Who sold all of that Silver Age Original Artwork from Marvel? 3 3

[Terry JSA]

3 hours ago, bc said:

The OOG splash page sold in a 2019 CLink auction for $14k:

https://www.comiclink.com/Auctions/item.asp?back=%2FComicTrack%2FAuctions%2Fbids.asp&id=1333289

-bc

That’s cool to know. 

[mtlevy1]

On 6/21/2021 at 2:58 PM, gunsmokin said:

Found it!

Wow - Impossible Man Grail!

[MatterEaterLad]

On 6/21/2021 at 2:07 PM, alexgross.com said:

illustration for many decades now has made a distinction between usage of artwork and actual original artwork. in my many years as an illustrator, i never provided original artwork, i sent film or scans. in kirby's day there wasn't much of a choice since marvel made the film. many non-comic illustrators from the 60s who i've known personally also had their work stolen or never returned to them. i havent read any contracts that were circulating then but it's unlikely that this distinction was made at the time. usage of kirby's artwork and ownership of the actual pages are not the same thing and i expect very little thought went into that distinction when pages were not worth much. 

I was a creative director for almost 20 years and hired lots of illustrators and photographers and this was the case. We were always paying for usage, not the originals.

But in storerooms, we had originals from decades prior. 

I'm talking commercial illustrations, magazine illustrations, etc. The production managers from back then were long gone and no one knew who those artists were, what their contact information was, or even if they were alive. These were stored in large flat files organized by client and some of the clients (corporations) didn't exist anymore. The contracts (if there were any) were probably in a file box buried in some storage unit offsite, or were thrown away.

The artwork was of little commercial value, but I always wished we had been able to return that work to the artist or the families of the artist.

[Aman619]

Wouldn’t accounting have been able to match job codes on the art to invoices and/or vouchers and vendor payments?   Of course assuming management cared to spend the time and resources matching it all together. 

was this a large ad agency? or magazine ?

[MatterEaterLad]

7 hours ago, Aman619 said:

Wouldn’t accounting have been able to match job codes on the art to invoices and/or vouchers and vendor payments?   Of course assuming management cared to spend the time and resources matching it all together. 

was this a large ad agency? or magazine ?

Ad agency. There was stuff that went back to the early 70s. I don't recall what the official policy was, but I think those paper records were eventually tossed, especially if it was a client that no longer existed, like a bank that had been bought out by a larger bank.

[Aman619]

got it.  if the records were lost, nothing can be done.  99 out of 100 other companies wouldn't go to the effort.  And, a large % of the recipients would probably shrug receiving the art.... certainly would pay to have it shipped to them.  Was there any interesting artwork by known artists?  or mostly a lot of heavily retouched photos?