Jim Starlin hates CGC! 3 3

[Dark Prime 0]

2 hours ago, FineCollector said:

I think everyone is misunderstanding Starlin's frustration with CGC.  Without a witness, he signs the books, gives them back, and it's done.  Simple.  Because CGC mandates that the witness be present, he has to hold onto the guy's stuff or risk looking like a jerk when the witness disappears.  He's out time and money when the process fails, and they won't help him make it right?  I'd tell them to blow it out their hole too.

he's not out time.......the guy asked if he could hold the books on the side to go get the wittness, putting the books to the side takes all of what 2 seconds.  the guy comes back with the wittness and says i'm here for my books, picks them up and leaves.  oh no 4 whole seconds wasted.  keep in mind the wittness doesn't need to see the books signed just that they were picked up from starlin and maintaining the chain of ownership, it's excatly how sketches are done and get SS

i've done this excat samething with sketches and on the rare occasion sigs, the only time "wasted" was small talk between me and the artist or the rep and the artist.  if a line it's hi, here for my books, thanks & bye....nice quick and easy.  any money needing to be paid out i've already taken care of before hand

the problem is people seem to think we're talking big money or lots of time, i'm assuming here but money was prob a small amt like 20 and on the time starlin says he did it all on his time like during a break (how i took it, he was on a break so no time was wasted away from the table), and holding the books and all the running by the owner of the book again didn't stop starlin from dealing with other costumers in the slightest.........if anything cgc wasted the time of the owner bc he had to run around

is cgc not at fault, no they possibly could have handeled it better.  starlin also isn't off the hook either and shares some of the blame

[jcjames]

9 minutes ago, Turtle said:

Is the bolded part the reason he became an ex-CGC witness?  I ask because this is breaking the rules...a witness is not allowed to witness their own books for Sig Series. 

And if it wasn't something for Sig Series, it at the very least lacks professionalism if he didn't ask you first and merely slipped his book into the stack.

At the time I didn't know what to say to him, he was facilitating witness for me and told me "shhh" as he slipped his book into my hands under my three books getting signed as we waited to be next in line for signatures. Then when we got up there, my books got signed then he asked the artist for a quick sketch on his book. I knew it was shady at best but I didn't really know what to do.

He's an ex-CGC witness for other even far-worse transgressions than this, but this was a big hint to me that this guy is not on the level.

 

[Turtle]

8 minutes ago, jcjames said:

At the time I didn't know what to say to him, he was facilitating witness for me and told me "shhh" as he slipped his book into my hands under my three books getting signed as we waited to be next in line for signatures. Then when we got up there, my books got signed then he asked the artist for a quick sketch on his book. I knew it was shady at best but I didn't really know what to do.

He's an ex-CGC witness for other even far-worse transgressions than this, but this was a big hint to me that this guy is not on the level.

 

Sounds shady.

[Dark Prime 0]

9 hours ago, Poka said:

Doesn't really matter what we all think whether CGC's fault or issue or not - what matters is what Starlin thinks!

also - it all artists knew how the SS works when the price setting they could do would it to do personalized things for free and charge for all other signatures (something along the line - "so Bud who should I address my signature to -Or do you want me to address it to someone? No - well then it will be $20 please").

there are ones who kinda do this...don rosa did free sketches but it had to be persoanlized, iirc ferigno will only do personal, adam west does personal but if you ask it not to be then he up charges it above the normal cost of his sig......i'm sure there are others.  though the signer has to becareful as well, look at the S storm the sadfan book became bc said signer took his anger out on a costumer (personaly i found it funny, but the owner didn't)

 

[Logan510]

15 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I love the fact that Starlin had to be talked into charging for sigs by other artist.  He didn't seem to care for years and a bunch of guys wanted him to start charging to justify their own charging for signatures. 

Why automatically assume the other artist did it for that reason? Maybe he went on RMA's eBay page and saw what he was charging for his Starlin SS books 

[RockMyAmadeus]

7 minutes ago, jcjames said:

This is what I posted in the last discussion regarding artists charging extra for SS-signatures and I still stand by it:

I call them "greedy" only as half-poke, half-truth.

If an artist charges $5 for an unwitnessed signature and $20 for a CGC-witnessed signature, I see it as A) artist trying to limit people selling his signature for profit of which he gets none, and/or B) artist figuring his 1.5 seconds of time to scribble his name is actually worth more to people who slab books regardless of what they do with those slabs.

Bottomline, an artist is trying to squeeze as much money from people in his line as possible to maximize HIS profits. Which I have no problem with. Some folks call Capitalists like that who try to maximize their profits as being "greedy", especially used when talking about flippers, but not so much when talking about artists themselves. I see no difference. And that's okay. 

Artists don't "HAVE" to charge for sigs just because some of those sigs end up on ebay, but they can, and so they will.

 

Charging for signatures isn't the issue.

Charging a different price for the almost entirely erroneous perception that people are "profiting off their signatures" is the issue.

Charging more than something is "worth" isn't really greed, without getting into a deep philosophical discussion. Greed is the belief that someone has or gets something that you don't think they deserve. A creator thinks (and many of them do) that people getting books slabbed with their signature is only doing it to "flip" or "make money off their signature." This is an erroneous perception, for a number of reasons. It is ignorance of how slabbing works and why people slab books.  It's not about "maximizing profits"...it's about greed from creators who don't understand the sum total of slabbing and what it entails.

Until that is addressed, these issues will continue to spiral out of control.

Baker: "what are you going to do with that loaf of bread?"

Buyer 1: "I'm going to eat it."

Baker: "Ok, $3. And what are YOU going to do with that loaf of bread?"

Buyer 2: "I'm going to use it in an art project that I then intend to sell. My last art project using leftover lasagna was a hit at MOMA, and I sold it for $2.5 million."

Store owner: "What?? You're making money off of MY bread? How DARE you?! $5,000!!"

It's as absurd here as it is there.

There are people posting who do not understand this issue, yet they post anyways. That's the way of things.

[RockMyAmadeus]

26 minutes ago, jcjames said:

 

ETA: It's an "value-added". An unverified signature adds virtually no value to a comic, but a CGC-witnessed signature DOES add significant value (relative to unverified signature) to the comic. So since the artist is adding significant value to your book (regardless of what you intend to do with it) then he may figure he should charge more for adding that extra value to your book. 

 

Your statements here are not accurate. I have unverified signatures that add substantial value to a comic. I have CGC-witnessed signatures that add no value to a comic.

Therefore, since the statement isn't accurate, the conclusion is also not accurate.

This is the ignorance of creators of which I spoke.

[Dark Prime 0]

46 minutes ago, SteppinRazor said:

Good to know.  I didn't mean a witness for each creator, more like just hang around creator alley or whatnot

normaly cgc's booth is in artist alley, or right outside of it (next asile over)..........only one time (i've seen) it wasn't at the NYCC i went to and they were useing hotflips booth who was just outside artist alley as a stageing ground for cgc though there were no signs telling you that.  while bs'ing with the wittness i made a comment that i'm suprised cgc wasn't set up over here instead of the main hall considering SS is their main attraction over just people buying and gradeing, while i don't excatly remember the answer it was something along the lines of it being a mistake setting up where they did (which was over in the dealer area).  at the 2 biggest shows cgc should really have 2 booths (artist alley/dealer area) just bc of the size of the show NYCC/SDCC.  i've seen 1st hand how nuts NYCC is for them bc of the crowd it was like a 10min walk between their booth and where the artist were and then another 10min walk back, have no clue on SDCC but i'm assuming it's also a nightmare for them

[mschmidt]

19 minutes ago, Dark Prime 0 said:

normaly cgc's booth is in artist alley, or right outside of it (next asile over)..........only one time (i've seen) it wasn't at the NYCC i went to and they were useing hotflips booth who was just outside artist alley as a stageing ground for cgc though there were no signs telling you that.  while bs'ing with the wittness i made a comment that i'm suprised cgc wasn't set up over here instead of the main hall considering SS is their main attraction over just people buying and gradeing, while i don't excatly remember the answer it was something along the lines of it being a mistake setting up where they did (which was over in the dealer area).  at the 2 biggest shows cgc should really have 2 booths (artist alley/dealer area) just bc of the size of the show NYCC/SDCC.  i've seen 1st hand how nuts NYCC is for them bc of the crowd it was like a 10min walk between their booth and where the artist were and then another 10min walk back, have no clue on SDCC but i'm assuming it's also a nightmare for them

CGC has 2 booths at NYCC for this exact reason - one on the main floor, one in artist alley. The situation you describe is from 4 years ago where NYCC screwed up and didn't get CGC an artist alley booth (so they had to use the Hotflips one in AA).

[jcjames]

22 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Charging for signatures isn't the issue.

Charging a different price for the almost entirely erroneous perception that people are "profiting off their signatures" is the issue.

Charging more than something is "worth" isn't really greed, without getting into a deep philosophical discussion. Greed is the belief that someone has or gets something that you don't think they deserve. A creator thinks (and many of them do) that people getting books slabbed with their signature is only doing it to "flip" or "make money off their signature." This is an erroneous perception, for a number of reasons. It is ignorance of how slabbing works and why people slab books.  It's not about "maximizing profits"...it's about greed from creators who don't understand the sum total of slabbing and what it entails.

Until that is addressed, these issues will continue to spiral out of control.

Baker: "what are you going to do with that loaf of bread?"

Buyer 1: "I'm going to eat it."

Baker: "Ok, $3. And what are YOU going to do with that loaf of bread?"

Buyer 2: "I'm going to use it in an art project that I then intend to sell. My last art project using leftover lasagna was a hit at MOMA, and I sold it for $2.5 million."

Store owner: "What?? You're making money off of MY bread? How DARE you?! $5,000!!"

It's as absurd here as it is there.

There are people posting who do not understand this issue, yet they post anyways. That's the way of things.

I hear what you're saying and I don't necessarily disagree - call it greed, that's okay.

Call it an artist "maximizing profits" or trying to squeeze as much out of fans as he can get away with. That's okay too.

Differential charging of services based on customer is what the market now allows. If it gets out of hand, the market will correct and swing the other way. I don't think it will very much though. People used to be shocked when artists (or ball players wrt cards) started charging for signatures because the signers saw that THEY were helping create a secondary market, but getting nothing out of it themselves. I guess you can call it their "greed" that kicked in, that's fine, I can see what you're saying.

Artists' charging differential prices based on (partly erroneously you say) what they believe might happen to that item is where this market drove us now. It's all part of free-exchange of goods and services (even if some people are ignorant of the entire picture).

I agree that some believe that any SS is automatic $$, but sure there are losers that will happen - but our whole secondary-market is based on the assumption that, ON AVERAGE, the flipper (er, secondary seller) WILL make a profit in the long run. That's an accurate understanding of the SS data as a whole that's out there. That again is the market at work.

Yes I'm a bit peeved also that artists charge $X for unverified but $XX for verified, and yes, it may be in the artist's mind that I'm making money off of him so he should make more money off of me... right or wrong it may or may not always be the case. You can call it greed and that's fine. It's a distinction of semantics. But I agree there's misinformation about the "automatic" money made by simply slabbing a SS book. My big thing is that artists don't understand how much work and cost *I* put into getting that book protected, signed, verified and then MAYBE selling it for profit... which goes right back into the industry (and maybe his pocket again) as I reinvest it back into the hobby.

 

[RCheli]

4 hours ago, oakman29 said:

The truth of the matter is the individual who is having his books signed failed to pay for the signature, not CGC. CGC is just there to witness the signing. The disconnect came between Starlin (who should have gotten the money before signing) and the person who owned the books.

Starlin is really to blame for his own mistake.

I agree that he's somewhat to blame, BUT the response by CGC seemed to be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Have someone at CGC pay Starlin the $20 or $40 or whatever, and then contact the person directly and get reimbursed for the unpaid signatures. That person's name would remain anonymous to anyone outside of CGC, and Starlin would get paid. 

[oakman29]

2 minutes ago, RCheli said:

I agree that he's somewhat to blame, BUT the response by CGC seemed to be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Have someone at CGC pay Starlin the $20 or $40 or whatever, and then contact the person directly and get reimbursed for the unpaid signatures. That person's name would remain anonymous to anyone outside of CGC, and Starlin would get paid. 

I wish someone would pay me for all the mistakes I've made.

[1Cool]

46 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Charging for signatures isn't the issue.

Charging a different price for the almost entirely erroneous perception that people are "profiting off their signatures" is the issue.

Charging more than something is "worth" isn't really greed, without getting into a deep philosophical discussion. Greed is the belief that someone has or gets something that you don't think they deserve. A creator thinks (and many of them do) that people getting books slabbed with their signature is only doing it to "flip" or "make money off their signature." This is an erroneous perception, for a number of reasons. It is ignorance of how slabbing works and why people slab books.  It's not about "maximizing profits"...it's about greed from creators who don't understand the sum total of slabbing and what it entails.

Until that is addressed, these issues will continue to spiral out of control.

Baker: "what are you going to do with that loaf of bread?"

Buyer 1: "I'm going to eat it."

Baker: "Ok, $3. And what are YOU going to do with that loaf of bread?"

Buyer 2: "I'm going to use it in an art project that I then intend to sell. My last art project using leftover lasagna was a hit at MOMA, and I sold it for $2.5 million."

Store owner: "What?? You're making money off of MY bread? How DARE you?! $5,000!!"

It's as absurd here as it is there.

There are people posting who do not understand this issue, yet they post anyways. That's the way of things.

I don't like artist picking and choosing who gets charged for signatures based on if a book gets slabbed but I see your example another way.  If the artist kept coming back and asking for the blue bread that was only able to be baked in that one oven in the entire world and the artist used that blue bread to make art which sells for 10 million don't you think the baker would eventually wise up and start charging for the rare blue bread?  His regular bread is worthless to pretty much anyone except to eat so he keeps basically giving it away for free.  You can say the artists does all the work by making the art piece out of the blue bread but it comes down to the blue bread being rare and can't be gotten anywhere else and is necessary for the art work which gives it some additional value. 

Edited May 15, 2017 by 1Cool

[Logan510]

3 minutes ago, oakman29 said:

I wish someone would pay me for all the mistakes I've made.

No one wants your signature 

[RCheli]

Just now, oakman29 said:

I wish someone would pay me for all the mistakes I've made.

I'd be a millionaire...

But I'm also not someone who has a desirable signature. Starlin's request may seem unreasonable -- especially asking for the personal information of the customer -- but that could be explained to him to create a much better outcome. "I'm sorry, I can't directly give you their information, but I'll do one of two things. First, I'll try and contact them right now -- perhaps they're still here and I will call their number and they can stop on over. If they're no longer here, I will drop off the money later this afternoon and we will just be reimbursed. Sounds good?"

[revat]

I think there needs to be tighter rules, regs, oversight, and training on witnesses and facilitators now.  There's too many incidents that keep rubbing creators the wrong way, and there should definitely be some sort of campaign to inform them about the complete CGC process, and the customers, and the true value (and basis of value) for the books they sign.  I'm sure plenty of money has been made from CGC SS by CGC and from the people getting their books signed.  But I'm also sure that many MORE CGC SS books have not been sold and could not be sold for any substantive profit.  By their nature, items are more likely to be sold if profit can be generated, but how many sit on ebay forever or are sold at a loss, or sit as embarrassments or treasures in our personal collections.  I'm sure those numbers far outweigh the numbers being sold for profit.  And I would hope that this mischaracterization can be corrected before the whole program goes down.

[joeypost]

Mr. Starlin can do whatever he likes with his pricing, and who he chooses to do business with, its really that simple.  While unfortunate, it is usually the little things that tend to get people going, and in this case it was the straw that broke the camels back for a creator I was actively getting books together to get signed by. Lots of losers in this scenario.

[RockMyAmadeus]

On ‎5‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 9:09 AM, jcjames said:

I hear what you're saying and I don't necessarily disagree - call it greed, that's okay.

Call it an artist "maximizing profits" or trying to squeeze as much out of fans as he can get away with. That's okay too.

Differential charging of services based on customer is what the market now allows. If it gets out of hand, the market will correct and swing the other way. I don't think it will very much though. People used to be shocked when artists (or ball players wrt cards) started charging for signatures because the signers saw that THEY were helping create a secondary market, but getting nothing out of it themselves. I guess you can call it their "greed" that kicked in, that's fine, I can see what you're saying.

Artists' charging differential prices based on (partly erroneously you say) what they believe might happen to that item is where this market drove us now. It's all part of free-exchange of goods and services (even if some people are ignorant of the entire picture).

I agree that some believe that any SS is automatic $$, but sure there are losers that will happen - but our whole secondary-market is based on the assumption that, ON AVERAGE, the flipper (er, secondary seller) WILL make a profit in the long run. That's an accurate understanding of the SS data as a whole that's out there. That again is the market at work.

Yes I'm a bit peeved also that artists charge $X for unverified but $XX for verified, and yes, it may be in the artist's mind that I'm making money off of him so he should make more money off of me... right or wrong it may or may not always be the case. You can call it greed and that's fine. It's a distinction of semantics. But I agree there's misinformation about the "automatic" money made by simply slabbing a SS book. My big thing is that artists don't understand how much work and cost *I* put into getting that book protected, signed, verified and then MAYBE selling it for profit... which goes right back into the industry (and maybe his pocket again) as I reinvest it back into the hobby.

 

Either you don't really understand the mechanics of the SS market, or you don't understand the impact of those mechanics.

Allow me to explain: the vast majority of the value of any comic book, especially relative to other copies of the same issues, is in its condition. A 9.8 Spider-Man #252 is worth substantially more than a 9.0. Almost an order of magnitude more. The difference in actual physical condition between those two grades isn't what the difference in price might lead some to believe, but I digress.

The argument you're making would be completely valid...IF ANY signature ALWAYS added value, regardless of the condition of the underlying item.

It does not.

The vast majority of the value of a comic book is in its condition...not its signature.

If I get Marv Wolfman to sign a ratty copy of Tales of the Teen Titans #44, and I slab it, and it comes back a 6.5...guess what? His signature added NOTHING to that book. It's worth (since we're talking about "what the market allows"), doesn't even cover the cost to have the book both signed ($20) and slabbed ($30-$40.) The slab has a "market value" of maybe $20-$30.

If I get Marv Wolfman to sign what will be a 9.8 Tales of the Teen Titans #44, it is worth perhaps $250. In THAT case, yes, his signature AMPLIFIES value. But Marv Wolfman had nothing whatsoever to do with the preservation of THAT copy in THAT condition. But Marv Wolfman charges the same price for both books, regardless. He takes zero risk, and has zero cost, outside of the few seconds it takes him to sign, for which he is...per market value of his time and effort, mind you...WELL compensated. The submitter takes ALL the risk and bears all the cost. But the creators ERRONEOUSLY believe that their sig on ANYTHING, in ANY condition, is...as you yourself stated above..."adding value."

So, the creators want a "share" of the "profit" that they assume someone is making off of them, while sharing virtually none of the burden and risk to make that "profit" happen..?

And it is this misunderstanding that is driving this giant wedge into this niche of the industry, and it is this misunderstanding that needs to be explained before the entire program destroys itself.

And, if people want to continue to make the argument that people are "profiting" off of creators' signatures...where is the uproar over the publishers, the distributors, the printers, and the retailers...? They're making a profit off the creators' efforts, are they not? And for substantially more effort, I might add.

What I do with my property is no one's business but my own.  As others have stated, what a creator does with their signature is THEIR business...UNTIL they make it available to the public, either for free, or for a price. If they offer it for a price, it is now a transaction between interested parties. Sign, don't sign, charge, don't charge...but when you offer it to the public, it's no longer "no one else's business." You have made it available to the public, with all that that entails.

Can you imagine if you were buying a house, and you asked the owner what the condition of the foundation was, and you were told "that's none of your business"...? Now, can you imagine someone walking up to me off the street and asking me what my not-for-sale house's foundational condition is?

Again, these real-life examples need to be brought up to expose the absurdity of these illogical, irrational "arguments."

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by RockMyAmadeus

[Logan510]

25 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Either you don't really understand the mechanics of the SS market, or you don't understand the impact of those mechanics.

Allow me to explain: the vast majority of the value of any comic book, especially relative to other copies of the same issues, is in its condition. A 9.8 Spider-Man #252 is worth substantially more than a 9.0. Almost an order of magnitude more. The difference in actual physical condition between those two grades isn't what the difference in price might lead some to believe, but I digress.

The argument you're making would be completely valid...IF ANY signature ALWAYS added value, regardless of the condition of the underlying item.

It does not.

The vast majority of the value of a comic book is in its condition...not its signature.

If I get Marv Wolfman to sign a ratty copy of Tales of the Teen Titans #44, and I slab it, and it comes back a 6.5...guess what? His signature added NOTHING to that book. It's worth (since we're talking about "what the market allows"), doesn't even cover the cost to have the book both signed ($10) and slabbed ($30-$40.) The slab has a "market value" of maybe $20-$30.

If I get Marv Wolfman to sign what will be a 9.8 Tales of the Teen Titans #44, it is worth perhaps $250. In THAT case, yes, his signature AMPLIFIES value. But Marv Wolfman had nothing whatsoever to do with the preservation of THAT copy in THAT condition. But Marv Wolfman charges the same price for both books, regardless. He takes zero risk, and has zero cost, outside of the few seconds it takes him to sign, for which he is...per market value of his time and effort, mind you...WELL compensated. The submitter takes ALL the risk and bears all the cost. But the creators ERRONEOUSLY believe that their sig on ANYTHING, in ANY condition, is...as you yourself stated above..."adding value."

So, the creators want a "share" of the "profit" that they assume someone is making off of them, while sharing virtually none of the burden and risk to make that "profit" happen..?

And it is this misunderstanding that is driving this giant wedge into this niche of the industry, and it is this misunderstanding that needs to be explained before the entire program destroys itself.

And, if people want to continue to make the argument that people are "profiting" off of creators' signatures...where is the uproar over the publishers, the distributors, the printers, and the retailers...? They're making a profit off the creators' efforts, are they not? And for substantially more effort, I might add.

What I do with my property is no one's business but my own.  As others have erroneously stated, what a creator does with their signature is THEIR business...UNTIL they make it available to the public, either for free, or for a price. If they offer it for a price, it is now a transaction between interested parties. Sign, don't sign, charge, don't charge...but when you offer it to the public, it's no longer "no one else's business." You have made it available to the public, with all that entails.

Can you imagine if you were buying a house, and you asked the owner what the condition of the foundation was, and you were told "that's none of your business"...? Now, can you imagine someone walking up to me off the street and asking me what my not-for-sale house's foundational condition is?

Again, these real-life examples need to be brought up to expose the absurdity of these illogical, irrational "arguments."

 

I would pay money to see you explain all this to Starlin in person, just to see his reaction. 

[ADAMANTIUM]

8 minutes ago, Logan510 said:

I would pay money to see you explain all this to Starlin in person, just to see his reaction. 

He'd ask if you worked for CGC in the first 10 secs....