It seems that the fact that comic books and collections will NOT make you rich has developed a new Greed niche. $15,000 for a piece of Brian Bolland art that he would never have been paid half that for. It's greed. It is also why some comic artists going to conventions now charge for a sketch or illo because most of it ends upon Ebay the same evening.
You get to see comic art -as close as the vendor lets you get!- and buy lots of pages to make the vendor rich -listen to the "speak" used its the same used to milk people of money with those "investment comics". Basically, these events have people who will put what price they want on a piece of art and it's all very closed shop as an industry.
Will these pieces of art make you rich in 50-60 years time? Who knows but maybe one artist out of every 50 will be "sellable".
Bottom line: it's just a new way to fleece...this...."friendly hobby".
Well, I´m not sure what is new about this. We here in Germany are lucky that comic artists do sketches for free at most conventions but in other countries you have to pay for these. And I also have not been to a comic convention where there is not original comic art sold. The only reason why I never bought anything is that I have no place to keep it and it would probably be completely ruined within a month. If my mother doesn´t throw it out.
ReplyDeleteOriginal comic art has always been priced according what people are willing to pay. As long as dealers find buyers who are willing to pay their prices ..... and everybody likes to own some pieces. Which I guess is one of the reasons the Artist´s Editions have become so popular. Some people don´t have hundreds of dollars to spend but even the ridiculous price of 125 EUROS or 150 EUROS they go for here in Germany is possible if it´s the right artist. So far there is only one book that kind of interests me - which is a collection of Mike Zeck works. As long as I don´t know exactly what all the pieces are I´m not going to spend such a big amount of money on a whim but if they ever do an Artist´s Edition of John Romita Jr´s DAREDEVIL or UNCANNY X - Men, Marc Silvestri´s UNCANNY X - MEN or Alan Davis EXCALIBUR that´s it for me. Even if I have to spend my budget for a few months.
And if you don´t want to spend that much money the ESSENTIAL books are the next best thing.
Yeah, so many pages -including art by Brian Bolland- went, uh, 'missing from IPC/Fleetway and their art warehouse that eventually only the top staff were allowed to know where the warehouse was. A lot sold and some held back by the thieves for "a rainy day"! I stopped sketching back in 2002 when I was asked by two people if I could draw my version of Batman and Captain America -both were up on Ebay to sell that day. Even BBC Radio had me do a quick sketch and when they thought I'd gone I heard "We'll see about putting this up on Ebay later" (privately NOT for the BBC!
ReplyDelete