ShallowDan

Good observation (especially given the fact that you've possibly seen this play out from both sides of the table, so to speak), and it's a mistake I've certainly made before. Once was with an artist whose work I liked and could find countless examples of things I love online. I was happy to meet him and we spent a couple of minutes talking about me being a fan of his work before I started leafing through a portfolio of stuff that was nice enough, but with nothing that really grabbed me (and that all seemed to be priced with a bit of a show premium built in). It wasn't that I felt obligated to him to buy something, but more like I felt obligated to myself to buy something. In the lead up to the show, I had mentally budgeted the money to be spent at his booth, and well, here I was at the booth, so... Since then, I've tried to take the approach that the best part of a show is the experience, so to speak: meeting/chatting with artists and other fans/collectors of their work - the networking thing that you mentioned. No shame in driving home empty handed but with a full wallet, and you can still end up with memories of a fun day even if you don't buy anything.

This comes down to whether a "B"/"C" piece from a bigger name is better than an "A" piece from a lesser known/less appreciated artist. Personally, regardless of the particular price point, I'd say always go with the piece you like the most. If you know you absolutely want something from a particular artist and you can only afford one thing due to the price point, I'd say save and stretch for the single best example you can get. I will mention that the occasional bouts of buyer's remorse I've had were things that I picked up due to feeling the need to buy something/anything when I lost out on a piece I was chasing at auction, or when I bought something simply thinking it would be a placeholder until a better example came along. Inevitably, the "something better" popped up much sooner than I would have expected, and the money spent on the consolation prize would've been put to better use if held on to for something I really wanted (mediocre pieces are generally much easier to buy than to sell). As others have said, a few so-so $250 purchases quickly add up to a $1,000 purchase, a few misspent $1,000 purchases add up to a $5,000 purchase, etc.

Gorgeous examples! I was unfortunately a little late to get any of the best of them (with best being defined as Axa topless, lol), but interestingly enough after "settling" for what I could still get, I appreciated how he was one of those guys who could draw anything - dinosaurs, monsters, giant insects, cars, beautiful landscapes, etc. I'm still hoping to eventually get my hands on a 3-4 strip sequence of the best ones to frame up. Whenever I'm showing off art to female guests, I'm always slightly surprised how much of a hit Axa is with them.

I searched for a thread and didn't see one. Since he was a European artist, and one who was primarily involved with strip art, I don't think the news of this spread as widely as it might have otherwise, but I just learned this morning that Enrique Romero passed away on February 15. He was best known for his work on the British strips Modesty Blaise and Axa). For a few years I had been trying to get my hands on some nicer examples of the Axa strip and after hitting a lot of dead ends, ended up reaching out to him directly by email. There was a language barrier, since we were limited to my high school level of Spanish and the fact that he never picked up much English even after working with British publishers, but he enjoyed knowing that there were still fans who appreciated his work and was very cordial and generous with his time. Although the best stuff had been long gone, I was fortunate to be able to be able to buy a handful of strips from him. He had a knack for drawing a wide range of subjects, which the fantasy-based series Axa showed off better than Modesty Blaise, since it gave him to opportunity to draw a wider range of settings and obviously sci-fi and fantasy creatures. Another talented artist has sadly passed.

That's gorgeous (or at least as gorgeous as could ever apply to Cthulhu) and the eyes are absolutely brilliant. Great piece of art.

I will say that Heritage's system of allowing you to opt in to texts to notify you when an auction is about to start, and even better, when a lot is coming up, has really spoiled me and is something I wish some of the other guys would emulate.

Having gone low on an early item in auction, only to wish I'd chased it a little harder when I got blown out on a later piece that I was more interested in, my first choice would still be for Heritage to just send me a list of everything that will be coming to auction in advance and then let me tell them the proper order in which to list items, but since that's never happening, I will admit that one advantage of this format is allowing you to chase both something you're really interested in and something that works as a consolation prize at the same time. Having said that, the format seems like a headache if you're seriously bidding on lots of items, and I see no valid reason to have the requirement that you must place a bid prior to the extended bidding session in order to be a bidder once extended bidding begins.

Obviously he's best known for the action roles, but the man had comedy chops as well. I loved his cameo appearances as himself on Arrested Development:

I find that interesting, insomuch as part of the charm of OA can be seeing that sort of evidence of the creative process.

For those who collect slabbed/graded sketch covers, how does the rating factor in with the value? That's the part that's always a little confusing to me about the whole thing. Would a slabbed sketch cover collector turn up their nose at a 9.2 with a great piece of art in favor of a 9.8 that's in better condition, but not as good art?

"Hi, Mrs. Delekkerste, I'm very, very sorry about the untimely passing of your husband.... Anyway, he had mentioned to me once that there's a spreadsheet somewhere there on his laptop that shows what all that silly art stuff is worth. I know it's hard time for you, and I want to make things easier, so..." Reminds me of something I once heard from another hobby. I'm paraphrasing slightly, but the guy was saying that his second biggest fear was his wife finding out what he'd actually spent on everything. His biggest fear was her getting ticked off at him one day and selling it all for what he'd told her he'd spent on it

I know Bill's primary goal was obviously driving attendance, and I'm sure he's getting plenty of footage for future recap videos, but it would be great to see the auction live-streamed. I'm not even saying that bidding online would need to be part of it, it would just be fun to see everything that was up for grabs and watch the action.

As someone who took a while to warm up to the idea of slabbed comics, and still doesn't get sketch covers, the idea/appeal of graded/slabbed sketch covers is really lost on me.

Does anyone have experience with any package forwarders in Europe that they could recommend? There's a piece on Catawiki that I am interested in bidding on but the seller does not ship to the U.S. I've randomly found a few places online that will receive it at their address, then ship it out, but am wondering if someone here has some actual experience using one.