Heritage June Auction 7 7

[grapeape]

Bill Everett Daredevil #1 Story Page 5 Original Art (Marvel, 1964)

A fellow collector believes he saw this on a dealer's sight about

22 years ago for $12k. I could almost swear I also saw it prior to

that (1997-1998?) for below $8k. Bill was in a class of his own.

[Bird]

On 5/14/2022 at 11:57 AM, grapeape said:

Bill was in a class of his own.

I need an Everett Dr Strange page eventually. One of the few things I still am interested in acquiring.

[grapeape]

On 5/14/2022 at 8:58 AM, Bird said:

I need an Everett Dr Strange page eventually. One of the few things I still am interested in acquiring.

I read and collected Alter Ego for many years and Everett said of working on Dr. Strange "It was a challenge because I tried to do Ditko-like work and that was next to impossible. There are very few people who can imitate Ditko. I tried to keep my drawing and Ditko's influence. And it was very difficult, but it was fun. I enjoyed doing it." 

I hope you find that Dr. Strange page for your collection. 

[Timely]

On 5/14/2022 at 10:57 AM, grapeape said:

Bill Everett Daredevil #1 Story Page 5 Original Art (Marvel, 1964)

A fellow collector believes he saw this on a dealer's sight about

22 years ago for $12k. I could almost swear I also saw it prior to

that (1997-1998?) for below $8k. Bill was in a class of his own.

Now that I am a dad, this is one of my favorite pages in the book. I love that middle panel with Matt and his father,

[lb jefferies]

On 5/14/2022 at 7:30 AM, RICKYBOBBY said:

Seems like you are saying the same thing as I am

He's really not. 

Question for you: did you read the entire comment thread when Pistella posted this piece on CAF? I'm just curious if you read those comments - by some people far more knowledgable about Jack's methods than you or I - and if so I'm wondering why that did not give you pause before purchasing? 

I'm also wondering why this piece was listed in the HA preview over a month ago as a 100% Kirby piece and then the listing was only updated after a few collectors reached out to HA, and then it was removed altogether until recently. Perhaps to avoid discussions like this one?

I hope anyone thinking of bidding reads this thread.

 

[RICKYBOBBY]

On 5/14/2022 at 12:40 PM, lb jefferies said:

He's really not. 

Question for you: did you read the entire comment thread when Pistella posted this piece on CAF? I'm just curious if you read those comments - by some people far more knowledgable about Jack's methods than you or I - and if so I'm wondering why that did not give you pause before purchasing? 

I'm also wondering why this piece was listed in the HA preview over a month ago as a 100% Kirby piece and then the listing was only updated after a few collectors reached out to HA, and then it was removed altogether until recently. Perhaps to avoid discussions like this one?

I hope anyone thinking of bidding reads this thread.

 

Wow you just love speculating eh? I can see why your stance is the way it is on this piece of art lol. I’ll enlighten you but I’ll answer your question about the purchase first.

I did read all the comments and no one had any firm information about it. I knew Joe Sinnott had inked it, it was hanging in Jacks home during his life and when Mark Evanier confirmed he remembered Jack working on it - that was good enough for me to make the purchase.

Now about the listing ? I never wrote the first write up - someone at Heritage did that. I spoke to Joe M about the piece in length before consignment and it was decided right from the beginning that the original write up would be used. 
Also, Heritage took down all the listings for this auction when this was originally posted. They reposted at their own discretion along with the other pieces that had originally taken down.

See - sometimes a simple answer to your conspiracy theories

And I agree - someone bidding should read all these posts. 

RB

Edited May 14, 2022 by RICKYBOBBY

[fsumavila]

On 5/14/2022 at 3:51 AM, Monsterhoodoo said:

Hi Ricky Bobby.  I assume that’s a screen name. Mine is John Butler. Yes, I owned it for a bit longer than 10 months. And that link to Rob Stiefel's piece on the Kirby Museum page that you posted was written before I had researched the piece. I think it’s human nature probably (or at least mine) to defend something you own or care about. And I did at the time, as Eriks post sort of blind-sided me. But then I spoke with several people. Kirby scholars? Well, I’m not sure about that designation. But Mark McDermott's name never really came up alongside some of the dealers, artists, and collectors that I spoke with. Greg Theakston, Joe Mannarino, Mike T, Todd Seisser, Glen Gold, Erik Larsen, and David Schwartz did-- I would consider all to be at least educated and knowledgeable about Kirby because they all either knew him or have done the work to know about him for decades. I spoke to all of them. The only guy I couldn’t get to was Evanier. He never answered me. The rest did, and rather quickly.

 All had slightly different things to say, some just weren’t sure and couldn’t really say other than to mention they saw it on Jack’s wall at one point, (that was literally the best piece of info anyone had as to its legitimacy… didn’t pass the sniff test for me) some were certain it was mostly done by another hand… none said, “Oh no, that’s Jack and Jack alone.”

 So, just an opinion here, but that came after a lot of research and an open mind. The key clues for me were

 1. The back of the piece is bone white. So, it never hit Jacks' drawing board which made very specific graphite smudges on the backs of his art. Possible that he did it elsewhere, but that was a rare occurrence.

 2. If you look at pieces Jack did in the late 80s, as you mention as the time period that this was done, they are wonky. Nothing like this.

 3. The piece is very tightly rendered. Some of it looks outlined and filled in. Jack worked with the edge of his pencil and spit the graphite out like he was chiseling, it’s just far too meticulous. Like those cover recreations from the 90s… possibly by the same hand. Look at other Kirby pencil pieces. This is very different.

 4. The pieces the artist traced or used as reference are clear if you look at other Kirby work. The Surfer Sketch from the Kirby Collector issue 48, and a flopped surfer drawing by Kirby and Sinnott from a Marvel Portfolio done in 1979 (with modifications) is the main surfer body. I’ve lined them up in Photoshop and they come pretty darn close.  The Doom head is from a panel in FF #59, and an exploding planet from the Gods portfolio is at least part of the background. I think it would have been odd for Jack to have traced these out. He just didn’t do that. And these are almost exact. The Doom head scales up perfectly, except for the eyeballs.

 5. The erased leg. Kirby just wouldn't have done that.

 Of course, people will believe what they want. Probably Rob's designation as The Studio of Jack Kirby is about as accurate as one can be with the piece. Someone else's hand is in there. I have a pretty good idea whose it is, but I’m not comfortable saying who that is here. How much Jack is in there if at all? Who knows? Unless the Kirby estate wants to say and that’s probably not going to happen. But I personally think there is very little. But I also don’t think it’s a forgery, as Erik originally stated.  I believe someone helped Jack out because he and Roz needed the dough, and it was a decent thing to do between friends. Now that stuff is worth thousands of dollars, I think it matters.

 So, I flipped it back through Heritage. They gave me a slightly better deal than the hammer price in the end, but I still lost money. But I made sure people knew what they were getting and wrote the auction description myself, with some additions by Todd Hignite. I did write a lengthy article about this in the APA as Felix mentioned. I won’t post that here for anyone to download, but if you want to read it, I think it's in issue 102. This is really what it says though--  Most were kind enough to talk to me about it and help me come to my conclusion, but of course, we’ll probably never really know for sure.

Fascinating read. Thanks for this post, John.

[delekkerste]

The Dark Knight Returns #1 Cover by Frank Miller will be in the June HA auction!!

Edited May 16, 2022 by delekkerste

[Bronty]

whoa!

[Latverian Tourism Board]

Will the last two bidders need to be given knives and put in a cage? Someone might try to sell a kidney mid live auction…

Holy moly

[tth2]

On 5/16/2022 at 10:28 PM, delekkerste said:

The Dark Knight Returns #1 Cover by Frank Miller will be in the June HA auction!!

 

Good lord!

It's a full scale rush for the exits now!

On a more serious note, I'm surprised the item description doesn't describe the media that was used to create the cover.  Does anyone know? 

 

[Xatari]

On 5/16/2022 at 8:32 AM, Latverian Tourism Board said:

Will the last two bidders need to be given knives and put in a cage? Someone might try to sell a kidney mid live auction…

Holy moly

Two men enter. One man leave. 

[Latverian Tourism Board]

On 5/16/2022 at 11:35 AM, Xatari said:

Two men enter. One man leave. 

“Who controls Barter Town?”

”Heritage Auctions!”

Man, does that cover hit 8 figures? I just couldn’t even guess. 

[Bronty]

On 5/16/2022 at 11:39 AM, Latverian Tourism Board said:

“Who controls Barter Town?”

”Heritage Auctions!”

Man, does that cover hit 8 figures? I just couldn’t even guess. 

Compared to the secret wars page, it should, but its hard for me to imagine that it will. 

[Latverian Tourism Board]

On 5/16/2022 at 11:39 AM, Bronty said:

Compared to the secret wars page, it should, but its hard for me to imagine that it will. 

That’s where I’m left, too. It should, but how could it? I guess we all shook the tree hard enough to get all the acorns to fall. That’s a piece I never expected to see come to auction.

[Xatari]

It is fun to see the “balance of power” in terms of collections shift. 

[Bronty]

On 5/16/2022 at 11:33 AM, tth2 said:

Good lord!

It's a full scale rush for the exits now!

On a more serious note, I'm surprised the item description doesn't describe the media that was used to create the cover.  Does anyone know? 

 

Looks to me like the blue blackground and the main branch of the lightning bolt are airbrush; probably airbrushed acrylic?   You can see some paint splatter indicative of airbrush, and in  places like the bottom right corner you can see how it likely just caught some overspray without being intentionally sprayed to any great degree.

The ancillary pieces of the lightning bolt look to be painted via traditional brush.

India ink for the batman silhouette.

 

I would guess that in terms of process, they laid down the blue blackground first, in airbrush, then painted in the main branch of the lightning, in airbrush, then painted in the side branches of the lightning by hand then inked in batman.

The batman silhouette was probably masked in plastic during the painting process, and once the painting was finished the masking removed and the inking completed.

Just a somewhat educated but mostly layman's guess, however.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Bronty

[SuperBird]

speechless

 

[Bronty]

On 5/16/2022 at 11:57 AM, Bronty said:

Looks to me like the blue blackground and the main branch of the lightning bolt are airbrush; probably airbrushed acrylic?   You can see some paint splatter indicative of airbrush, and in  places like the bottom right corner you can see how it likely just caught some overspray without being intentionally sprayed to any great degree.

The ancillary pieces of the lightning bolt look to be painted via traditional brush.

India ink for the batman silhouette.

 

I would guess that in terms of process, they laid down the blue blackground first, in airbrush, then painted in the main branch of the lightning, in airbrush, then painted in the side branches of the lightning by hand then inked in batman.

The batman silhouette was probably masked in plastic during the painting process, and once the painting was finished the masking removed and the inking completed.

Just a somewhat educated but mostly layman's guess, however.

Just to expand on the above and help people visualize it a little.    Here is a pac-man cover that was aborted mid-process and later restarted anew.     So, it shows the masking process mid-painting; frozen in time.

You can see how the pacman had been masked up til now.     That, I believe would have been true of the batman figure here too... an empty white space masked out and then filled in with ink once the painting was done.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Bronty

[Peter G]

On 5/16/2022 at 11:39 AM, Latverian Tourism Board said:

 

Man, does that cover hit 8 figures? I just couldn’t even guess. 

Possibly. Quite possibly in fact. 
 

At the risk of jinxing the piece I’m gonna guess between 5 million $ and 10 million $