One good thing in this, mind you, by comparing the images I was able to get a better "fix" on what the characters looked like.

Are you positive the previous owner added the tape? I have older pieces that have tape around certain portions of the edges that seem to have been done during some point of the production process. If you are going to try and remove it I'd only attempt a small area first Joe. Try an exacto knife. If it looks like it will tear or pull up the paper underneath don't try any further.

(Bob Wayne, marketing flak for DC, told an interesting story. It seems that some squarebound comics were shipped from the printers so tightly wrapped that the spines were broken. Retailers complained that they had arrived in their shops not in "mint" condition. Bob pointed out that, if we are going to use the term "mint" to describe something that is not minted, then however the books leave the printers would be "mint".)

That's a shame about the masking tape.  I really enjoy having the margin notes on original art since they provide such a great view into the creative process and the interaction between the writer and artist.

I've found that the extensive margin notes with plot and script details have tended to be original art pages from the 60s and 70s, so I'm very interested to now what lurks beneath the tape on your Spider-Man page.

I've had this double-page spread from issue 2 of the Wolverine Limited Series for a while, but I couldn't scan it propertly on my Mustek A3 scanner due to the size.  Then it dawned on my to see if any of the very talented people on this forum could help me out by "stitching" two 11" x 17" scans together.  Many thanks to both Gerry Turnbull and Derek Muthart for their fine Photoshop work.

I received this piece last week from an Ebay purchase.  I'm not sure if I'm comfortable calling it "original art" strictly speaking since it's mostly paste ups of the art, title and indicia on Marvel art board with some white out and inking for corrections.  I imagine that someone else must have John Byrne's real original art that was used as the basis for this final production art.

As I mentioned, it looks like there was a lot of cutting and pasting, resizing and repositioning of the various figures to get them into just the right spot for the cover.  It's all an interesting window into the creative process prior to Photoshop, which is one of the things I enjoy about original art from the 80s and earlier. 

One thing to note that I really liked is that there is a retouch on She-Hulk's chest.  At first I thought that JB had shown a bit too much cleavage for the editor's tastes, but after pulling back one of the front layers, it looks like he originally had her wearing the Fantastic Four costume with the (4) on the chest.  Cool stuff.