ComicLink’s June Focused Auction session four ended on Friday June 22nd; it had a small but interesting selection of original comic art. As always here are my five picks.
Doug Wildey Jonny Quest page, 1987, sold for $775. Wildey liked to handle everything from pencils to lettering and especially colouring his own work. This price has more to do with it being Jonny Quest then the pedigree of the page; Wildey created the animated series and much later did a three issue mini series for Comico called Jonny Quest Classics. These are fairly rare and Wildey has a small but faithful following. Source.
Advantage Buyer
John Buscema Savage Sword Of Conan issue 7 page 40, 1975, sold for $424. A really clean and beautifully rendered page by Buscema and inker Alfredo Alcana. Unfortunately Conan doesn’t appear on the page and that severely limits the market. Bidding was a slow and gradual climb with no bidding on the last day; this went to a true fan. With Conan this would have fetched two or three times as much. Love that lettering! Source.
Advantage Seller
Sheldon Moldoff Batman painting, undated, sold for $432. One of Bob Kane’s ghost illustrators during the 1950s, Moldoff had a clear vision of Batman. Unfortunately commissions and unpublished works from Golden Age artists don’t command high prices. Source.
Advantage Seller
Charles Vess Stardust issue 4 page 40, 1998, sold for $350. Vess has a distinguished fantasy illustration career and any work with Neil Gaiman becomes a best seller. There’s not that much original art out there and painted work brings the highest demand. While only 5×14″ it’s a solid piece with a market for book, comic and movie fans. Interesting to note the “$125.00” in pencil at the bottom right. Source.
Advantage Buyer
Adam Hughes Justice League America issue 38 page 16, 1990, sold for $400. Nice Hughes page with solid inks by Joe Rubinstein. A nice moody page, but it doesn’t feature any substantial characters and Hughes is now known for a cover and pin-up artist with almost no actual comic work anymore. While I’ve always enjoyed his interior work they don’t go for much. Source.
Advantage Seller
What I find interesting about this selection is seeing Buscema’s work side by side with that of Adam Hughes. Assuming they were under the same time constraints, we can begin to make an “apples to apples” comparison.
Without the time and the tools to render his pages, Hughes’ work looks… well, kind of ordinary. I’m not trying to suggest that Hughes is a slouch by any means but considering the level of admiration he garners, it further emphasizes the brilliance Busema’s work. To provide this level of detail and anatomical correctness month after month is a real feat. Not to mention the smooth transition from panel to panel, which feels intuitive and invisible as it should be in service to the story.
Considering the level of craftsmanship, I personally would have declared Buscema’s page… Advantage: Buyer!
Both roughly the same price, but you get a whole lot more fine lines with the Conan page ^_^
I like that Buscema page! It was severely punished for not having Conan in it though. I’d never by a Buscema Conan page without Conan in it.
It has a gorilla-man and a dinosaur on it. You are pretty hard to please.
Anthony, here’s something for you. I’ve always said that digital comics need to be more than just scanned pages… now here it is:
http://www.madefire.com/
Hey, is that Dave Gibbons at the bottom left?
Very interesting. It essentially creates a new medium. Note quite a comic and not quite a movie. I am also digging the Marvel AR app. Pretty interesting use of technology all around.