John E.

If you are looking to collect new art you just have to accept it for what it is. Artists are using whatever digital tools are at their disposal to get the job done on deadline. You can’t control if there’s three different processes of the same piece. Choose the one you like best. That said, it bothers me which is why I only focus on vintage art that has pencil and inks on the same board.

That is an awesome cover. I’m not a Vampirella fan either but I would make an exception for that cover. Again, not uncommon for artists to sell pencil prelim pieces separately, especially if they are tight. It may have been that the buyer of the pencils was in your situation; they like the work, but buying the final piece was a bit of a stretch, but the pencils were more affordable and scratches the itch.

Congratulations! It’s a good one!

I don’t find doing the pencils separately that unusual. Or an artist coloring their own cover. I mean you’re right we don’t have a lot of info, this could be Alex Ross he’s talking about who does a tight pencil prelim, then paints the cover. I see this done a lot with painted card art from the 90s. To me the pencils are the prelim even if they are tight—I guess given the info we do have. The inked and colored piece would be worth to me imho.

If the inked and hand-colored (?) piece is the published cover, then that’s the final cover. It’s very likely that the artist considers the pencil piece the prelim. The ink and colored is the more valuable piece. Personally, it’s not a deal breaker knowing the pencils are out there.

1. In general, Covid keeping people from spending their money on travel, nights out, and good old fashioned spectator events has cause all collectibles (stay-at-home hobbies) across the spectrum to skyrocket. 2. In my 8 years of collecting I had not known Albert to sell these types of headshots until Covid. True to his style, Albert pushes the limits on market price. And gets rewarded for it. 3. I wish I had paid more attention, but around Covid, or maybe even before it, these con-style headshots were shooting up 4x-5x fmv on eBay. Especially for CGC Yellow Label.

Hawk is the first character that came to mind. Nice buy.

I’m glad you had a good time and that you walked away with something. You won’t regret it. That Wolverine/Venom by Sam Kieth is an eBay auction piece. Does anyone recall the seller?

No mames, güey

About the same, yes.

G.I. Joe, like comics in general, are going to popular within a certain generation and nothing after that. Unless, the moods and definition of patriotism change, it's hard to hock a toyline that is essentially pro-war. If anyone remembers my previous avatar, I'm a big Joe fan, so I'm not trying to bash here. As far as the new toyline, Buzzetta hit the nail on the head. I was fortunate enough to grab a 3.75" re-issue of Snake Eyes off the shelf at Wal-Mart only because it had flaws on the card and nobody wanted it. Then it was impossible to find the other and I wasn't going to pay $70 on

Great detective work! My research skills got nothing on yours!

This 👆 Get it while it’s cheap.

I wonder how much of the art sold this weekend was used to pay for the crazy prices in the last auction

I was at Target today and I saw something I’d never seen before. An employee stood in the middle of the main aisle with a shopping cart full of boxes of basketball cards and a long line of (mostly) men in their 20s-40s waiting for them. Each was allowed to take one box. They grabbed one and went back in line. The cart was depleted and they waited for another cart to show up. Target is the new Con I guess.