Are this at least legitimate Bob Kane ghosts? 0

[Bronty]

I hear that, but its amazing how many people look to the signature (lower case) instead of the art (in general, not these pieces in particular).   The art IS the Signature (upper case).   

The signature (lower case) is by far the easiest part to forge.   Rendering exactly like the artist himself, much harder to fake.

I guess its one of those things that's comforting at first, like the 'certificate of authenticity' which isn't generally worth the paper its printed on either.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Bronty

[bluechip]

19 hours ago, Bronty said:

I hear that, but its amazing how many people look to the signature (lower case) instead of the art (in general, not these pieces in particular).   The art IS the Signature (upper case).   

The signature (lower case) is by far the easiest part to forge.   Rendering exactly like the artist himself, much harder to fake.

I guess its one of those things that's comforting at first, like the 'certificate of authenticity' which isn't generally worth the paper its printed on either.

A COA is only valuable if it commits an individual to making good on the item, should it ever be proven falsely identified, and only then when there is reason to believe you can locate that individual and hold them accountable if it becomes necessary down the road.  

As for Kane's art style, I have seen genuine examples that don't look as if they were done by the same person who did other genuine examples.   And that seems partly due to the fact Kane was primarily a copyist, and even in later years he could copy his own work (or that of his co-workers or ghosts) if he had the original in front of him.   But when he was called upon to do a sketch without a reference in front of him, and the time to copy it carefully, he seemed to fall back on the sort of head shots you see in the second image.

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by bluechip

[buyatari]

Are there any known Bob Kane pieces that we can link here? 

Perhaps if he can see a few to use as comparisons it would help in future transactions.

[AndyFish]

Hey Martin

OK, so I've got some expertise to throw in here, being a lifelong Batman fan, someone who spent a great deal of time with Jerry Robinson, a bit less with Shelly Moldoff but enough that I learned some of the techniques they used, as an art collector, an artist myself and someone who has worked for 15 years in the comics industry as a ghost myself-- I know a thing or two about aping styles.

I agree on not giving the signature much weight, THAT is the part an amateur spends the most time and effort on.   Instead, try to look at the confidence of line, little details like  the feathering of the inks, how hands and feet are done, most artists have a sort of "go to" for hands and feet and Kane and his ghosts were no exception.

Here are my thoughts on these;

Number 1 is completely fake and poorly executed.  The bodies are way too long and this is based on a published image that was done in the early to mid sixties with a hint of one done by Curt Swan a bit earlier.  This is not professional level by any means.  There is no variation in line weights and the hands are atrocious.  Ironically the one thing Kane did well was draw hands, and by well I mean in the Kane world-- he would often put a hand on a characters chin while they were talking.  But there is a famous story about an editor asking him several times to draw a hand in the DC offices on a page he was bringing in, he kept stepping out of the editors office to do it and each time he came back in it was worse than when he'd left.  After several attempts he comes back in and the hand is perfect.  The editor thanks him and Kane leaves.  When the editor walks out into the bullpen he finds an artist sitting there who says Kane just paid him $50 to draw a hand. So who knows if he was really even drawing those hands on chins in the first place.

Getting back to #1-- the Batmobile tires are completely out of perspective, this was done by someone with very little art training, and done poorly.

Number 2 is the most likely "real" Kane-- that's actually a pretty famous sketch he did and he did it in 1973.  There were prints made of it at the time and those were circulated pretty widely for many years.  I've seen more than one dealer at the big shows have this "original" though.  Kane was doing public appearance drawings in marker at this time.   He would bring a pad that had Batman loosely drawn already on it, and then he would finish it with his marker.

Here's an example of a real Kane Batman drawing;

 

This was mailed to a pair of fans who had written to Kane, I knew one of the family members.

Kane re-used this pose again and again

 

Kane had pretty much practiced how to draw these two head shots over and over-- and you can see these are done with marker.

Notice too that this marker has faded, while yours looks as fresh as the day it was drawn.  Marker fades with age and yours looks like marker when you look closely at the darker areas of the masks.

#3 has some of the trappings Kane used in these drawings, the weird shading at the tops of Batman's ears, the way he drew mouths, but the thin line and the bad feathering also denotes an artist with little training.

But this one could be legit too, because Kane had little training.

Here's Kane's JOKER-- we know this because that's KANE Drawing him. While this one is a little more pronounced in the cheek and has the sleep eyes and yours has lazy eyes it's still got that strange cheek line that hits the curl of the mouth-- that was unique to Kane.  So this one, despite being crude, could be legit.

#4 which in my opinion is the best one of the lot is not legit.  The hands are wrong, the bodies are too long, the faces are not the faces Kane and his boyz practiced so much.  This one is a take on the cover of Batman 3 which was done as a high end litho graph by (I think) circle press in the early to mid 80s.

#5 is so bad it could be Kane too.  Look at the Joker cheek-- this looks like the same hand that did #3.  Speaking of hands, Batman's open hand looks like a Kane hand to me.  Robin and Catwoman's face are so off they throw the piece, but there is some evidence this could be real.  That building corner was a Kane go to, but he usually only did one side in black and drew bricks on the other, he could have made a mistake and covered it with black but who knows.

#6 hands, feet, face and body all look like Kane to me.  He had that strange way of feathering inside the legs to indicate muscle and that arm is spot on-- this one could be good.

#7 doesn't look right, but it's got the building corner, the style of the feet match #6, Robin's face matches #5 which leads me to think that one might be right too.

#8 has the most Kane like hands in the group, ditto the corner building, the feet, the feathering on the legs.  It's the torso and the face that throw this one for me, but Kane might have been experimenting, or someone might have stopped by and he said "hey draw me a torso!"  This  one looks like it's done in India ink which doesn't fade.

So overall, after looking closely at these, and more closely after going through, I think you've got a pretty good chance that a few of these were actually done by Kane at a later stage in his "career"-- I'm guessing most of these from around 1989.

Please keep in mind my referring to Kane's work as bad is subjective, I'm talking as an art professor would judge a student in class.  I like some of Kane's crudeness.

Edited April 14, 2017 by AndyFish

[Captain Canuck]

They are selling a similar Kane drawing on their website that is very suspect. 

http://www.allanimation.com/jocapebaro.html

[AndyFish]

It's funny, I first came into this thread and thought "ugh, all fakes".  Then looking closer and closer at them you see the pattern, and Kane was all about pattern.  Drawing the same things over and over and over again until he could almost do it without someone's help.  Kane was also an opportunist who wasn't against churning these things out when the first few movies made him popular again and before people were really talking about what happened to Bill Finger.

But how many could he seriously do?  He was an old man by this time, and this piece here is clearly a marker piece and it would be at least  20 years old since Kane died in 1998.

In this case Penguin and Catwoman look way off, but the feathering is in Kane's style, so are the buildings, and Robin's head matches one in another piece that looks like Kane could have done it.

Here's my thought-- either these are Kane pieces and he just did a whole pile of them basically doing the same elements over and over again, or they have someone who is churning these things out, but most of them look like they were done by the same hand.

[AndyFish]

12 minutes ago, Captain Canuck said:

They are selling a similar Kane drawing on their website that is very suspect. 

http://www.allanimation.com/jocapebaro.html

And it could be yours for only $10K!

[Captain Canuck]

6 minutes ago, AndyFish said:

And it could be yours for only $10K!

Batman and Robins proportions look off. Looks too polished for anything I have seen Kane do in his later years. 

[AndyFish]

Proportions are way off-- but so too were some of the drawings he did in his remarqued autobiography.  I'm not saying it's Kane, and I'm definitely not saying I'd pay anything CLOSE to $10K for it but it has some trappings that indicate it's by the same person who did some of the other pieces shown here.

[Captain Canuck]

1 hour ago, AndyFish said:

Proportions are way off-- but so too were some of the drawings he did in his remarqued autobiography.  I'm not saying it's Kane, and I'm definitely not saying I'd pay anything CLOSE to $10K for it but it has some trappings that indicate it's by the same person who did some of the other pieces shown here.

They are all from the same seller, so I assume they got them from the same source. 

 

I thought all all the drawings in his remarqued autobiography were headshots? At least that is what I have seen and own. Too bad there is no way of authenticating whether he legitametly drew those remarqued sketches or not. I had a choice between Batman or Joker, but something didn't look right about his remarqued Joker so I took the Batman headshot.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Captain Canuck

[Morgan0714]

On 4/11/2017 at 6:42 AM, Unca Ben said:

Has the OP contacted Choice Collectibles with his new found information?  Be interesting to hear what they have to say.

I checked their website - if it's the same Choice collectibles the OP mentioned - looks like they sell a lot of overpriced prints.

 

On 4/12/2017 at 3:32 PM, bluechip said:

In this case it's a valid consideration because the OP is asking only if the art is from a sanctioned/supervised "ghost" artist,   A valid signature would indicate that whereas a forged signature would indicate it was a forgery by some third party who had no contact with or approval from Kane

Yes! It's the same company I believe. They stand behind the product as there's really no way to disprove otherwise! I'm a big boy and I understand that sometimes the buyer needs to do the homework! I'm ok with having these on my wall. It's a reminder that I need to be more diligent in my collecting! I do buy their Alex Ross and I've been happy with those. Keep collecting everyone!!

[Morgan0714]

On 4/12/2017 at 0:19 PM, comicartcom said:

here's what I would do if I were you

because you bought these all in California and California laws are very liberal with art fraud, I recommend having your lawyer contact both dealers.

agenting some to you as Vintage Animation Gallery did, does not absolve them from any liability and whether they can get their money back from their source is meaningless

whether the galleries knew these were fakes is not important. Chances are, Choice Collectibles sold others also, so they may be in a bind

I think you should be able to get at least a goodly portion of your money back, though any legal actions could potentially drag on for some time.

certainly, I don't believe you shuold give a pass to either of them.

they're big boys also!

 

 

Thank you for the suggestion. I may actually do that! One major red flag that got me thinking something was off was I was offered another Kane piece from Choice Collectibles (the style posted) and I had offered to trade 3 of my current pieces for the one they were selling. When they declined, I was a bit surprised and that got me thinking.....here was the piece they ended up selling to someone else and decline my 3 piece trade.

[Unca Ben]

That piece (or one just like it) was in the Profiles in History Dec 2016 auction.
Mebbe it's your scan, but the linework looks a little heavier in your picture.

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2017 by Unca Ben

[Captain Canuck]

15 minutes ago, Unca Ben said:

That piece (or one just like it) was in the Profiles in History Dec 2016 auction.
Mebbe it's your scan, but the linework looks a little heavier in your picture.

 

 

 

I'm going out on a limb here, but they are 2 different pictures. You will notice the difference between the 2 when you look at Batmans belt and Robins raised hand. The lines are similiar, but thinner and more deliberate in terms of providing depth and contour on the second image. 

[Unca Ben]

6 minutes ago, Captain Canuck said:

I'm going out on a limb here, but they are 2 different pictures. You will notice the difference between the 2 when you look at Batmans belt and Robins raised hand. The lines are similiar, but thinner and more deliberate in terms of providing depth and contour on the second image. 

I'm kinda thinking the same thing; but otherwise they are identical, line-for-line.  Like a tracing?

[Captain Canuck]

39 minutes ago, Unca Ben said:

I'm kinda thinking the same thing; but otherwise they are identical, line-for-line.  Like a tracing?

That Joker also looks different to the remarqued version I posted previously, which is why I didn't purchase it just didn't look right. I find his Joker faces to be more simple and this one is too edgy/polished for his style. Which is funny because this is from his autobiography and does not fit his style. Feels like a fake, even though it is supposed to be official/authorized Kane. 

Edited April 15, 2017 by Captain Canuck

[Bird]

I would suggest that being a "big boy" includes not letting people take advantage and standing up for your rights when there appears to be a reasonable chance that you were swindled. Go after these guys! Big boys stand up for others as well.

[delekkerste]

On Thu Apr 13 2017 at 10:45 PM, AndyFish said:

So overall, after looking closely at these, and more closely after going through, I think you've got a pretty good chance that a few of these were actually done by Kane at a later stage in his "career"-- I'm guessing most of these from around 1989.

Or, alternatively, some of the fakes adhered closer to the reference material than others. 

Edited April 15, 2017 by delekkerste

[Rob Stolzer]

I'm sorry to say that I agree with the other posters here.  Image number 2 is the only one that seems remotely legitimate.  The part that gives me pause is that when I used to see authentic Kane pieces back then, they were more often than not signed "Bats Wishes".  But the style and signature do look good.  The others are too stiff to be by Kane, or his ghosts, I believe.  I do hope you can get your money back on these pieces.

 

Best,

Rob Stolzer

[comicartcom]

On 4/12/2017 at 3:32 PM, bluechip said:

In this case it's a valid consideration because the OP is asking only if the art is from a sanctioned/supervised "ghost" artist,   A valid signature would indicate that whereas a forged signature would indicate it was a forgery by some third party who had no contact with or approval from Kane

no Bluechip it would not, because Bob Kane's signature is never done by Bob Kane either. The ghost artist does that also.