Plus, that's a hell of a "sketch".

Is that THE Ron Lim?

Loved Silver Surfer

••

Nope.

Inspired by another thread (and having some extra money this month) I decided to search for some of my favorite artists on the Ebay original art market. Still amazes me how some of my favorites sell relatively cheaply. I did a search for Frank Bellamy and up pops a Garth daily strip by him for about 280 dollars. I threw in a bid late in the game and got it for 300 dollars.

Now, 300 is on the high end of what I can afford, but I even got a Johnny Hazard Sunday page by Frank Robbins for that a few years back. Yet in both cases I really felt like I needed to pinch myself, because to me their art is worth a lot more.

Meanwhile, a Dejah Thoris pin-up by Bruce Timm was passing 600 last I saw it. I love Bruce Timm's work too, but that's a lot. (Although it was a cute drawing, and his drawing was, shall we say, very faithful to the books.)

Am I wrong? A 1976 Garth strip by Frank Bellamy is something I'd not expect to be able to afford.

And then there's the original art market on E-bay Italy (for those of us who love Italian Comics).  I just bought half a dozen 8x12 inch original pencil pages for the (Disney) WITCH series (they ink on overlay, animation style) for 6 euro (8 dollars) each. And that's not an unusually low price.

A friend of mine is a fan of Italian "Erotic" mystery comics - digests of 2 panel pages with 6x8 inch original art. I found hundreds of original art pages from his favorite series priced at between 3-5 euros. It's ridiculous. (And we're talking about pretty solid illustrators here.)

Ah, well.

All together now, "A ____ and his _____ are soon ______."

*****

I've had both friends, acquaintences and clients see my original art, framed on the wall, inquire about the art as well and shake their heads, actuallly verbalizing that they can't imagine paying a few hundred dollars for it. Is it foolish if the art is meaningful to the person and they find the money put out a fair exchange... regardless of the price?

My collection, as well as my other spending habits and my whole way of viewing $$ would be very different if I had more resources. Heck, a few years ago I laughed at the idea of putting out money for a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, yet...

I remember proudly approaching my father when I was in middle school, excitedly pointing out that the comic I had in my hand was worth $20!!! His response...... "Only to someone willing to pay $20 for it."

___________________________________________________

I ain't paying $100 for it.

****

Nope, ya ain't. I doubt the new owner would sell it to you for that much.

To me collecting original art is not about the resale value. After I'm dead, perhaps, it may be of significance to my heirs, but not to me.

It's about whether or not I like the piece, want it and can afford it. It may strange to a lot of us that a guy would pay 450 thousand for a piece, but this was an auction and he had to outbid at least one other guy to get there.

I like that piece. I would pay a lot of money for that piece or a similar piece by Miller/Janson. The only difference between me and the guy who actually won it was that his limit as to what he could afford to pay was a thousand times higher than mine would be.

Although personally I'd probably rather approach Klaus Janson and ask him if he would do an oversize commission piece.