Selling, selling, and selling a little more...through ComicLink!

A few posts ago I was pimping some sales on ebay and said something like "if I could sell forty $150 pieces and then buy one $6000 piece with the money I would do it in a heartbeat". Well, it will take a bit longer than that, but I have essentially gone and done this horrid horrid thing; I have sent 36 items to ComicLink for inclusion in their next 2 auctions, taking place in August and September. But they are not just $150 pieces...well many of them cost that much but will only bring 30-60% of that back. But I knew I had to throw in some yummy stuff as well if I wanted to generate any serious cash at all. Also, in order to get ComicLink interested I knew I better have a few very strong pieces in there as well.

Jason from ComicLink was very easy to deal with. So far at least. ;-) I showed him some things from my CAF and asked if they made the grade. After clearing that hurdle, I decided I was good to go and starting pulling the Itoyas and picking pieces to send out. I probably only used 25 of the 36 items Jason approved and instead sent some other stuff. And boy was I surprised at what I pulled when those Itoyas were being flipped through!

I always knew I was going to sell my Mignola cover. It was a huge impulse buy and if I am going to spend that kind of cash I need it to fit my collection better. And a Witchfinder cover does not fit into my collection, no matter how tremendous a cover it is. I have my eye on a Mignola piece that is three times what I paid for this one and has none of the features in the Witchfinder cover that drew me to it. In other words it has Hellboy on it. The best Mignola pieces have the design strengths that really make Mike Mignola exceptional as well having Hellboy, the character with which he will always be most associated. Well, I am not a big enough fish to swim in that pond, but a great Hellboy, Batman, Starman piece is within my reach and that means the best Mignola I have will have to make way in order for me to get that elusive other piece. And the Witchfinder cover has the balance in black and non-black areas throughout that really draws me into Mike's work. I was blown away by it when I was flipping through Mike's portfolio that day, and happily handed over all those hundred dollar bills a few minutes later. But now I have seen the $7500 piece that will fit my collection like a glove, and the call of THAT NEXT ELUSIVE PIECE OF COMIC ART is strong.

What I did not know was that I was going to sell my two Travis Charest Flash annual pages.

What I did not know was that my Duncan Fegredo Baba Yaga, Hellboy, and Koschei The Deathless piece would end up in that box as well.

And I had never considered the possibility of the Chris Stevens OIL PAINTING going in the box, yet Jason will see it right away when he opens that very box today.

Art from Gene Ha, Paolo Rivera, and Leinil Yu is suddenly gone from my collection. Almost all art by those guys has in fact left. Almost.

I am going to have 50 stellar pieces of art soon. I have over 600 pieces of art right now. 25 of them may be in the stellar range that I am talking about. I will sell hundreds of pieces to get the rest. The Starman pages, over 100 of them, are not going anywhere. (Well, not Tony's Starman pages anyway.) Most if not all of the Dr. Strange commissions, the true commissions, are safe and sound here at home. But so much else is in jeopardy in order for me to get a nice Frank Miller. Or an Alex Raymond. Maybe a political Winsor McCay. A Foster Valiant panel. So much more BWS. .

In fact, I saw that ComicLink has a November auction as well. Hmmm.

ps I know I have not told the rest of the Teddy K tale. It is coming.



EDIT: Okay, I see 5 of my items in the August focused auction. This is a good thing, I expected less. Okay people, bid away!

Some thoughts nearing year's end

I have to tell you, I have really had a good year. Many blessings have come my way. I started this entry to talk about my comic art, surprise surprise. But I would be remiss if I did not comment on my wonderful wife and my equally wonderful daughters. They really make each and every day better. We are entering the teen years, and I know it won't always be so easy to get along but it has really been a blast so far.

I coached soccer again this year, and that was fun. We had the year end dinner yesterday, a few weeks later than optimal. Only 6 of the 14 kids attended, but it was good to see those kids again. I look forward to coaching again next year.

Okay, comic art. I had a great year. I sold more art than I ever have in one year before (I think) and I bought a bunch of really nice things. Maybe nothing to compete with last year's BWS Storyteller splash page, but what year could compete with that? I usually place my better pieces in my CAF Lowry, and looking at it now, I think it was a good year. Only one of those five things is on my comic art want list but that is really because I could not have anticipated the others. But they absolutely fall right in my collection wheelhouse. This is the one on my want list, a page from Dracula 44 by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer

Tomb of Dracula 44 page 22 Gene Colan / Tom Palmer

Although not in my Lowry, I also got a page from Dr. Strange 14 this year. This is the issue of Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts that crossed-over with Tomb of Dracula 44. Gene Colan was pencilling the art for both books at the time, and this issue is again inked by Tom Palmer.

Dr. Strange 14 page 10 Gene Colan / Tom Palmer

I got a whole lot of Gene Colan this year; in addition to those two pages, I got the only page pencilled by gene Colan that Walt Simonson ever inked; a cool page from Dr. Strange 38 inked by Dan Green; and have paid off a little over 50% of a nice splash.

 The Chris Stevens watercolor was a real treat. How I could expect he would start painting and I would get one of the first ones? Look at that piece of art.

Storm of Asgard by Chris Stevens

I got a Mike Mignola cover. It was a bit of an impulse, and I would trade it for the right Starman/Hellboy/Batman piece, but it is a wonderful piece of art. It may not have hellboy, but it has so much more that you want in a Mignola than many Hellboy panel pages. Check that shit out.

Mike Mignola Witchfinder 4 cover

I have a few collecting themes. Well, that may be overstating it but I like to get a few specific things. I now have gotten a second artist to recreate an image I can no longer find, online or in the real world. But Andy MacDonald was nice enough to take on the challenge and make this homage to a John Buscema poster of Mephisto drinking souls from his chalice. Frank Brunner did it once for me as well, and Andy was right there with his execution like the old pro! (Go buy Andy's latest masterpiece, the adaptation of James Patterson's ZOO)

Mephisto Drinks The Defenders by Andy MacDonald.

This year also found me finally getting a commission from Eric Canete. I once bought, and have since sold, a Silver Surfer from Eric's portfolio. But this year Eric joined a few other comic artists and stopped sketching copyrighted characters. There are many reasons for this, and not every artist has the same reason as the next guy. But if it is a reaction to the Gary Friedrich case it is a total over-reaction. But Eric is taking that position and talking to him in the past made it clear he is a genuine man. So when NYCC came around in 2012 I decided to get Eric to do an underwater Valkyrie. He was all over that shit. Check out the insanity he put on paper for me.

Eric Canete underwater valkyrie convention sketch - my idea, his execution

The next piece I have here represents another want list acquisition. This is the fourth page from issue 170 of Dr. Strange that I now possess. This is page 18. I think that may be enough now that the Tomb of Dracula 44 pages and Doc 14 pages are surfacing, but you never know.

Dr. Strange 170 page 18, art by Dan Adkins

And this year was also the year I got my Mike Allred commission, another want list item. I initially wanted to get the Valkyrie, Dr. Strange, Clea and other Defenders playing volleyball on the sand. After thinking about characters and cost ($200 per after the first four characters) I decided to get Doc and his posse: The Ancient One, Clea, Wong, and Rintrah. Simon Miller was a keen facillitator and Mike Allred just killed it for me. I may have stripes added on Clea's suit, and The Ancient One's shirt is supposed to be a Hawaiian shirt and I will have that added soon enough digitally. I also wish there were a few creatures, seagulls and crabs and such, but I did get the cute beachgoer in the background.

One of the best pieces I got this year is this cover by Kevin Nowlan.

Strange Tales 11 cover - Kevin Nowlan

That is a thing of beauty. It may not be his best of that period, but it is a great representation of those covers and is a very strong cover by a master artist. I loved Mr. Jyp so when this cover was made available to me I was glad to see him and Cloak & Dagger, plus Doc as well! The Doc only covers are my favorites, but MAN look at what I done got!


I also was able to score a major coup when I commissioned Rudy Nebres early in the year to do another one of my themes, Dr. Strange vs. Dracula. Rudy and his lovely, and patient, wife have been at quite a few conventions in my area in the last few years and I got to talking with them on quite a few occasions. It turns out they live 10 minutes from me, two towns over. I arranged to pick up the commission at their house and look at what Rudy Nebres presented to me.

I had given Rudy five different heroines to put in the commission and he chose The Scarlet Witch. This is right up their with my Simon Bisley, Paul Smith, and Jae Lee commissions as one of the best I have received from an artist. I loved it so much I sought out the means to make it into a shirt and now wear it proudly. I wear a comic art shirt, or more than one, every weekend and that Nebres commission started that whole trend for me. It is that great a piece of comic art.

Let's see, I also got a Starman cover this year. Issue 3.

Starman 3 cover painting by Tony Harris

What can be said after that. Thanks be to God, I am blessed.


...to be continued.