most folks in the "Fine" art world are as guilty as anyone of work-for-money. It's just work for a specific gallery to sell on for them. Often thee "Fine" artists are just flogging more of the same thing that got them noticed, or a new gimmick, to sell more art widgets.

I've shared it before, but if anyone wants to read a very highly informative blog about the worlds where art and illustration collide, should be following David Apatoff's wonderful illustrationart.blogspot.com

He regularly delves deep into extolling the virtues of many a form of illustration, and also calling out lazy work as well. With examples. And it's one of the few places on the internet, where the comments section is often as interesting and vibrant as the article itself. He doesn't do them a lot, and some are better than others, but I've been a fan for years. And he does occasionally have comic art based articles. He is a collector himself. Also author of several books on illustrators.

 

Oh and as for crying over a piece, that says more about the viewer than the piece.  My wife cried over soap commercials when she was pregnant.    It didn't mean they were art or particularly moving to almost anyone else.     It meant she was pregnant.

Your friend that cried on viewing that piece may have had other issues going on at the time    

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bronty

[Bronty]

2 hours ago, vodou said:

THE Art World is huge. Limiting one's appreciation of THAT World to just one's personal closet of nostalgia (aka stuff that gave you massive wood when you were 12) is terrifically self-narrowing. But then this is a CGC (Comics Guaranty Corporation) web site and forum so...it's to be expected what the majority opinion/interest of actively posting members would be on the matter. I'll never let go of voicing my general dismay that so many of you show nascent 'taste' but don't really allow yourselves to apply it outside of hobby/context terms; again, THE Art World is just so much bigger than that. You're just missing out on so much art fun.

I feel like you're talking about me  

Maybe its not directed at me but nontheless - I am interested in all sorts of illustration.   Just not gallery fine art.   Maybe that's self limiting but there's only so many hours in a day!

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bronty