georgefhagenauer2

Boy a lot has passed in a month: A few comments (and I am not a lawyer) 1) First the really big documented theft was during the DC move - while the focus is on Neal Adams - the big losers were folks like Russ Heath and Curt Swan - Irv Novick etc who lost whole packages of bronze age art . DC reported the theft but DC did not have a good inventory on the art so tracking x page to the theft is almost impossible. A lot of this art was sold i nthe original filing packages before the stories got broken up. 2) In the early days (before Irene Vartanoff I believe did an inventory) no one kept track of what was in storage (there was no Vault in either case just on site or off site storage- amjor conceptual problem comes with the word Vault as it indicates a high value on the art placed by the companies which frankly didn't value it all that high) . DC especially for years just gave art away when fans took the DC weekly tour - my Metal Man page from the first showcase issue came like that. Artists were often given pages as samples when they took over a character - the largest haul of DC pre 1957 art came from the estate of a letterer who seems to be have been given it for some reason (interior pages to a couple of dozen books). So the first problem is that neither company in the early days had good records as to what ended up in the storage areas. So the art ends up gone but no one can say what was given away and what was stolen in spite of the fact that a larger percentage of the Marvel art before the inventory was stolen . I am not sure the Marvel theft was ever documented in terms of a police report. I am not sure what the DC theft report was like as what was stolen were large moving boxes of original art. 3) One interesting issue here is that we are also looking at multiple transfers of ownership of the company. Marvel and DC have been sold multiple times I am not sure what was in those inventories. 4) I talked to a Marvel lawyer in the late 1980s early 1990's and basically she said that when returning art they handled it as a "gift" which dodged a lot of legal issues like how they divided it up between penciller and inker or as if in one case I know of they gave a story back to the wrong artist! 5) Some artists at both companies got some art back if they asked for it for a reason- it was not general policy however 6) At the first Chicago comicon benefit art auction (1976) Stan Lee donated some Marvel art mostly pages he got as a writer. The Kirby Cap Page from TOS went for I think $47 (I had played out my money at the auction buying a Joe Kubert war cover for $15) Prices were ridiculously low back then . And the better art had been sold years before when the going price for a colan Dardevil cover was maybe $35. When Kirby got his art returned he was a selling a lot of it for $50-75 a page . 7) best thing to do is to keep track of where you got your art even today- paperwork is best but even a basic list on a spreadsheet helps - very few of us did that (I was one who did) and that is the core problem - we do provenance on high grade comics but not on art where there is a long legal history related to provenance

A friend is downsizing and has decided to sell his comic book collection- I'll be helping him by taking it to shows over the next year- these are books read once when they came out and then bagged and boarded- I will be picking some of them up on my way to the Minnesota Fallcon which is October 6th at the fairgrounds (great show all comics no tv guests and a low admission fee) so I don't know a lot exactly about what is there but the majority will be Marvel titles and for the time being he will keep the Spiderman issues. They will be priced to sell and available at the Springhollow booth at the fall con. This will be the only time these books will be in the Minnesota/Upper Wisconsin area as I now live in Michigan near Detroit so if you are in the area and collect runs of high grade bronze age stop by- I know there should be a full run of Nick Fury- a lot of Iron man etc. . I drive a small car so the collectio nwill be coming out one long box at a time . I will also be bringing some of my own comics and original art George Hagenauer (Can be reached via my caf gallery)

I will be set up at Wizard in Booth 508 as art of the Chicago Con founders booth with Larry Charet / Larry's Comics very narrow small booth- will have about 1000 pieces of original comic book and strip art there with me -you can reach me through my caf gallery George Hagenauer

I did a long article on the legal issues on stolen art for the CFA APA years ago that was also published serially in CBG. The headache here is what is defined as stolen . If art was originally done under a work for hire law (and I wrote under those rules i n the 1960s for Warren) The publisher owns the art . That was the case until both Marvel and DC began doing different contracts in the 1970s. At that point both companies began giving art back based on their own formulas for division between inkers and pencillers and for a while in some cases to writers. Art that left before that point can be under a cloud unless there is good provenance ie Dc giveaway art often on their weekend tours . Artists periodically would request or even remove their own art from the company storage. In most cases the documentation comes from the artist or who received the art as a gift not from the company. Realistically the companies did not keep good records though Marvel later did an inventory on what they had (though some art appeared years later after all of it should have been given back). Note in addition to DC and Marvel (both of which have had documented thefts) warren also had some early art removed especially done by Neal Adams. Because of weak records the companies who legally owned the earlier Golden age and silver age art have not pursued art that may well have been illegally removed from their storage areas. Some artists over time have raised the issue or harassed owners of art the artists felt should have been returned to them . To date to my knowledge none of this nor the type of documentation often used for art that is in contentions (i.e. artist signatures or dedications on the art that may signify transfer of title) has ever been tested in court. The issue of course being that when the art was removed it had little or no value and now it can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Note also in cases where it is determined that art is stolen there is I believe no statute of limitations on recovering the art providing due process is followed - I had a friend who lost an expensive Mucha painting back to the artist's descendants because it's provenance had problems. In those cases you can collect from whoever sold you the stolen piece of art what you paid for it. As such it is good to keep track of where art came from in the unlikely case any claims are made as on art that is determined to be stolen of having provenance problems you can be liable for art you traded or sold off long after it is gone.

I use legal size fire proof file cabinets they work for everything except large sunday pages - you provide separations between pieces or group them by age and acidity levels and the files are waterproof and fireproof up to a high degree of heat. They are expensive but used are often free or very low cost due to the cost of moving them often used furitiure dealers won't take them. They also have fireproof art files

We are down to the last week or so when they are available and about 80 originals are still available on my CAF. If you ever wanted a nice example of Don Flowers long running comic strip with lots of good girl art here is your chance the link is above most dailies are $60-90 (Don Jr just released a handful he was intending to keep and they are more expensive ) But lots of examples and themes all with beautiful women as main characters

A lot of the art that came out cheap in the 1970s was unpublished though there were very few complete pages most of it was cut up to be destroyed and then saved- I own a couple of tiers from a story. This may be unpublished which is wh yit was only $7 instead of $50 back then!

Unsold art in The Flowers estate will in March be sent to archive . As such this is the last time to buy at the estate's prices as opposed to a later higher resale cost. As most of us know there is a lot of comic strip art archived at universities, historical societies and museums and once archived it is off the market. I have been helping the estate sell its art for about 20 years here is what is up on my CAF - I'll be adding a few more over the next week or so . Once the final arrangements are made the gallery goes down . Flowers was one of the top syndicated good girl artists of his time doing panel cartoons for syndication from the 1930's to late 60's . His tight stylized line is similar to Bruce Timm's and other modern artists - here is the CAF link There is a lot to choose from but they are moving fast http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=110837

It varies by auction- what I have found interesting over the years is how much art including very high priced art sells at heritage and then reappears for sale at dealers websites - so it is a bit of a shoot and heritage is not the only price there are lots of other places selling art - heritage's files are just the most visible but as well as having some top market sales they also have below market sales when dealers or others buy for resale and then succeed in selling higher.

The Southwest Wisconsin (mainly Racine and Kenosha) Comic Club was incredibly active from 1977 to 1994 and published a fanzine originally title SWCC news and then Kapow- Kapow ran 100 issues though it is hard to tell if the SWCC news were some of them, It started as a mimeo zine then became a mix of xerox and mimeo lots of different colored paper. Size varied from a few pages to 20- editorial staff was a mix of Western publishing staff and fans – art various from 12 year olds (some with famous last names!) to folks like Mike Grell, Bill Black Femforce’s Mark Heike (who is from Milwaukee) and even a reprint of a piece Chuck Hawk had by Wally wood as a teenager. Also a bunch of sw Wisconsin illustrators – Elton Dorval (who worked at western and also had a self syndicated fishing strip- Terry pavlet etc.) Anyhow divided the box of zines into sets of varying completeness (even chuck did not have a complete set) the most complete is about 80 issues- the least probably 15-20 Plus a small box of 2-5 copies of about 10 issues These are probably scarce as they tended to do as many as needed for the club I’ll be looking at selling the sets times a few bucks each with the per issue price dropping the smaller the set is! – trade also is possible Would rather not move them! Not sure how this system works but you can reach me through my comicartfans gallery under hagenauer George Hagenauer

Just got in from a friend about 23 concept drawings the size of a modern comic book cover used to design marvel Toys I n the 1990s - action figures, Key Chains, Tooth brush holders. statues etc. Everyone from Spider man and the hulk, Thor and silver surfer to more obscure Xmen like Commcast and X-Man And one I can't ID the yare up on my george hagenauer (under h) Caf gallery the link is below http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=184766 I'll also be set up at Wizard world Chicago as part of Larry's Bookstore L:arry Charets booth