I do not collect much art, since a comic book is better the way it is meant to be, rather than a black and white version where some unwanted stuff can be seen. I want to point out that (apart from JB who uses a professional drawing board and well sepected pens) many artists use very inexpenisive stuff, much toy equipment that I can buy everywhere, pencil, bic pens so learning something from the paper by examining it I don't believe in. And there are also many different sizes used, from actual comic book size (!) and up so it's no magic standard size or "I this is the REAL size" of a comic book page either, so they joy of that is also lost. The more I have tried to learn from original art, the less I know. Anyway, I collect some comics that I was working on that I will never write about here, that is not allowed, and also some storyboards also, and I collect whatever inexpensive stuff that I find at flea markets. I dislike convent stuff and also they way some artists are treated, the artists are forced, they should draw this and that and the fans get pissed off and I watched a movie, where I wonder why Stan Lee should watch his own stuff made in the sixties and get pawned several times and Lee said tha the had more art in the basement and nobody got happier by that comment at least not on this forum, since that would mean that the art that people have will be worth a lot less. And I'm sorry JB, that's in my opinion when art collecting has lost its appeal.

John Byrne wrote: Do you still have/remember your first piece of original comicbook art?

Sure!

These had been on Jim Warden's website for a long time.  Don't really know why except maybe because there's only a single shot of a major character on either page.  They're "Batman/Captain America" pages with neither Batman or Captain America!  Didn't matter to me.  I kept going back to them time and again.  Should I pull the trigger?  Should I wait?  Then it struck why I loved these pages. 1) They tell a story.  It's an attack by the Joker and his men on a military squad told in two pages.  Perfect! 2) These are of the vintage that is becoming increasingly hard to find; lettering on the actual pages.  I wanted that. 3) They were the last pages from Bat/Cap that were available via Jim.  I wanted a piece of that excellent story.  Now they hang proudly in the MattCave.

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A number of factors. Affordability, for one! The page was $15 -- which was still quite a bite out of my wallet, in 1972!

Also, yes, a big fan of Russ Heath. And there was something about his work on that particular page that really spoke to me. For one thing, I was blown away by the smooth confidence of the single brush stroke with which he delineated Rock's nose in the fourth panel profile. That line is about five inches long on the original.

Having said that, my biggest disappointment was when I bought an old page from JB's first Action Comics series.  It was the Hawkman issue.  The page had a half splash filled with spaceships.  The panel turned out to be a photocopy taped on the page.

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It looks like the "effort" in your mind has to be restricted to certain ideas that you have. In fact, photocopies have been used since they were invented, creating comic books. Some parts are always photocopied, such as the Superman (or Hawkman) logo. The editor could have decided to change something, then sent the photocopy to the printers, there is no "logic" to what either an artist or an editor can do. Please do not toss it, my guess is that it was used somewhere during the production cycle of the comic book in question. But show pictures of it here and I and others can say what they think. And perhaps JB himself can tell more about it, in that case JB please delete my amateur reply here, I hope it's not too much trouble.

Wilson:: Lars, for me seeing the effort that goes into a published page (flaws and all) is part of the fun of owning original art.

Ditto. Last month I had a chance to meet Scott Green (Nice Guy) and was talking to him about original art. My take on it is the same....I WANT to see the flaws and all, hell, let me see a coffee ring on the page, it adds to the pages appeal.

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(speechless)