Retouched by an angel 1 1

[Will_K]

I've mentioned this wish before and I don't think there's any money in this but... I hope that one day there will be some kind of process where you could re-pigmentize faded ink with some precision to restore the art without human intervention.  Like with the precision of how a laser printer gets toner on paper.  Although it's possible that the "restored" inks may not appear as good one would like.

[Will_K]

Comic Art News: Jim Lee Buys Back His Own Wolverine #50 Art

https://www.comicartfans.com/SubNewsDetails.asp?NID=19120&Title=Jim+Lee+Buys+Back+His+Own+Wolverine+%2350+Art

Check out my twitch.tv/jimlee stream tomorrow at 9am PST as

I begin the process of restoring all the faded ink on this piece!

I made the mistake 3 decades ago using an inferior marker to do the details. Will the attempt at restoration be the best or worst decision I ever made!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8hgrdkJ6iB/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=a9410063-9b29-426b-940b-a80af636d794

 

 

Edited June 22 by Will_K

[Dr. Balls]

On 6/22/2024 at 4:50 PM, Will_K said:

Comic Art News: Jim Lee Buys Back His Own Wolverine #50 Art

https://www.comicartfans.com/SubNewsDetails.asp?NID=19120&Title=Jim+Lee+Buys+Back+His+Own+Wolverine+%2350+Art

Check out my twitch.tv/jimlee stream tomorrow at 9am PST as

I begin the process of restoring all the faded ink on this piece!

I made the mistake 3 decades ago using an inferior marker to do the details. Will the attempt at restoration be the best or worst decision I ever made!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8hgrdkJ6iB/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=a9410063-9b29-426b-940b-a80af636d794

I saw that today, and I think it's pretty cool - I'm hoping to watch the process. I hope it works out well for him (can't imagine it wouldn't).

[Ecclectica]

For me, good news for this wonderful drawing, but you know my position on the subject.

[The Voord]

On 6/22/2024 at 11:50 PM, Will_K said:

Comic Art News: Jim Lee Buys Back His Own Wolverine #50 Art

https://www.comicartfans.com/SubNewsDetails.asp?NID=19120&Title=Jim+Lee+Buys+Back+His+Own+Wolverine+%2350+Art

Check out my twitch.tv/jimlee stream tomorrow at 9am PST as

I begin the process of restoring all the faded ink on this piece!

I made the mistake 3 decades ago using an inferior marker to do the details. Will the attempt at restoration be the best or worst decision I ever made!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8hgrdkJ6iB/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=a9410063-9b29-426b-940b-a80af636d794

 

 

Sounds like an interesting project though, for me, the danger is there (well, perhaps, as a possibility), the original artist might be tempted into 'improving' the art . . . by implementing some changes?  If he's aiming to re-enforce faded blacks, fair enough, but that's as far as it should go.

Frank Frazetta would sometimes re-work his paintings . . . not always for the better!  I remember an early cover for Warren's EERIE magazine, showing a dinosaur in a swamp . . . with two men in the foreground.  Frazetta later painted-out those two men!  Later on, the (then) owner of the painting (Rob Pistella, I think?), had the painting restored by re-inserting the painted-out figures.

 

 

[Matches_Malone]

On 6/22/2024 at 6:50 PM, Will_K said:

Comic Art News: Jim Lee Buys Back His Own Wolverine #50 Art

https://www.comicartfans.com/SubNewsDetails.asp?NID=19120&Title=Jim+Lee+Buys+Back+His+Own+Wolverine+%2350+Art

Check out my twitch.tv/jimlee stream tomorrow at 9am PST as

I begin the process of restoring all the faded ink on this piece!

I made the mistake 3 decades ago using an inferior marker to do the details. Will the attempt at restoration be the best or worst decision I ever made!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8hgrdkJ6iB/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=a9410063-9b29-426b-940b-a80af636d794

 

 

This will be a remarkable entry in the "(attempted) Flip of the Day!" forum in the not-so-long future. .  

[fsumavila]

On 6/22/2024 at 6:50 PM, Will_K said:

Comic Art News: Jim Lee Buys Back His Own Wolverine #50 Art

https://www.comicartfans.com/SubNewsDetails.asp?NID=19120&Title=Jim+Lee+Buys+Back+His+Own+Wolverine+%2350+Art

Check out my twitch.tv/jimlee stream tomorrow at 9am PST as

I begin the process of restoring all the faded ink on this piece!

I made the mistake 3 decades ago using an inferior marker to do the details. Will the attempt at restoration be the best or worst decision I ever made!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8hgrdkJ6iB/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=a9410063-9b29-426b-940b-a80af636d794

 

 

I'm excited to see how this turns out. I also think it will only help the value of the piece because I think there is more than one collector out there who won't mind that Jim Lee re-inked his own vintage Wolverine image.

 

[IceHole]

During one of Felix's unboxing episodes @Nexus mentions a page he purchased at auction.  Without knowing the episode off the top of my head the short of it was that the older page had a bit of it done in an inferior ink and Felix had to have assurances that the original artist would re ink the page before committing to purchase.  The artist agreed, the page was purchased and the artist re inked the page.  Will this be a growing trend with so many older pages coming to market.

[vodou]

On 6/23/2024 at 9:51 AM, IceHole said:

During one of Felix's unboxing episodes @Nexus mentions a page he purchased at auction.  Without knowing the episode off the top of my head the short of it was that the older page had a bit of it done in an inferior ink and Felix had to have assurances that the original artist would re ink the page before committing to purchase.  The artist agreed, the page was purchased and the artist re inked the page.  Will this be a growing trend with so many older pages coming to market.

I'm believe it was an early Jaime Hernandez Love & Rockets cover, #12?

[Kevn]

I remember reading years ago that Will Eisner touched up and even completely redid some of his Spirit pages after their original publication. At least some of these revisions were done on the original pages and weren't to preserve the art, but to improve it. Of course there's a long history of some fine artists reworking their paintings (Degas' friend and art dealer used to literally chain Degas' paints to the wall to keep the artist from taking them back to his studio to rework). I rather doubt Eisner's revisions have dampened the value of the OA, but this is a case of the original artist making the modifications. Overall the thing I'm most comfortable with artists (like Jim Lee or Jamie Hernandez) re-inking over their faded markers with india ink. (Assuming the original artist's skills have deteriorated, then it could be a rather dicey situation). 

There have been a lot of good thoughts in this thread, and like most I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. When I see OA on a browned, foxed, brittle board with faded inks and globs of dried, acidic adhesive and grey stats I feel despair, especially knowing that this degradation has happened over relatively few decades and is probably past the point of no return. It's the same for OA with heavy use of markers that are already heavily faded and are practically disappearing before one's eyes (especially if the original artist is gone or unable to match their old line). Given how much of this art was done by different artists doing the pencils and then the inks, I'm probably OK with a skilled professional inker going over faded markers, assuming the original artist isn't able to, and the OA itself has other original elements that are intact (otherwise, why not just do a full on 'recreation' on a clean sheet of paper). And of course it should be fully documented and clearly advertised.

I think the bigger problem, as many have alluded to, is the lack of transparency and disclosure. An example is the Paul Pope piece being sold by the Donnelly brothers that Felix confirmed had been substantially reinked, and that Paul Pope hadn't been involved. That's seriously problematic. I think in general there is a scary amount of secrecy in this hobby, and it's not just one or two dealers or collectors. I looked into having a couple of pages conserved some years back and at the time came to the conclusion that the few people specializing in OA conservation/restoration were not necessarily using museum-quality techniques and rigor, much less sharing with each other their techniques and discoveries of what works and what doesn't. Given the staggering variety of papers, inks, markers, tapes, glues, etc. that comic artists have used over the years, it's easy to imagine that something that is safe for one page may wreck another. And that's to say nothing of what some of these techniques (like whitening) do to the longevity of the art. So we're in a double bind situation - art was produced often using inferior media, has been torn, roughly handled, exposed to moisture or too much light, and needs some kind of conservation to stabilize, but it's something of the wild west when it comes to having this work done.

With so much of this art now worth tens of thousands of dollars and often far more, we have a real need for dramatically more information sharing on conservation techniques, restoration techniques and results, and calling out bad actors. In another thread that was discussion of the original Punisher cover that was advertised as coming up for auction, and then quietly pulled amidst suggestions that it was fake. If that happened in the fine art world, I can't imagine that it wouldn't have resulted in a big investigation. Here, no one knows about it unless you know the right people, and then it's just hearsay and rumors.

[Nexus]

On 6/23/2024 at 6:51 AM, IceHole said:

During one of Felix's unboxing episodes @Nexus mentions a page he purchased at auction.  Without knowing the episode off the top of my head the short of it was that the older page had a bit of it done in an inferior ink and Felix had to have assurances that the original artist would re ink the page before committing to purchase.  The artist agreed, the page was purchased and the artist re inked the page.  Will this be a growing trend with so many older pages coming to market.

 

On 6/23/2024 at 7:04 AM, vodou said:

I'm believe it was an early Jaime Hernandez Love & Rockets cover, #12?

It was the LOVE AND ROCKETS #8 cover (attached). The key parts were inked with India ink, but the spot blacks had been inked in marker...because Los Bros were so broke, they wanted to save the India ink!

When this became available, I reached out to Jaime's rep, Todd Hignite, to see if he would be willing to fill-in those spot blacks with India ink now. Thanks to Todd's help, we got it done. There's no question the piece is better off for it.

In general, I'm in the camp that believes it's better to re-ink lines rather than have them fade into nothing. Always by the original artist, if they're still around. If not...that gets trickier. But it's something that will become more and more common. Given the nature of non-archival inks, and the prevalence of their use in production, it's an inevitability. The key as Kevn notes will be disclosure. We shall see.

[stinkininkin]

I had discussions with a few collectors about inking the Wolverine #50 art that Jim is now restoring, had that person or collector bought it. I would have considered doing it, and it would have made sense in a lot of ways. Would have been very expensive as well. That said, I'm glad Jim, the original inker on the piece, is doing it instead of me. I think that's the best possible outcome.

[Rick2you2]

On 6/23/2024 at 12:24 PM, Kevn said:

I remember reading years ago that Will Eisner touched up and even completely redid some of his Spirit pages after their original publication. At least some of these revisions were done on the original pages and weren't to preserve the art, but to improve it. Of course there's a long history of some fine artists reworking their paintings (Degas' friend and art dealer used to literally chain Degas' paints to the wall to keep the artist from taking them back to his studio to rework). I rather doubt Eisner's revisions have dampened the value of the OA, but this is a case of the original artist making the modifications. Overall the thing I'm most comfortable with artists (like Jim Lee or Jamie Hernandez) re-inking over their faded markers with india ink. (Assuming the original artist's skills have deteriorated, then it could be a rather dicey situation). 

There have been a lot of good thoughts in this thread, and like most I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. When I see OA on a browned, foxed, brittle board with faded inks and globs of dried, acidic adhesive and grey stats I feel despair, especially knowing that this degradation has happened over relatively few decades and is probably past the point of no return. It's the same for OA with heavy use of markers that are already heavily faded and are practically disappearing before one's eyes (especially if the original artist is gone or unable to match their old line). Given how much of this art was done by different artists doing the pencils and then the inks, I'm probably OK with a skilled professional inker going over faded markers, assuming the original artist isn't able to, and the OA itself has other original elements that are intact (otherwise, why not just do a full on 'recreation' on a clean sheet of paper). And of course it should be fully documented and clearly advertised.

I think the bigger problem, as many have alluded to, is the lack of transparency and disclosure. An example is the Paul Pope piece being sold by the Donnelly brothers that Felix confirmed had been substantially reinked, and that Paul Pope hadn't been involved. That's seriously problematic. I think in general there is a scary amount of secrecy in this hobby, and it's not just one or two dealers or collectors. I looked into having a couple of pages conserved some years back and at the time came to the conclusion that the few people specializing in OA conservation/restoration were not necessarily using museum-quality techniques and rigor, much less sharing with each other their techniques and discoveries of what works and what doesn't. Given the staggering variety of papers, inks, markers, tapes, glues, etc. that comic artists have used over the years, it's easy to imagine that something that is safe for one page may wreck another. And that's to say nothing of what some of these techniques (like whitening) do to the longevity of the art. So we're in a double bind situation - art was produced often using inferior media, has been torn, roughly handled, exposed to moisture or too much light, and needs some kind of conservation to stabilize, but it's something of the wild west when it comes to having this work done.

With so much of this art now worth tens of thousands of dollars and often far more, we have a real need for dramatically more information sharing on conservation techniques, restoration techniques and results, and calling out bad actors. In another thread that was discussion of the original Punisher cover that was advertised as coming up for auction, and then quietly pulled amidst suggestions that it was fake. If that happened in the fine art world, I can't imagine that it wouldn't have resulted in a big investigation. Here, no one knows about it unless you know the right people, and then it's just hearsay and rumors.

The fact that secret re-inking goes on, and that it is not regularly detected, raises an uncomfortable question of whether collectors are over-valuing a whole sector of the hobby.

[MyNameIsLegion]

On 6/24/2024 at 5:51 AM, Rick2you2 said:

The fact that secret re-inking goes on, and that it is not regularly detected, raises an uncomfortable question of whether collectors are over-valuing a whole sector of the hobby.

[Kevn]

On 6/24/2024 at 12:51 PM, Rick2you2 said:

The fact that secret re-inking goes on, and that it is not regularly detected, raises an uncomfortable question of whether collectors are over-valuing a whole sector of the hobby.

This is a little vague for me. What kind of secret re-inking are you referring to, and what is the sector of the hobby? I suppose you might mean examples like the Jamie Hernandez piece above, where markers were used to for large black fill areas (I believe this is the case for some of the Preacher pages, judging from that thread that I read for the first time today)? Or do you mean there are examples of art by, say, Toth or Kane, where lots of the primary line-work are badly faded and before these are put on the market the faded markers are re-inked? I am mostly OK with the former case as long as the re-inking is done competently and is disclosed, but the latter is a huge problem.

[vodou]

Like line-for-line recreations, all restoration should be noted directly on the back of the art by each and every party that performs such, so that it cannot be separated from the original upon resale. After all, not everybody can keep up with everything The Donnelly Bros (TM) have ever 'touched' 

[Andahaion]

Jim apparently has already started with the restoration. These two screen grabs from his Facebook feed show work done in the top left background. Here is a before and after.