And now, with no further delay,here are some artworks for your inspection and appraisal. Beginning with a few pieces from the collection of our esteemed co-host Martinex1:
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| Jack Kirby's Fourth World |
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| Trio #3, p. 9 |
Martinex1: (Left) this page is by John Byrne from his run on Jack Kirby's Fourth World (DC). I liked the detail of this page - the horses, the classical period garb, and all of the details. Sometimes Byrne can be a little leaner in the background details, but not here. There is plenty to look at.
(Right) John Byrne is more of a minimalist on his IDW series TRIO. I like this page for different reasons. It is a relatively simple layout, but it has a lot of Byrne's style in the machinery and the face of the character.
Obviously I am a John Byrne fan, so below is another page from him; this time it is from his work on Justice League: Classified (Issue #54 to be exact). It is a great page in my opinion; the rubble and overall action with the monster is distracting at first, but if you look more closely at the bottom panel, all of the JLA headliners are lightly outlined and silhouetted. I really liked that. None of these works were very expensive. Byrne's material from the Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four, and other work from earlier in his career can have astronomical prices. But you can still get some nice pages from much of his later work at a reasonable price. He does some beautiful commissions as well.
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| Justice League Classified #54, p. 19 |
Redartz: Here we have Colin Bray's submission: a page by Dan Jurgens, inks by Rick Burchett.
Colin Bray: It's not a sought after page. In purchasing, I just wanted to see what OA looks like in the hand. Interesting to see the two editorial corrections- both to address speech balloon issues.
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| Justice League Vol. 2, #64, p. 12 |
Redartz: And now, a few pieces from my wall, starting with a Betty and Veronica page by Dan Parent. I'm not sure what comic this page is actually from, but hey, it's an original. Some faint dialogue is visible in pencil...
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Next we have the first piece of original artwork I ever acquired: a page of the Guardians of the Galaxy by penciller Al Milgrom and inks by Terry Austin. I love the 'space frog', and the distorted images of the Guardians.
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| Marvel Presents #6, p.3 |
(Left) An ink drawing of the Earth 2 Batman, by Joe Staton. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a convention years ago, and he did this marker sketch while I watched.
(Right) A pencil sketch of the Thing, by Ron Wilson. Another convention sketch (I try to get some piece of art at every con I attend).
Finally, a sketch of the Hulk by Walt Simonson. Walt did this sketch for me as payment for a purchase from my dealer's table at a convention waaaay back in 1975. The lined notebook paper is yellowing, but it still hangs proudly on the wall...
Hope you enjoyed this little walk through the BitBA "gallery". Look for more opportunities to "Show and Tell" in the future!
11 comments:
Fun collections, guys! And as our long-timers will recall, original art is in my wheelhouse. Or at least it was, before I sold off my collection. Now I feed my habit through the IDW Artist Editions.
Just a quick minute before I have to prepare for early-bird class -- wanted to drop a link back to the BAB to our posts on original art. The second and third posts in the line showcase some of the pages and pieces I used to own.
http://bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com/search?q=%22Original+art%22
Everyone have a great day!
Doug
I wanted to provide a link to a post specifically on the John Buscema collection I owned:
http://bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com/2015/02/saying-good-bye-to-big-john-buscema.html
Doug
Doug- thanks for the links to those BAB columns! It's a pleasure to revisit those posts. Those artist's editions are spectacular, an array of original art that you could never view as a group otherwise. And I share your feelings about the editing marks on original art. The immediacy of seeing those corrections and changes really humanizes the piece. Seeing a given page printed in a comic is basically viewing a product. While examining an original page is seeing the artist at work.
Funny you should show some OA of Archie Comics.
Yesterday my 16 yo daughter was watching Riverdale on tv (apparently an updated live action version). I said, "Oh so that's Archie, and Betty and Veronica, but that guy isn't Jughead, is he?" She looked at me with wide eyes: "How do you know that??"
She had no idea there were about 75 years of comic books on these "new" characters.
Ah, youth!
Yoyo
Thanks, Redartz!
One of the drawbacks on some of the IDW Artist Editions is the trim of the original page prior to production of these art books. Particularly in the Kirby editions, I think consumers wanted to see all of Jack's margin notes so that they could compare them with Stan's narratives. I've found in both the Thor and Fantastic Four editions that Jack's handwriting is not always completely visible. There's enough to certainly warrant closer examination of each panel, but it's nothing like if one had the actual original art in hand.
Of note, IDW is releasing (in July) a second Kirby FF AE, called Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four - World's Greatest Artist Edition. This one is twice-up, similar in size to the John Romita Amazing Spider-Man Artifact Edition. I need to get back into my remaining memorabilia to see if I can sell off some more and raise some funds!
Doug
Hey, those are pretty cool! I was into original art ... a bit too expensive for me, plus I need words to go with my pictures :)
Wow, the Byrne Fourth World page in particular is beautiful, so much to look at. From a distance (and on a phone screen) it looks like a Buscema Conan barbarian city scene. Lovely.
At the other end of the spectrum I really like the Betty and Veronica page, so evocative of innocent comic fun.
Hmm, it's a shame original comic art is so expensive isn't it. To think that in the 60s DC sent original art out to letter writers and Marvel gave original art to fans visiting the office!
Redartz --
I have a very similar head sketch of the Thing done by Rich Buckler (pencil and marker) that was part of my purchase of a retrospective of Buckler's art. I bought it about a year ago, well after most of my selling had taken place. While the book was a disappointment, the sketch is wonderful. Not sure how long I'll hang onto it, but I do look at it every so often.
Doug
I too love the simplicity of the Archie. Indeed my only 2 pieces of art are an Archie and a Sad Sack very very modestly priced.
As an aside I read of two dealers who bought I believe over $ 1 million of Golden Age Archie art and they quickly saturated the market and are now "stuck,". The market is so very thin for these treasures.
Colin Bray and Charlie- actually that Betty and Veronica page was pretty reasonable; picked it up at a convention a couple of years ago where Dan Parent was appearing. The page was about 20 dollars. As I recall, he actually had some covers he was selling for 40. Wish I'd have gotten one of those, but funds were pretty tight. At any rate, it just goes to show you that there is some affordably priced original art to be had yet today. And a convention sketch can be even cheaper (depending upon the artist, of course- Neal Adams' sketches were way out of my price range).
The Archie work is indeed great. And like others have mentioned, I see Archie pages frequently and they are all very reasonably priced. I think Archie works may be hindered by the fact that rarely can you tell which book or story it came from. Unlike superhero comics with specific storylines and history, the Archie work all blends together.
That is true however of a lot of filler art. You can still find some great pages that may not highlight the action and the heroes displaying their power for a very low prices. Sure the classic work of Buscema, Kirby, Perez and Byrne can be extremely pricey, but if you shop around you can find some bargains.
All of the Byrne pages I have were less than $100 - some significantly so. Now you cannot find classic X-Men below the multiple 1000 dollar range but you can find some great stuff at a mere percentage of that.
I think that is true of Perez, Colan, Frenz, and many others. I've seen Perez pages going for $50. Sure it is not the Teen Titans or Avengers but it is definitely Perez with multiple characters and details galore.
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