John E.

The original eBay price was $300 or best offer. No takers (stages 1 through 6). It then gets shipped out to Comic Link (stage 7) which ended last night and hammers for $550 (stages 8 through 10). Someone should’ve taken the better deal when it was on eBay.

I guess there is a… Step 8: Step 9: and Step 10:

This thread quickly became “Tell us your age without telling us your age.”

Mignola Hellboy

In the last Wednesday’s HA auction, I did notice some smaller pieces that I was tracking not end as high as I predicted. However, I liken this to what I often hear on the market segment of news radio: “The stock is down 40% from its 2020-2021 highs; but still up 80% from its 2019 peak.”

The OP says it was on sale during Comic Art Live but doesn’t mention a seller. I still say there’s plausible deniability but seller gets an F on their homework.

Sure, but if Todd is credited in the book the seller has plausible deniability. It’s like when some books credit three inkers but don’t tell us who inked what pages. I can’t accuse the seller for fraud if he’s saying it’s an Al Milgrom inked page which could be true though it’s reality it’s Scott Koblish. What annoys me the most is when sellers don’t do their homework when there’s doubt. Not everyone can be an expert in inking styles but they can ask around.

Just offering opinion here, no hard evidence. Spawn is Todd’s baby thus he has to have some creative control on the artistic side. Plus having an “art by Todd McFarlane” credit probably sells more books.

Albert Moy reps Erik Larsen and he sells a bunch of Spawn 258 pages and credits only Erik Larsen. From what I know about Todd and how he works, Todd may have done the layouts, and even then, he could have done the layouts on a separate sheet of paper; or Todd received Erik’s final pages and Todd may have added embellishments to it, like darkening some inks or thinking a line. However, if I were buying a page I’d just assume it’s 100% (or 99.99%) Larsen. Larsen is such a pro that he’s the kind of guy who just sits at Artist Alley and draws out Savage Dragon pages at his table, practically eschewing pencils and just going straight from ink to paper. I hardly doubt that Erik needed help drawing this thing. And I think Todd would add embellishments on Greg Capullo’s art back then. I’m just putting one-and-one together here so I may be so wrong. Erik is on Twitter and he’s pretty responsive to questions from fans, unless Erik has left Twitter. I haven’t logged in a while.

The Five Stages of Unbridled Ambition Leads to Ruin Stage 1: Unbridle ambition Stage 2: Arrive at Ruin Stage 3: CGC Comic Art Marketplace Sale Posts Stage 4: Appearances in "(Attempted) Flip of the Day" Thread Stage 5: CAF "Everything Must Go" Sale

That’s totally me right now. Step 1: Unbridle ambition Status: Complete Step 2: Arrive at Ruin Status: In progress

I’m sorry to read about the loss of your friend Bruce. It was nice to read that you got to share quality time with him at the end. My condolences.

Things that make me go 🤔

This shows how pedestrian I really am. I still think in terms of cash, not crypto. I may as well have said postal money order. This started off as a sincere question then it devolved into my usual ‘tupidity. I did think it odd this art is kept hush-hush AND that it may be available for the right price. Old school buzz marketing perhaps. Just seems like there’s a lot more here than Felix is allowed to say <wink wink> and that we may be in for a treat in the next two or three years.

Hi Felix, long time listener to your podcast. I have no doubt the cover to Hulk 181 exists. I have a burning question though: if there is a lot of cloak-and-dagger secrecy behind the piece how would it “be available for the right price?” I’m just wondering how these deals happen among the upper echelons of collectors? Would your friend act as a middleman and say something like, “These are my friends Felix and Gene. They are also friends of <ahem> Herb’s. They are looking for a place to rest their briefcase full of cash somewhere in [dramatic pause] the Canadian woods.” I’ll take your “beyond that…no comment” answer off the air. Thanks! 😉😊

Another good Mandel podcast, Felix. Listening David Mandel talk hobby reenergizes my love for OA collecting each and every time.

Isn’t crazy how something technologically modern as the website has been relegated to the status of the flip phone? The hobby went from “could buy only at science fiction conventions” to catalogs to CBG to fax machines, then websites, to now claim shows. I’m amazed I stayed in the hobby long enough to see one of these selling transitions and now a future generation of collectors is going to trip out that I used set a timer for Felix’s art drop so I can log on to a website and refresh and refresh the same way I tripped out on collectors paying a premium to rush order their CBG and placing a phone order during designated hours.

No, but he did say, “Lynn Varley is the new Mike Zeck and you can quote me on that, boy.” But I edited it out.

“My thigh gap brings all the boys to the yard / once there / I capture their Likes, clicks, and views / then I’m / doused in ad revenues.”

Race, I didn’t think you were new here If only there was a button () But yeah, Garfield.

“The Dark Knight cover is your family’s legacy, Bruce, and you let it slip from your fingers! Your father would’ve mopped the floors at Hertiage!” “My father was a wealthy man, Alfred! Why would he be mopping floors at Heritage?!” “Jim Halperin is a very powerful man.”

Is my rebate voucher good for it at Omaha Steaks? 🐂🧶🧶🤤 We can go halvsies.

I like that. Had never heard of it. I definitely have no cattle. I’m more like a ranch hand. Every 5 years I save up enough money to buy 2 or 3 steers. And every 5 years the Governing Board of Ranchers decide that the corral is too crowded and they decide it’s my steer that has to be slaughtered. So I’m back down to no cattle again but I do get to pick up a rebate coupon for Omaha Steaks on April 15. I guess that doesn’t just make me any ol’ ranch hand; but the kind who likes petting rabbits.

As a graduate of HBS (That’s Hobo Business School: The World’s Leader in Producing Tomorrow’s Poor Financial Decision Makers) I don’t have the brain to understand any of what you said, but as long as it means that it weeds out the speculators, the flippers, and the wannabe dealers from this hobby, well, golly, I’m all for it, Cap’n 🫡