Happy Birthday to the King.
Showing posts with label original art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label original art. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Friday, September 28, 2012
A new panel, coming into focus...
The Carnival: One Last Note, Before I Go Preview Edition should be available at APE in San Francisco October 13th and 14th. I'll also have The Carnival: The Human Hourglass for sale, and my friend Alex will have lots of good stuff as well.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
Gallery Show: Cici's in Mill Valley Calfornia
A few pics from the my first gallery show ever. Been meaning to post these all month!Shown here is one wall solely devoted to work on The Carnival:The Human Hourglass while the opposite wall was a mix of illustrations from the original Pistoleras graphic novel proposal and some spot illustrations.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Your Friendly Neighborhood Who? Pt III
More detail on Spidey here.It does seem odd to do the full on process without showing the sketches that lead to this point. I may have to go back and scan them so we can really see the piece develop.
Also, I develop a Green Goblin sketch on a nother page and blow it up on the photocopier. I'm showing you the good one, not the crappy Goblin sketches....I then do the shading work on the photocopy so that I can play with the lighting without losing the structure of the original drawing if i mess it up. But I kinda like this one off the bat.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Your Friendly Neighborhood Who? Pt II
A little more done on this. Its funny, but somehow, once you just pencil in the webbing on his costume that suddenly "it looks like Spider-Man"! Its just somehow the one thing that really get the visual appeal going with the character.Good old Sturdy Steve Ditko.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
A Bizarre Business Plan Pt. II
Pop Quiz: What do you need to get to the true value of art?
Give up?
Two people. Two people who want the same piece and you get to see what both of them are willing to spend.
I keep harping about original art since it happens to be a love of mine, so you'll have to bear with me on this one.
One thing that has driven me mad, besides being priced out of an art market that I felt a part of, hell, that I helped drive, is a single strategy of many of the art dealers. I've noticed it now for a number of years and just have to point it out: many of them took pieces of art, primarily covers and splashes, and years ago put extremely high price tags on them. OK, fair enough, try to see what the going rate is for the art.
And they didn't sell.
And they brought back the same pieces, and have been bringing back the same pieces, year after year, and raising the prices again and again. Case in point: when an old Master of Kung Fu cover was really worth about $2K, they were asking for $4K. Now, a good bronze age cover is probably worth that $4K if its a good Kane or Cockrum or Romita piece but a B or C level character, but they're asking $7K now.
Perhaps I'm missing the ppoint here, but isn't the business plan to turn your inventory? What good is it to continually hold on to the pieces, not sell them because you're well beyond what any single one of your customers is willing to spend? Does it help with other business? Why not get the cash to invest in other pieces? I'm seeing the same pieces from some dealers going on 8 or 9 years now.
And you don't have two people who want those pieces at those prices. You don't even have one person at those prices.
Albert Moy has always been on the high end of the art dealers, but give him credit. When he moved a single page for $7K, it was a Steranko splash, not simply a cover hacked out by the Romita Raiders with some slapdash inks on it. The fact that he has had original Byrne/Austin pages from the X-men at his booth speaks well about his connections and the quality of the art that he carries. I may not have been able to buy much from him over the years, but I've found a few things that I couldn't live without. He has turned up with some pretty rare stuff on occasion, like the majority of the Clayface issues of Detective by Rogers and Giordano. Where they've been hiding all these years, no one knows except for Albert.
But I digress. Given that the New York Times is running articles on the value of comic art, I feel vindicated by my love of the work, since now many other people are clearly catching on to what I always knew. And I also feel sad, knowing that my days of being able to find some of the work that I would love to get are long since past. The older pieces that I would love to have are either going to simply trade hands among the private collectors, or will come up for dollar amounts that I will certainly never expect to be able to pay.
And some of the damn pieces are still just sitting there, in the same dealer's portfolios, year after year, as opposed to going to a good home. Don't these people need cash to live or buy new art to sell? Like I said, a bizarre business plan.
Give up?
Two people. Two people who want the same piece and you get to see what both of them are willing to spend.
I keep harping about original art since it happens to be a love of mine, so you'll have to bear with me on this one.
One thing that has driven me mad, besides being priced out of an art market that I felt a part of, hell, that I helped drive, is a single strategy of many of the art dealers. I've noticed it now for a number of years and just have to point it out: many of them took pieces of art, primarily covers and splashes, and years ago put extremely high price tags on them. OK, fair enough, try to see what the going rate is for the art.
And they didn't sell.
And they brought back the same pieces, and have been bringing back the same pieces, year after year, and raising the prices again and again. Case in point: when an old Master of Kung Fu cover was really worth about $2K, they were asking for $4K. Now, a good bronze age cover is probably worth that $4K if its a good Kane or Cockrum or Romita piece but a B or C level character, but they're asking $7K now.
Perhaps I'm missing the ppoint here, but isn't the business plan to turn your inventory? What good is it to continually hold on to the pieces, not sell them because you're well beyond what any single one of your customers is willing to spend? Does it help with other business? Why not get the cash to invest in other pieces? I'm seeing the same pieces from some dealers going on 8 or 9 years now.
And you don't have two people who want those pieces at those prices. You don't even have one person at those prices.
Albert Moy has always been on the high end of the art dealers, but give him credit. When he moved a single page for $7K, it was a Steranko splash, not simply a cover hacked out by the Romita Raiders with some slapdash inks on it. The fact that he has had original Byrne/Austin pages from the X-men at his booth speaks well about his connections and the quality of the art that he carries. I may not have been able to buy much from him over the years, but I've found a few things that I couldn't live without. He has turned up with some pretty rare stuff on occasion, like the majority of the Clayface issues of Detective by Rogers and Giordano. Where they've been hiding all these years, no one knows except for Albert.
But I digress. Given that the New York Times is running articles on the value of comic art, I feel vindicated by my love of the work, since now many other people are clearly catching on to what I always knew. And I also feel sad, knowing that my days of being able to find some of the work that I would love to get are long since past. The older pieces that I would love to have are either going to simply trade hands among the private collectors, or will come up for dollar amounts that I will certainly never expect to be able to pay.
And some of the damn pieces are still just sitting there, in the same dealer's portfolios, year after year, as opposed to going to a good home. Don't these people need cash to live or buy new art to sell? Like I said, a bizarre business plan.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Carnival: The Human Hourglass
Page 3, all done without tones. Enjoy. The site will be up soon! For all of my friends who have been waiting a long time for me to do this, and have been very patient, I hope its going to be worth it.Charles
The San Diego Multi-Media Experience
Heading down to San Diego tomorrow for convention #20 and I wanted topost a couple thoughts on the entire "Media Con" experience as opposed to the "Comic Con" experience.
I recall having a lot of second thoughts about where the convention was going just a few years ago, as the toy companies and movies started to move in. I'll admit, it too adjusting to given that we were used to having the little corner of geekdom to ourselves and didn't have to share too much.
And you know what I think that's like now? Its like starting to hate a band you discovered on college radio or Myspace when they get big. I'm sorry that your "property" is now everyone's favorite, but really, just 10 or 11 years ago this thing was dead. DEAD. Comics were dead, the Con was aging rapidly, and i was publicly comparing us the best Horse and Buggy manufacturers when the Model T started rolling along.
What I expect to see over the next couple of days will be pack with people of all ages, all able to get their freak on with whatever sub-genre stokes their furnace. And, man, thats the way it should be. I mean really, I could care less that the zombie lovers would have to make their way past the Naruto folks and Alex Ross line. The fact that we have that many different art styles and story styles butting up against each other should be refreshing. Bring the kids, let them see just how much cool stuff there is out there, and let them grow up thinking that there is a world of stuff for them to learn about and absorb.
Now we're not a dying art form, we're actually a MASS MEDIA again. Don't argue with me that the periodicals aren't selling, that business model is outmoded anyway, Phil Seuling saw to that with the creation of the direct market. After all, isn't it about the stories, the art, not just the delivery system?
I'll take your thoughts on it later. Back to work on The Carnival: The Human Hourglass.
I recall having a lot of second thoughts about where the convention was going just a few years ago, as the toy companies and movies started to move in. I'll admit, it too adjusting to given that we were used to having the little corner of geekdom to ourselves and didn't have to share too much.
And you know what I think that's like now? Its like starting to hate a band you discovered on college radio or Myspace when they get big. I'm sorry that your "property" is now everyone's favorite, but really, just 10 or 11 years ago this thing was dead. DEAD. Comics were dead, the Con was aging rapidly, and i was publicly comparing us the best Horse and Buggy manufacturers when the Model T started rolling along.
What I expect to see over the next couple of days will be pack with people of all ages, all able to get their freak on with whatever sub-genre stokes their furnace. And, man, thats the way it should be. I mean really, I could care less that the zombie lovers would have to make their way past the Naruto folks and Alex Ross line. The fact that we have that many different art styles and story styles butting up against each other should be refreshing. Bring the kids, let them see just how much cool stuff there is out there, and let them grow up thinking that there is a world of stuff for them to learn about and absorb.
Now we're not a dying art form, we're actually a MASS MEDIA again. Don't argue with me that the periodicals aren't selling, that business model is outmoded anyway, Phil Seuling saw to that with the creation of the direct market. After all, isn't it about the stories, the art, not just the delivery system?
I'll take your thoughts on it later. Back to work on The Carnival: The Human Hourglass.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Avengers Original Art: Truth or Consequences part II
Continuing the Avengers #1 splash saga -Here are scans of the Essential Marvel Avengers, Avengers #1, which does not have the job code, in the lower left corner.
And, interestingly, the splash for Avengers #2, which does have the job code.I'll answer a few of the thoughts that Danny Boy has posted. One, that I've changed my mind in one way from looking at the scan of the Avengers #1 splash, and that I like seeing the page number marked in the lower right hand corner. That adds points to me on the legitimate side. Also, that there appear, from other comments, to be repeated sightings of the original in collections prior to this apprearance on ebay. It lends a lot of credence to the page being either a) legit albeit restored and cleaned or b) a recreation but not one of recent vintage.
Personally, the fact that the page might have been restored or deacidified or some such is rather beside the point. Yes, I prefer the art with the warts and all; I love Kirby's margin notes to death, they're fascinating. However, the original art is preferable to anything, and given that the artwork is almost half a century old, you take it the way that you can get it, period. If I had that kind of money, I would be bidding on it too. Should you find a lost DaVinci, you take it the way you find it and feel lucky at that. Same thing with this. Its not the holy grail, finding pages from FF#1, but its close up there.
Here is the other part of this: the job code could easily have been stripped off at the printing stage by someone working with the negative. Happens all the time with those printing methods. And here is the kicker: the job code makes sense. The job code on the Avengers scan is X-337, the job code for issue #2 is #X-435, issue #3: X-525. As I read the old job codes, the first number is the month, the second and third are the place in the schedule. So not only does it fall into the monthly position, but all three issues fall into the same relative place on the schedule. (issue #4, BTW, does not have a job code.) Only someone who had an understanding of the codes could have produced the piece.
Does this make it legit? Not entirely, but it certainly elevates it. Since the auction has been ended prematurely, I'm willing to bet that the owner was offered an insane price for it, and simply sold it to a private collector. I have the feeling that we'll never see that page again for the next 20 years.
Peace out. Looking forward to San Diego.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Recreations of Original Art: Avengers #1
20th Century Danny Boy has a great blog, and always has great stuff with regards to art and comics. With two posts, recently, he's blown the cover off of what what was quietly being done in the Marvel Masterwork series: art by Kirby, Ditko, Ayers, Klein, and Stone is quietly being redone and presented to us as original. If you don't know that this is happening, then its worth a quick read.
The first post, here, describes reading the fine print and figuring out the scoop, along with finding a dealer who is repping the artists doing the recreations. The second, here, talks about the splash page to Avengers #1 up for auction... and the whole discussion of whether it is really Kirby or not.
Danny Boy also brings up something that I've thought many times: there is no reason to recreate what still exists, and I make a case in point "The Life Of Captain Marvel" trade paperback from a few years ago. Clearly Marvel was using low quality stats, or bleaching out original copies of the comics. The brush work was muddy and degraded. As someone who has lived those books as the best part of my childhood (Captain Marvel #25 - 34 and Marvel Feature #11 & 12 since you asked), having it all contained in one easy to read volume was a dream, and I simply couldn't look at the reproduction. Given that a large part of that Starlin artwork in held by about 4 individuals (and you're reading a blog by one of them), I would certainly be happy as can be to send a bunch of 600 dpi scans to Marvel, for free, so that they could have perfect copies for their files. They just have to ask. Why aren't they doing that for the Masterwork Series?
Remind me to tell the story of the Starlin collectors one day. Kinda funny.
The first post, here, describes reading the fine print and figuring out the scoop, along with finding a dealer who is repping the artists doing the recreations. The second, here, talks about the splash page to Avengers #1 up for auction... and the whole discussion of whether it is really Kirby or not.
Danny Boy also brings up something that I've thought many times: there is no reason to recreate what still exists, and I make a case in point "The Life Of Captain Marvel" trade paperback from a few years ago. Clearly Marvel was using low quality stats, or bleaching out original copies of the comics. The brush work was muddy and degraded. As someone who has lived those books as the best part of my childhood (Captain Marvel #25 - 34 and Marvel Feature #11 & 12 since you asked), having it all contained in one easy to read volume was a dream, and I simply couldn't look at the reproduction. Given that a large part of that Starlin artwork in held by about 4 individuals (and you're reading a blog by one of them), I would certainly be happy as can be to send a bunch of 600 dpi scans to Marvel, for free, so that they could have perfect copies for their files. They just have to ask. Why aren't they doing that for the Masterwork Series?
Remind me to tell the story of the Starlin collectors one day. Kinda funny.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Original Artwork: The New York Times
Wanted to post a scan of an article by the New York Times from June 30th of this year, which is the second article in advance of I've been saying to friends, as well as in my recent post on original art, that I feel slightly collected into a corner. The pieces I want are literally moving further and further out of my grasp with every day, and while I'm incredibly happy to get the recognition over the artwork that I love so much, I hate that it's moved beyond people like me. That hurts. The fact that David Mandel, producer of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" owns the original Kane cover to Giant Size X-men #1, a Miller Daredevil cover and the last 4 pages of the Killing Joke, says two things to me:
1 - the man has excellent taste and I'd love to meet him sometime and
2 - I must be nuts to think that I can play in this art market anymore.
I recently finished a book on big time art frauds over the last century written by a former curator and "fraudbuster" for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and I found many of their detection methods as well as the description of the art market fascinating. As recently as two years ago, I spent more money than I had ever spent on a single piece of art, purchasing a twice up Kirby FF page from Heritage Auction. Upon discovering that the Kirby signiture on the art is a fake (while the page is indesputably real), I had a discussion with a representative from the Gallery over the need for provenance for this art. She brushed me off rather nicely, but I tried to make my point enough for it to stick: the art is starting to move into real money, not just a couple hundred bucks here and there, and we need to know what is up with these originals.
This article just illustrates, in very black and white terms, that four pages of the Killing Joke together represents more than $120K. I'd say that the insurance company likes knowing that these originals are in place and properly ID'd.
And, honestly, I have dreams where I see the pages that I could have had back in the day when I bought my first pages (1988 I would guess). Why the hell does it mean so much to me?
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Original Artwork: The Holy Grail
I love how the term "Grail" has become accepted within the original art world as a way to signify a piece that has become the top of the heap, the summit of your art collection, the quest for which you would sacrifice any number of Knights of the Round Table. Of course, having just seen Spamalot, it still has a tendancy to make me laugh just a little bit, but I'm aware of being in a situation that I'm not sure other collectors are willing to address: I've collected myself into a corner with regards to original art.
The brutal reality: I cannot afford to get the art that I would need or want to add to my collection anymore. Its simply too expensive. I'm afflicted with the curse of not wanting to part with any of the art that I've collected so far, and now find little that I can actually get! Partly because art prices have gone up so much, and partly because the stuff that I want is almost impossible to get.
Should ComicArtFans ever decide to do one of their weekly interviews of me, here are the pieces that I'd list as my 5 most desired pieces of artwork:
1: A Marshall Roger/Terry Austin page from Detective Comics #471-476 Doesn't even matter which page, this is simply the best Batman ever. Sharp incisive inks, Rogers at his innovative best, Englehart writing a compelling story that established the best Joker ever as well.
2: A Bissette/Totleben Swamp Thing page from the Demon trilogy (Swamp Thing #24-26). Alan Moore at his innovative best as well, and Bissette and Totleben really finding their feet on the series. Extra points for a page with Etrigan on it.
3: A Dave McKean Cages page from issue #4, with the artist and his neighbor talking all night while the Angel plays. Alan Siegel has been jacking the prices up on the cages pages over the last 3 years and it really annoys the hell out of me. Makes me sorry that I ever bought my other Mckean work from him back in the day.
4: A John Totleben page from Miracleman #15. Do a search on my blog for my post on that issue. Devastating work. Don't care that it took a year to do. Fine. Worth every second.
5: The cover or splash to Captain Marvel #29 I've met the person who has these, and while I'm very glad that they exist, and, in fact, that I've at least had the good fortune to see the splash in the flesh so to speak, i'm also sure that they're not going to change hands for less than $8K, and I'll never have that money, so there you go. Two of the most formative pieces of Bristol board there, and I'll never get my hands on them. Ah well. At least they're safe.
The brutal reality: I cannot afford to get the art that I would need or want to add to my collection anymore. Its simply too expensive. I'm afflicted with the curse of not wanting to part with any of the art that I've collected so far, and now find little that I can actually get! Partly because art prices have gone up so much, and partly because the stuff that I want is almost impossible to get.
Should ComicArtFans ever decide to do one of their weekly interviews of me, here are the pieces that I'd list as my 5 most desired pieces of artwork:
1: A Marshall Roger/Terry Austin page from Detective Comics #471-476 Doesn't even matter which page, this is simply the best Batman ever. Sharp incisive inks, Rogers at his innovative best, Englehart writing a compelling story that established the best Joker ever as well.
2: A Bissette/Totleben Swamp Thing page from the Demon trilogy (Swamp Thing #24-26). Alan Moore at his innovative best as well, and Bissette and Totleben really finding their feet on the series. Extra points for a page with Etrigan on it.
3: A Dave McKean Cages page from issue #4, with the artist and his neighbor talking all night while the Angel plays. Alan Siegel has been jacking the prices up on the cages pages over the last 3 years and it really annoys the hell out of me. Makes me sorry that I ever bought my other Mckean work from him back in the day.
4: A John Totleben page from Miracleman #15. Do a search on my blog for my post on that issue. Devastating work. Don't care that it took a year to do. Fine. Worth every second.
5: The cover or splash to Captain Marvel #29 I've met the person who has these, and while I'm very glad that they exist, and, in fact, that I've at least had the good fortune to see the splash in the flesh so to speak, i'm also sure that they're not going to change hands for less than $8K, and I'll never have that money, so there you go. Two of the most formative pieces of Bristol board there, and I'll never get my hands on them. Ah well. At least they're safe.
Friday, December 28, 2007
My first experience with original art
And I recount this with the gravity usually reserved for telling a story of how one had sex the first time, except that this time was better.Mid 1970's and I'm a kid living down in the Diamond Bar area outside of LA, occasionally to some slightly distant shops outside of the little area that I'm living in. Typically via the understanding other parent, since mine could care less, then and now, about comics. However, I had friends whose parents would actually take part in the collecting part of it, and would be willing to drive to shops where other bit and pieces could be found: the missing book, the upgrade on the vintage Neal Adams work, etc.
So we're outside of the town, I forget exactly where, and I have amassed $20, which was a lot for a 12 year old back then. Where it came from, I don't know, perhaps it was birthday money. I certainly didn't have a job back then. There were no comic shops in Diamond Bar back then, perhaps still aren't now. I've not been back in 20 years. What they did have were the trusty 7-11 with the understanding owner, and a couple grocery stores that still had spinner racks in them, so going to an actual comic shop was a huge treat. Kid in a candy store and all that.
So I'm filling the in the last couple of Master of Kung Fu's that I need to have a complete run, and the shop owner says, "I have an original from MOKF, would you like to see it?" "Really," I ask, as though somehow the idea of an actual original hadn't occured to me. "Yeah, its from Gulacy." I was, of course, already infatuated with Paul's art already, and since he had never been at a convention that I had been, the idea that one of his originals was in the area wouldn't have dawned on me.
So he pulls out a portfolio and in there is a page from MOKF #42, inked by Tom Sutton, using the patented confusing-in-a-non-novel-way flash forward effect that Doug Moench was never to use again. And I was blown away to find myself looking at the non-repo blue on the page, and looseness of Tom's inks at full size. It was quite an education for the 10 minutes that I spend looking at it.
Oddly enough, I didn't catch the original art bug then, probably because I knew that price, even at 1970's rates, was well out of my reach then, lacking parental involvement. But I started to have the idea of what it should look like. And the differences that exist between printed art and the originals. I don't think that I've looked at printed art the same way since.
Monday, June 18, 2007
When is Original Art not what it appears?
Danny boy continues his great writings about the original art fandango that exists with the published version, or the credits on the published version not being what they appear. I love reading this stuff, of course, the behind the scenes being fascinating to me.
I recall all the different pages of the Good Guys #1 that we went through, including the notorious page 8, notorious to me at least. Here is the story: Defiant contacted me to a sample page of inks before I had ever broken into the industry and sent out a xerox of page 8, pencilled by Grey. A pretty good copy too, by the way, and I set about to light boxing it and inking it on 1 ply vellum, a killer paper that strathmore no longer makes. they specifically told me to keep it very clean. so I did. I then fed ex'ed it to NY and waited to hear. Of course 4 days later I got a call telling me that it was too "clean" and not what they wanted. I fully admit, I was crushed, and proceeded to tear the damn thing into pieces. I knew that the work was good, and was enraged that nothing was ever going to let me get my big break.
Here's where it gets interesting. Of course, two weeks later, they call me back to tell me that the veteran inker they ended up sending the first batch of pages to ruined them and they wanted me. But, since I was new and in California, I would have to come out and work under their eyes at the offices in New York. So they fly me out there and I see that they have only photocopies of the pencils of the first 8, but they aren't the nice photocopies, they're ghostly white. And they say, "Well, at least, we have your good version of page 8."
Page 8 was, I stress again, shredded. Shredded into the types of pieces that only truly righteous anger can lead one to making.
So I end up re-inking, via lightbox, the first 7 pages, and then using the poor xerox and my own xerox of page 8 to recreate page 8.
So what happens? They end up cutting up the xeroxes and condensing pages 1-8 into pages 1-6 and just glue the xeroxed panels onto bristol anyway.
And that's just the first quarter of the book.
Scans to come.
I recall all the different pages of the Good Guys #1 that we went through, including the notorious page 8, notorious to me at least. Here is the story: Defiant contacted me to a sample page of inks before I had ever broken into the industry and sent out a xerox of page 8, pencilled by Grey. A pretty good copy too, by the way, and I set about to light boxing it and inking it on 1 ply vellum, a killer paper that strathmore no longer makes. they specifically told me to keep it very clean. so I did. I then fed ex'ed it to NY and waited to hear. Of course 4 days later I got a call telling me that it was too "clean" and not what they wanted. I fully admit, I was crushed, and proceeded to tear the damn thing into pieces. I knew that the work was good, and was enraged that nothing was ever going to let me get my big break.
Here's where it gets interesting. Of course, two weeks later, they call me back to tell me that the veteran inker they ended up sending the first batch of pages to ruined them and they wanted me. But, since I was new and in California, I would have to come out and work under their eyes at the offices in New York. So they fly me out there and I see that they have only photocopies of the pencils of the first 8, but they aren't the nice photocopies, they're ghostly white. And they say, "Well, at least, we have your good version of page 8."
Page 8 was, I stress again, shredded. Shredded into the types of pieces that only truly righteous anger can lead one to making.
So I end up re-inking, via lightbox, the first 7 pages, and then using the poor xerox and my own xerox of page 8 to recreate page 8.
So what happens? They end up cutting up the xeroxes and condensing pages 1-8 into pages 1-6 and just glue the xeroxed panels onto bristol anyway.
And that's just the first quarter of the book.
Scans to come.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Original Art to Die For: The Holy Grail
20th Century Danny Boy has a long post about the art recreations that Mike Zeck is doing, has been doing, since 2000. I have to say that it was interesting reading, as I hadn't given much thought to the idea of recreations, much less the way that Zeck is doing them. While I've certainly seen some recreations in my dealings, I find myself wary of them, especially if you don't know the source.
As we all know, there isn't always the single original that we expect the art to have been shot off of. I know that I've run across a cover version of Detective #475 at a New york Con a number of years ago that was being offered as the "original", yet had no stats or even the glue marks of stats, which is pretty much unheard of from that era (1977). Yet it did look as though part of it was "original", i.e. that it had ink on paper that was put there by Terry austin. The clock artwork appeared to be a stat. Is there a story of how the cover was put together? Perhaps worth exploring. In this modern age of photoshop, it is even easier to manipulate the printed version. Dave McKean's Sandman covers looked wonderful in print, but the originals were multimedia nightmares to collect. I'm sure that most have gotten destroyed by this point.
Grail artwork:
There are a few grail artwork pieces that, if I were stupid rich, I'd be out there trying to find. I have no idea if they all still exist, although I do know for a fact that some are still in existence.
Captain Marvel #29 Cover
I know that this piece still exists, but without the Romita paste up face.
Miracleman #15 Cover
Johnny Bates and Miracleman in the most violent comic ever.
Saga of the Swamp Thing #24
The amazing two page spread with Etrigan making his appearance at the end of the book.
Master of Kung Fu #40 Splash page
The printed version of the page is a stat, and the main image exists somewhere out there...
Fantastic Four #51 Cover
Jack Kirby and his amazing creation, Ben Grimm in a beautiful pose on the cover.
Tower of Shadows #1
Steranko's splash page, which Albert Moy has had for years, is a masterpiece. I simply lack the 8 thousand dollars to purchase it!
i'm sure there are others, but all of these would be serious Grail pieces.
As we all know, there isn't always the single original that we expect the art to have been shot off of. I know that I've run across a cover version of Detective #475 at a New york Con a number of years ago that was being offered as the "original", yet had no stats or even the glue marks of stats, which is pretty much unheard of from that era (1977). Yet it did look as though part of it was "original", i.e. that it had ink on paper that was put there by Terry austin. The clock artwork appeared to be a stat. Is there a story of how the cover was put together? Perhaps worth exploring. In this modern age of photoshop, it is even easier to manipulate the printed version. Dave McKean's Sandman covers looked wonderful in print, but the originals were multimedia nightmares to collect. I'm sure that most have gotten destroyed by this point.
Grail artwork:
There are a few grail artwork pieces that, if I were stupid rich, I'd be out there trying to find. I have no idea if they all still exist, although I do know for a fact that some are still in existence.
Captain Marvel #29 Cover
I know that this piece still exists, but without the Romita paste up face.
Miracleman #15 Cover
Johnny Bates and Miracleman in the most violent comic ever.
Saga of the Swamp Thing #24
The amazing two page spread with Etrigan making his appearance at the end of the book.
Master of Kung Fu #40 Splash page
The printed version of the page is a stat, and the main image exists somewhere out there...
Fantastic Four #51 Cover
Jack Kirby and his amazing creation, Ben Grimm in a beautiful pose on the cover.
Tower of Shadows #1
Steranko's splash page, which Albert Moy has had for years, is a masterpiece. I simply lack the 8 thousand dollars to purchase it!
i'm sure there are others, but all of these would be serious Grail pieces.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Original Cover Art: X-Men #137 by Byrne and Austin
20th Century Danny Boy ferreted this one out: a great scan of the original art for this classic cover. I'm putting this up for one reason: its amazing to see. As a professional inker, I have to admire Enjoy. This was part of a run of issues that was as good and classic as anything ever in superhero comics.
More discussion of recreations and "grails" and original art to come.
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