Madman1138

I have backed about 23 Kickstarters, and most of those were comic or comic card related. Basically art stuff and comics & trading cards. Most of those were backed specifically for an art reward and I have never been let down and all have paid off eventually. I have backed Dan Brereton on several projects (comics by Big Wow's Steve Morger and trading cards by Side Lab), Steve Mannion, Bart Sears, and all the Coffin Comics KS's for Lady Death and others. I can tell you that it really depends on the artists and their reputations leading up to it, whether they are doing it themselves or have someone to help manage them and the money, and how ridiculous some of the stretch goals are can tell you everything. So I base it on a gut decision on whether I trust they will deliver or not. Here's a list of ones I liked, but didn't back for my reasons above and each has failed to deliver so far. Tony Harris? Talented but screwed people over with a KS that he no longer acknowledges (even marked the rewards as sent when they never were) and then did a GoFundMe to go back to the well and get even more money and no one will ever see anything. Jason Pearson? Love his art and Body Bags, but I knew that project would self destruct, if it ever made it to completion. Seems like it might now, but art rewards are nowhere near even started. There have been others but no need to call them out. These 2 above are great examples because of how public they are that they aren't delivering. I still back Kickstarters whenever I like something, and while I am still waiting on some tech stuff to come through, the art has never been an issue.

I'll be there as usual, hitting up Scott and more in artist alley and of course hitting all the dealers. I always find something great at SDCC. Dave K

Here is my one and only McSpidey page! Not an action page, but Spidey in all 4 panels and in costume, and a sexy Mary Jane in 2 panels. It makes me happy to finally have one, but very hard and over 10 years to finally get one. I was always priced out, as I mention on my CAF description. I also have a huge scan of it on my CAF for those who'd like to see. http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1372524

I am usually pretty good at identifying art, and am actually a resource for others when it comes to '90s art. So it has always been frustrating that I cannot find this published image anywhere, but I KNOW it was published somewhere because I remember the image vividly in color. But it has driven me nuts for over 12 years now so I might as well try here as well with my fingers crossed lol. This was set to be the cover to Wildstorm Swimsuit #1, which was later switched for a Jim Lee cover instead. It may have been solicited in color as the cover in Previews or Wizard or something, or maybe it was used as a house ad in the books but it wasn't published as a pinup in any of their swimsuit books. I have shared it to the Yahoo group and a couple Wildstorm groups and people recognize it but can't remember where. Had to have been drawn around 1994 or so. It is super clean with no white out or corrections, and features several key Wildstorm ladies so it seems unlikely that it was completely unused. It is unsigned but I recognized it immediately when I bought it as pencils by Scott Clark and back in 2008 he was able to confirm it was him and he thought it was Sal Regla on inks, but other than that he couldn't remember where or even if it was published. Unfortunately Scott probably did more swimsuit pieces than anyone else at Wildstorm so it blurred his memory a lot 15 or so years later lol. At one point I even hand colored a copy by memory and tried Google image searches but still nothing. Does anyone recognize this and know where it was published in color?

It also has the TV Batmobile on it, which some people REALLY love. Maybe that had something to do with it as well?

No, only items sold on eBay can use this program. It's super expensive for the customer so International folks aren't big fans. But it is a way to get US sellers that don't want the hassle of shipping internationally to agree to do so by releasing them of any liability. So it is just a regular domestic mailing job for them and eBay does the rest. But other than double shipping costs on the buyer it also adds extra tariffs on their side to get the packages, I believe. So it's both good and bad for most people.

He's on FB at https://www.facebook.com/ron.lim.125 I want to say he was $80-100 for a bust last I saw him at a show, not sure on more detailed pieces. But he's active on FB.

I use a fireproof safe for the more valuable stuff, but have too much for it all to fit in there. It can't get too hot inside, even in a fire, and inside it I use a few silica gel desiccant packs that absorb moisture. You just need to change them out periodically, (cheap in bulk on Amazon) but they keep it moisture-free inside the safe. And the safe itself recommends that you open it at least once a month to refresh the air inside. Hope that info helps. My kids have destroyed all kinds of nice things of mine over the years, but thankfully never my art. I keep it up high and out of reach, or in a locked safe.

A lot of the time when taking time payments, a dealer or seller will mark it as "sale pending" or "on hold." That usually will mean sold eventually, in my experience, but is pending until paid off. From what I have seen and noticed, sale pending means payments have started and on hold means someone has agreed to it but no money has changed hands yet. But as with anything, people have different interpretations of the same thing. So it's hard to say for sure, but I know from my buying from Romitaman with payments myself that it was changed to "sale pending" on his site while I paid it off.

This is actually a cool thread to hear everyone's different take on things, and all the different approaches and philosophies. So I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in the mix. First, for my philosophies on how I buy and make contact when interested in art labeled as NFS. NFS is the default label on CAF uploads, so I have learned over the years to not take it as gospel. It might just be the default or legitimately might not be for sale, but I find it is always best to at least make contact, briefly introduce myself, and let them know that I am interested in that piece if they ever decide to let it go. So many times in my first 5-10 years of collecting there was a piece I really coveted that said NFS or something clever that implied it wasn't going to be available, so I wouldn't even try to contact. Then later I would see the piece in a different gallery on CAF with it's new owner and wish that I knew it was available or at least a possibility to make an offer. So rather than miss out because the potential seller doesn't know of my interest, I make sure they know. Sometimes I get a polite response saying that it is not likely to be sold anytime soon and other times they tell me they weren't looking to sell it but would for the right price. And surprisingly enough, in many of those cases they actually just gave me a price and I never had to make an offer. When I do make an offer it's based on CAF Market Data and auction data of my own that I keep (I screenshot a lot of auction results for my Art Comp files) and I give them my offer and back it up with my supporting facts that justify that. I do tend to start on the lower-end of the price range but try not to be insulting, especially when I know what they paid for it and when. But I know they will always counter at least once no matter what I offer, so I start lower. I do feel people out though and if I see them as only wanting my one best offer, I make it for the most I would pay and I walk away if I am told it is not enough. But if they seem like they will negotiate, I will always try to do that and just go back and forth for a while. But I will only pay what it is worth to me, so I never offer double FMV or anything. At best I will pay a bit over market or I just walk if the deal can't be made because there is always more art out there I'd love to have. But if nothing else I met a new collector, made my interest known, and if not now maybe somewhere down the line if and when they decide to sell they will come back to me. I have had that happen so many times that it's crazy, so it definitely works. I hardly ever approach them with an offer outright as I hate making blind offers, just with my interest and we go from there. If they have it for sale though, I prefer to have it priced rather than "inquire" or "make an offer." If it is really for sale, then price it. I don't even reach out to most of those, but I have had some success there too.

I am trying to reassemble this sequence featuring Rogue and Gambit's first date and the first Bishop vs Gambit fight, from X-men #8 by Jim Lee and Art Thibert. Over the past 7 or 8 years, I have managed to find and acquire 3 of the pages, but still need the 1st and 3rd pages of the sequence. So here is an image of the entire sequence, and the colored pages are the ones I am seeking. So X-men #8, pages 13 & 15. Even to just know where they are would be awesome, and any help is much appreciated! Dave K

Damn, they ended this morning at $385. Some poor buyer will get an expensive lesson in art collecting and buying fakes. https://www.ebay.com/itm/142733231982?ul_noapp=true Ever since eBay changed the rules so you couldn't see eBay IDs or contact other bidders, this kind of stuff has gotten pretty common. The new rules seem to only prevent these fraudulent sellers more than any eBay customers. We would at least police the hobby ourselves, but eBay just wants those seller fees. They are killing the secondary sketch market.

My sketches shown above are from San Diego 2015 and 2016. He did no sketches beyond the type I got and definitely didn't use any red pencil on ANY of them. I flipped through the binder to choose mine each day he had them, and the Harley was one of the few requests he took on his list on one of the days. This seller is definitely lying, which seems to confirm what we already thought. The eBay sketches are bogus.

I don't know a lot about it, but I was building my own website using a blog template for a while and learned about tagging keywords in your posts to better show in search engines. I did a quick Google search for how to optimize your blog for search engines and these pages came up with some useful info. Hope it helps. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blog-search-engine-optimization https://trafficgenerationcafe.com/blog-tags-seo/ https://sproutsocial.com/insights/seo-tips-for-bloggers/

The auction is for both the Joker and the Harley together, both pieces in the one auction, so nothing has been pulled. But hopefully they will pull it.