McFarlane/Larsen Authorship on Spawn #258-266, Satan Saga, etc. 2 2

[Twanj]

On 6/30/2022 at 12:30 PM, SMP said:

The published page of the book has more inking on it, which implies McFarlane inked it digitally. 

[lurker]

On 6/30/2022 at 5:54 PM, Twanj said:

In the video, he says the credits are according to comics.org 

https://www.comics.org/issue/1529791/

---script

Todd McFarlane; Erik Larsen

Pencils

Todd McFarlane; Erik Larsen

Inks

Todd McFarlane; Erik Larsen

I believe they shared credits on everything because the almighty Toddfather would often digitally alter/redraw entire panels to take certain scenes in a very different direction than the one originated by Erik. After about ten issues Larsen opted to throw the towel and left, frustrated by the process ( to paraphrase: why hire me if you're going to constantly get in my way? ) 

I don't expect every art dealer to know the specifics of every artist collaboration on every run of every book. However we're talking Todd McFarlane here: He's the biggest commercial name ( with Jim Lee ) of the last 30 years and it is widely known that he's worked almost exclusively digitally for 2 decades ( and doesn't produce much to begin with ). Meaning that if you come upon a physical piece of art from that period that's credited to him it's either an absolute rarity or (in 98% of cases ) a page he never touched.   

     

Edited June 30, 2022 by lurker
mistake

[vodou]

On 6/30/2022 at 11:54 AM, Twanj said:

In the video, he says the credits are according to comics.org 

https://www.comics.org/issue/1529791/

--script

Todd McFarlane; Erik Larsen

Pencils

Todd McFarlane; Erik Larsen

Inks

Todd McFarlane; Erik Larsen

Thanks for saving me from watching that video (which I wouldn't) to get to the meat on the bone. As we all know, and probably Mike does too...GCD credits are not perfect and are often sourced from the comic book credits themselves, so...this means nothing, but sure, he can certainly lean on that. The other day, I saw a whole slew of Basquiat paintings on LiveAuctioneers.com too, they're all signed "Basquiat", so I guess $10 is the new entry point there for signed originals? Somebody should let Eli Broad know  

[kbmcvay]

On 6/30/2022 at 9:24 AM, lurker said:

To clarify I don't believe Mike ( if it is him who sold it ) intentionally mislead the buyer but he sure didn't do his 101 homework. 

$4250 seems bonkers if it is Larsen only since Albert sells most of these for an average of $400 ( granted 2K for the more detailed action double splash) 

So since these Larsen only pages go for around $400 and this appears to be Larsen only we can expect Romitaman to give the buyer a refund of $3850 in the near future since it was an honest mistake on his part and he didn't intentionally mislead anybody, right? Of course not because that isn't in Romitaman's character, which is to get one over on people in order to "win". Also, for a person that proclaims to hate Trump, Romitaman sure does posses a lot of the same traits and characteristics as him. You'd think after the John Romita voicemail incident (whoever did this deserves a medal) he would at least make an attempt to stop being such an unethical sleaze. Zero self awareness.

 

[lurker]

On 7/1/2022 at 2:32 PM, kbmcvay said:

So since these Larsen only pages go for around $400 and this appears to be Larsen only we can expect Romitaman to give the buyer a refund of $3850 in the near future since it was an honest mistake on his part and he didn't intentionally mislead anybody, right? Of course not because that isn't in Romitaman's character, which is to get one over on people in order to "win". Also, for a person that proclaims to hate Trump, Romitaman sure does posses a lot of the same traits and characteristics as him. You'd think after the John Romita voicemail incident (whoever did this deserves a medal) he would at least make an attempt to stop being such an unethical sleaze. Zero self awareness.

 

Not the main point of the argument but I will still say that the $400 ones on Albert's website are much rougher and look like breakdowns. The one Mike sold looks much closer to a finished page. Not that it justifies the price gap but sometimes you just make a bad deal. The key argument here is that McFarlane did not ink that page, not that Albert had other cheaper examples.  If I was the buyer I would contact Mike and either ask to return it for a full refund or keep it at half off ( because, you know, no Todd = huge downer). But keep in mind that the buyer didn't do his homework either. It's not Mike's fault if the buyer didn't know Albert had pages for much cheaper. With that in mind if it is confirmed that Todd never touched the pages then Mike did make a mistake and I would certainly find his business practices deplorable IF he refused to work out a deal with the buyer ( provided that he gets in touch and is not happy ).

Have never heard of the John Romita voicemail story so can't comment on that. Feel free to share a link ( facts please )    

[kbmcvay]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:43 AM, lurker said:

Not the main point of the argument but I will still say that the $400 ones on Albert's website are much rougher and look like breakdowns. The one Mike sold looks much closer to a finished page. Not that it justifies the price gap but sometimes you just make a bad deal. The key argument here is that McFarlane did not ink that page, not that Albert had other cheaper examples.  If I was the buyer I would contact Mike and either ask to return it for a full refund or keep it at half off ( because, you know, no Todd = huge downer). But keep in mind that the buyer didn't do his homework either. It's not Mike's fault if the buyer didn't know Albert had pages for much cheaper. With that in mind if it is confirmed that Todd never touched the pages then Mike did make a mistake and I would certainly find his business practices deplorable IF he refused to work out a deal with the buyer ( provided that he gets in touch and is not happy ).

Have never heard of the John Romita voicemail story so can't comment on that. Feel free to share a link ( facts please )    

The John Romita voicemail story was posted on here by Burkey himself after it happened. There were 2 threads regarding Shillgate at the time. I can only find this one so it must be in the other one (I'm sure somebody will post it). Basically when all of this Shillgate stuff was going on somebody actually called John Romita Sr. to inform him that there was a crook calling himself Romitaman that was ripping people off selling comicbook art. Romita then called Burkey and read him the riot act. 

 

[Kryptic1]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:43 AM, lurker said:

But keep in mind that the buyer didn't do his homework either. 

I agree with most of what you said, but the format of the claim show pushes buyers to make a quick decision without doing all of the homework they might normally do.  Mike could have taken as much time as he wanted to research the piece before bringing it to market.  He could have asked Albert why he sold pages from that run of Spawn issues as Larsen-only when he could have gotten much more for McFarlane/Larsen pages.  He needed to do more than just check Comics.org, especially since the page looks like it’s only Larsen’s work.  I’ve been in the position of quickly doing my homework in the middle of a Dueling Dealers episode, and the question “did the seller even correctly identify the artists” never crossed my mind.  It’s a basic piece of information about the art that the seller has to know for certain, or state that he doesn’t know.  In this case, Mike’s main selling point for the page was that it was a rare McFarlane/Larsen piece, and he should be certain that’s true before he says it.

[lurker]

On 7/1/2022 at 6:06 PM, kbmcvay said:

The John Romita voicemail story was posted on here by Burkey himself after it happened. There were 2 threads regarding Shillgate at the time. I can only find this one so it must be in the other one (I'm sure somebody will post it). Basically when all of this Shillgate stuff was going on somebody actually called John Romita Sr. to inform him that there was a crook calling himself Romitaman that was ripping people off selling comicbook art. Romita then called Burkey and read him the riot act. 

So I guess the voicemail story is just a Shillgate tie-in?

I am aware of Shillgate. Not a proud moment for Mike but water under the bridge in my book ( feel free to hold a grudge ).

I'll just add that calling up then 86 year old John Romita at home just to settle a score with Mike is not necessarily something I applaud. Mike is not really John's rep at his point as far as I can tell. And the fact that he calls himself romitaman on his website had no direct impact on the shillgate debacle at Ha. It's not like his consigned pages were listed on Ha with a special note saying "Bid with confidence, the art was consigned by a dear friend and business associate of John Romita Sr"      

[lurker]

On 7/1/2022 at 7:45 PM, Kryptic1 said:

I agree with most of what you said, but the format of the claim show pushes buyers to make a quick decision without doing all of the homework they might normally do.  Mike could have taken as much time as he wanted to research the piece before bringing it to market.  He could have asked Albert why he sold pages from that run of Spawn issues as Larsen-only when he could have gotten much more for McFarlane/Larsen pages.  He needed to do more than just check Comics.org, especially since the page looks like it’s only Larsen’s work.  I’ve been in the position of quickly doing my homework in the middle of a Dueling Dealers episode, and the question “did the seller even correctly identify the artists” never crossed my mind.  It’s a basic piece of information about the art that the seller has to know for certain, or state that he doesn’t know.  In this case, Mike’s main selling point for the page was that it was a rare McFarlane/Larsen piece, and he should be certain that’s true before he says it.

I agree with most of what you are saying and this is one of the numerous reasons why I would not buy art on that particular show ( though the biggest hurdle for me would be to actually sit through it ).  

Mike doesn't always do his homework. Same with Anthony from what I can tell. Now you know this. However there is a clear difference between not being thorough and being a plain bad apple. That's why I would expect them ( or any dealer of their caliber ) to offer a refund if a crucial piece of information turns out to be wrong about a piece they sold ( as it seems to be the case here ). As long as you get your money back or work out a deal where everyone walks away happy ( and provided it doesn't happen too frequently ), I have no MAJOR problem with them ( still doesn't mean I'll buy anything on their claim show ).  

That being said, yes, it is still a shame many dealers don't do their homework in this hobby.  

[Kryptic1]

On 7/1/2022 at 2:12 PM, lurker said:

Mike doesn't always do his homework. Same with Anthony from what I can tell. Now you know this. However there is a clear difference between not being thorough and being a plain bad apple. That's why I would expect them ( or any dealer of their caliber ) to offer a refund if a crucial piece of information turns out to be wrong about a piece they sold ( as it seems to be the case here ). As long as you get your money back or work out a deal where everyone walks away happy ( and provided it doesn't happen too frequently ), I have no MAJOR problem with them ( still doesn't mean I'll buy anything on their claim show ).  

I now know that they can be sloppy, but I didn’t when I started watching Dueling Dealers about six months ago.  I assumed they did as much research as necessary to identify the art and price it reasonably, but then I started seeing some badly overpriced pieces and it made me a lot more cautious.  Here’s another example from last week’s show: Anthony offered a Stuart Immonen DPS from All-New X-Men for $2,000.  I recognized it from a recent Felix drop so I checked the price: it sold for $700 in Nov ‘21.  Both Felix and the inker’s rep still have a bunch of similar DPS’s from the series for under $1000.  I’m assuming Anthony wasn’t the original buyer and probably overpaid for it and is now pricing it off his mistake.  He didn’t do anything intentionally misleading (although he did incorrectly identify the main character on the page), but I still would have felt like I got burned if I had bought it.

[justadude]

This is the discussion I hoped to spark. It's a nice Larsen page, maybe $800 or so, but nothing like that. I saw another Larsen Spawn page on the Comic Art Live convention a month back that was selling it as a McFarlane/Larsen collab for over 2k. 4250 is just crazy. That's more than a lot of McFarlane inked/Capullo pages.

[Will_K]

On 7/1/2022 at 3:55 PM, Kryptic1 said:

 I’m assuming Anthony wasn’t the original buyer and probably overpaid for it and is now pricing it off his mistake

On 7/1/2022 at 3:55 PM, Kryptic1 said:

I still would have felt like I got burned if I had bought it.

Considering the popularity of the Felix's art drops, the odds are Anthony is not the original buyer.  So if there was at least one other person in between, I guess buying at 3X from a few months ago isn't too bad.  Also during DD, you can haggle with the dealer to get a better price.  If anything, you're paying a premium to avoid camping out for the art drop and still not getting the art you wanted.  And if the art changed hands a few times in the last year, maybe the markup is actually "reasonable". 

[lurker]

On 7/1/2022 at 9:55 PM, Kryptic1 said:

then I started seeing some badly overpriced pieces and it made me a lot more cautious.  Here’s another example from last week’s show: Anthony offered a Stuart Immonen DPS from All-New X-Men for $2,000.  I recognized it from a recent Felix drop so I checked the price: it sold for $700 in Nov ‘21.  Both Felix and the inker’s rep still have a bunch of similar DPS’s from the series for under $1000.  I’m assuming Anthony wasn’t the original buyer and probably overpaid for it and is now pricing it off his mistake.

I don't mean to be controversial but I don't think Mike and Anthony necessarily care if what they offer is overpriced. They can offer any piece at any price and it's not really their problem if you take the bait and end up overpaying. That's part of the game. Not implying that the entire business model of these claim shows relies on actively ripping off customers ( that wouldn't last forever ) but only you can decide if it's a fair price or not.

Based solely on the few times I checked the end results I tend to find most of what they sell on the show overpriced for what it is ( lot of C level pieces, unsold inventory or things you have seen change hands many times over ) but I'm sure there are some good deals to be made here and there-- ironically because they don't always do their homework!

Long winded answer short: it's your job to research the market in advance for things you are into. If you're uncomfortable with the format ( too little time to decide ) and not a risk taker maybe skip claim shows. But realize that time is of the essence everywhere. When Albert or others ( won't even mention Felix!) have new art drops on their site you often need to make lighting fast decisions too. If you go off researching market value and such there is a very good chance you'll miss the party.

Also of note: Felix tends to be very reasonable with his pricing but to the point that it's become near impossible to snatch anything by certain artists he reps with everything selling out in a Flash. 

Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.    

Edited July 1, 2022 by lurker
missing word

[lurker]

Also of note: Felix is a rep, you buy straight from the artists and he's the only intermediary.

Mike and Anthony are dealers. They buy from collectors  and then need to make their margin. 

Very different business model obviously.

[lurker]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:52 PM, Will_K said:

I guess buying at 3X from a few months ago isn't too bad.

Maybe if the art in question is all sold out everywhere ( think DWJ's Wonder Woman/Beta Ray Bill or Stegman's Venom ) but certainly not if there are still plenty of good examples left on Felix's website!