Best time to sell -- before or after movie release? 2 2

[BCarter27]

Best time to sell -- before or after movie release?

Even with Wonder Woman's film release imminent, I haven't really noticed an uptick in A-level WW art being offered for sale. So I was wondering...

Hypothetically, let's say the Venom movie with Tom Hardy is on its way next year. (Oh wait, it is!) You have a $10K piece of related art. (I don't.) When do you sell? Before the movie to hedge against it being terrible? Immediately after the movie is released to middling reviews but before the hype wears down? Or just before the video release of the critically-acclaimed director's cut? Or maybe after it wins the Oscar for Best Picture?

[malvin]

Other than Guardians of the Galaxy, or other more obscure characters that suddenly gets thrust into the public consciousness, do movies really affect OA prices?

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman are so iconic and well known that I would be surprised if there was a material actual increase (actual sales, not people asking higher prices)

Malvin

[thethedew]

16 minutes ago, malvin said:

... or other more obscure characters that suddenly gets thrust into the public consciousness...

Roll on MICRONAUTS movies!

[SquareChaos]

I can't believe no one has mentioned NYX #3 yet... oh wait, I just did   

Other than that, I sort of feel like what @malvin is saying makes sense... so, based on that, I'd say hold until the movie is released, then if it's a big hit, list with a price bump and see if anyone bites.

[comix4fun]

31 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

I can't believe no one has mentioned NYX #3 yet... oh wait, I just did   

Other than that, I sort of feel like what @malvin is saying makes sense... so, based on that, I'd say hold until the movie is released, then if it's a big hit, list with a price bump and see if anyone bites.

Agreed. The Nyx thing. It's not just the character, it's the first appearance of the character. Those types of pieces have their own momentum.

With Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, WW, etc. If their first appearance cover art came to market you'd see enormous prices, obviously, that have little to do with movies other than the fact that they are giant globally licensed franchises front and center in the collective pop culture consciousness. 

The movie/tv bump is far more prevalent in comics than artwork. 

[Bronty]

55 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

Agreed. The Nyx thing. It's not just the character, it's the first appearance of the character. Those types of pieces have their own momentum.

With Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, WW, etc. If their first appearance cover art came to market you'd see enormous prices, obviously, that have little to do with movies other than the fact that they are giant globally licensed franchises front and center in the collective pop culture consciousness. 

The movie/tv bump is far more prevalent in comics than artwork. 

well the movie/tv thing really only affects first appearances.     I.e. if a $50 1st appearance gets a big movie and becomes a $500 1st appearance, the other appearances of the character probably haven't moved discernibly.

And with the art...

The cover for what was that $50 book has for sure gotten a nice bump when the book moves to $500.   

The pages to other appearances, not so much.

So....... I'd say its kinda the same?   In that the movie or tv bump is only going to affect the first appearance of the character.      1st appearance, book or art, will get a bump.      2nd and later appearances will get little to no bump for either the book or the art.

I know what you're trying to say, and the art bump may be more muted because they are already expensive, and trade less frequently making measurement difficult, but ultimately, I believe both segments behave the same way when it comes to 1st appearances.     Its just that the books are so much easier to find, and the bump so much easier to measure.

Edited May 26, 2017 by Bronty

[artdealer]

I've been selling comic art for over 40 years.

I've never seen an uptick in interest in art when ANY superhero movie opens.

Many people see the movie. Maybe .00005 of those movie goers know the art even exists. Maybe half of those people have the money to buy an original.

Maybe.

MI

[Bronty]

Well its definitely a recent thing.   But if you think there's zero movie bump to art, that's just not true IMO.    Take the Groot splash that sold on heritage for 8k a few years before the movie.   I'm sure you could add an extra zero when the movie came out.    How could it not when nice copies of the book itself started to fetch the 8k and more?

Again, I hear you guys when you say that its not as pronounced as in the books themselves, but for first appearances, and today, not 30 or even 5 years ago, I'd argue there's a bump.   But, even this discussion proves that its hard to measure because I have to think of examples and most of them center around Guardians and/or starlin.    

The other angle I suppose is that many of the pieces we'd be talking about... say the cover of TOS39, would already be so expensive that they'd get no discernible bump.   

Guardians makes for a nice set of examples because the books and art were worthless before the film.

Deadpool is an okay example too.    I don't know what the NM98 cover is worth now versus before the movie, but its gone up.    The seller can rightly point to 700m box office and show that this is the first appearance of a character that will have legs.

I suppose I'm saying it exists, and Mitch you're saying it effects so few pieces that why spend much time thinking about it; I can get both sides of that.

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by Bronty

[comicwiz]

Nothing moves as fast as comics, in terms of instantaneous price increases the second a ---script, character or movie announcement occurs. It's really like nothing I've seen in any other collecting category, with the rare exception of sports cards in the early 90's, and more recently, Star Wars merchandise from the time Disney acquired the franchise leading up to the release of The Force Awakens. And neither of these examples were anywhere close in comparison to comics when speaking about rapid increase in demand and asking prices that actually sell at those insane asking prices.

It's a long winded way of saying using comics as a comparison is setting the bar high.

With that out of the way, I think demand around comic art can be influenced by movies. I've definitely seen it with Star Wars comic art.

I've also seen art being marketed around upcoming movie releases, but whether the seller is getting that opportunistic asking price hike is another story.

Edited May 27, 2017 by comicwiz

[J.Sid]

1 hour ago, artdealer said:

 

Many people see the movie. Maybe .00005 of those movie goers know the art even exists. Maybe half of those people have the money to buy an original.

 

Can't disagree with any of these statements.

That being said, I can remember at least three collector friends who took a sudden interest in Watchmen originals during the movie hype period.

None of them bid enough to win a page, but prior to that none had cared enough to participate.

[RabidFerret]

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

Deadpool is an okay example too.    I don't know what the NM98 cover is worth now versus before the movie, but its gone up.    The seller can rightly point to 700m box office and show that this is the first appearance of a character that will have legs.

I actually tried this last year on the theory that the movie would help the art. I was wrong.

I had the opening DPS of NM98, a double page spread of Cable. It was one of the biggest Cable splashes Liefeld did in the series. Weak backgrounds and no huge guns and sadly no Deadpool, but still the only DPS in NM98.

Lesser Cable pages were selling for $2-3k for a page, a terrible DPS from XF1 sold for $9k, a decent Cable page from XF1 $4k.

I figured this piece being from NM98 would get a bump from the movie so I threw it into CL, timed to end after the movie opened. I figured this would go $4-10k+. CL agreed, even giving me an advance of $5k.

The movie came out, set crazy records, turned out to be really good, and even included an end credits scene where they say Cable will be in the sequel. How could you get a better situation than that??

The page sputtered and sold for $4k. Total faceplant. I had to send money back to CL.

Would a page with Deadpool on it have done better? Certainly. But given the timing and success of the movie, and the mention of Cable heading to the big screen, I would have thought a solid bump was likely.

Oops.

[SquareChaos]

46 minutes ago, RabidFerret said:

I actually tried this last year on the theory that the movie would help the art. I was wrong.

I had the opening DPS of NM98, a double page spread of Cable. It was one of the biggest Cable splashes Liefeld did in the series. Weak backgrounds and no huge guns and sadly no Deadpool, but still the only DPS in NM98.

Lesser Cable pages were selling for $2-3k for a page, a terrible DPS from XF1 sold for $9k, a decent Cable page from XF1 $4k.

I figured this piece being from NM98 would get a bump from the movie so I threw it into CL, timed to end after the movie opened. I figured this would go $4-10k+. CL agreed, even giving me an advance of $5k.

The movie came out, set crazy records, turned out to be really good, and even included an end credits scene where they say Cable will be in the sequel. How could you get a better situation than that??

The page sputtered and sold for $4k. Total faceplant. I had to send money back to CL.

Would a page with Deadpool on it have done better? Certainly. But given the timing and success of the movie, and the mention of Cable heading to the big screen, I would have thought a solid bump was likely.

Oops.

Considering the question at hand, if you could perform the experiment again after Cable actually appeared in a movie, I think that'd be interesting. Obviously you can't, but maybe whomever purchased it might have a similar idea.

[stinkininkin]

Interest and valuation in Starlin's Thanos, Drax and Gamora art sure seem to be spiking as they started being featured in the Marvel movies (Warlock soon to come).  Of course, I'm such huge fan of Starlin's cosmic creations that I think that this is all completely justified and that values are now becoming commensurate with the quality of the material.  But again, I'm biased.

Scott

Edited May 27, 2017 by stinkininkin

[Dick O.]

6 hours ago, BCarter27 said:

Hypothetically, let's say the Venom movie with Tom Hardy is on its way next year. (Oh wait, it is!) You have a $10K piece of related art. (I don't.) When do you sell? Before the movie to hedge against it being terrible? Immediately after the movie is released to middling reviews but before the hype wears down? Or just before the video release of the critically-acclaimed director's cut? Or maybe after it wins the Oscar for Best Picture?

After it wins the Oscar (but seriously, sell before the movie, preferably when cool set photos or trailers come out)

 

5 hours ago, malvin said:

Other than Guardians of the Galaxy, or other more obscure characters that suddenly gets thrust into the public consciousness, do movies really affect OA prices?

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman are so iconic and well known that I would be surprised if there was a material actual increase (actual sales, not people asking higher prices)

Malvin

Spot on.

 

3 hours ago, Bronty said:

So....... I'd say its kinda the same?   In that the movie or tv bump is only going to affect the first appearance of the character.      1st appearance, book or art, will get a bump.      2nd and later appearances will get little to no bump for either the book or the art.

In some instances, OA from 2nd & later appearances do get a bump too (see below reply).

 

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

Well its definitely a recent thing.   But if you think there's zero movie bump to art, that's just not true IMO.    Take the Groot splash that sold on heritage for 8k a few years before the movie.   I'm sure you could add an extra zero when the movie came out.    How could it not when nice copies of the book itself started to fetch the 8k and more?

Again, I hear you guys when you say that its not as pronounced as in the books themselves, but for first appearances, and today, not 30 or even 5 years ago, I'd argue there's a bump.   But, even this discussion proves that its hard to measure because I have to think of examples and most of them center around Guardians and/or starlin.

You can add in Thanos/Infinity-related, Star Wars, and select X-23 OA:

https://comicbookinvest.com/2017/03/17/market-report-march-2017-comiclink-featured-auction/

https://comicbookinvest.com/2017/03/31/market-report-cornette-de-saint-cyr-comicconnect-auctions-february-march-2017/

https://comicbookinvest.com/2017/04/21/market-report-ebay-and-pedigree-comics-auctions-march-april-2017/

 

29 minutes ago, RabidFerret said:

I actually tried this last year on the theory that the movie would help the art. I was wrong.

I had the opening DPS of NM98, a double page spread of Cable. It was one of the biggest Cable splashes Liefeld did in the series. Weak backgrounds and no huge guns and sadly no Deadpool, but still the only DPS in NM98.

Lesser Cable pages were selling for $2-3k for a page, a terrible DPS from XF1 sold for $9k, a decent Cable page from XF1 $4k.

I figured this piece being from NM98 would get a bump from the movie so I threw it into CL, timed to end after the movie opened. I figured this would go $4-10k+. CL agreed, even giving me an advance of $5k.

The movie came out, set crazy records, turned out to be really good, and even included an end credits scene where they say Cable will be in the sequel. How could you get a better situation than that??

The page sputtered and sold for $4k. Total faceplant. I had to send money back to CL.

Would a page with Deadpool on it have done better? Certainly. But given the timing and success of the movie, and the mention of Cable heading to the big screen, I would have thought a solid bump was likely.

Oops.

I regret not going harder after that piece, it was a steal at $4k!

 

[Dick O.]

9 minutes ago, stinkininkin said:

Interest and valuation in Starlin's Thanos, Drax and Gamora art sure seem to be spiking as they started being featured in the Marvel movies (Warlock soon to come).  Of course, I'm such huge fan of Starlin's cosmic creations that I think that this is all completely justified and that values are now becoming commensurate with the quality of the material.  But again, I'm biased.

Scott

Agreed

https://comicbookinvest.com/2017/04/28/artist-spotlight-jim-starlin/

 

[Flambit]

Totally agree about Starlin values skyrocketing; five or ten years ago, I can never really recall seeing this much Thanos, Groot, Drax (etc) at an auction, but now it's insane: the Drax IM 55 splash is sitting at $18.5 right now on clink with 10 days left.  First appearance and all, I get it, but still...  Granted, I have no real attachment to any of the characters, so I could be way off base as I've never really tracked those particular values.  But if I had a good Warlock cover that I didn't want, I'd probably put it up right before the upcoming film.  

But, the other thing I've seen make a huge jump is vintage Avengers material, since the release of the first Avengers film.  There was a recent Ron Wilson Avengers cover in the early 100s on Heritage I think, that went for, I thought, a great deal more money than I had anticipated.  I can't imagine what a prime 70s Perez Avengers cover would go for now, vs five or ten years ago, and I don't think that's just a case of rising values.   It seems like I can vaguely recall one being sold that had them all busting though though a wall recently, but I can't recall what it sold for...  But there's a Perez Avengers cover on the Most Comments section of caf right now that prominently features Wasp and Ant Man - if this was fresh to market and appeared on Heritage right before the Wasp/Ant-Man sequel film, I would imagine it might set a record for a certain vintage of Avengers covers (Wasp/Ant-Man/Avengers/movie momentum).  

The other nice thing about properties that get announced is it seems to bring all sorts of neat and unseen artwork out of the cracks.  Before the Iron Fist Netflix series, it seemed like there was a higher than usual amount of Iron Fist themed OA on the market.  Always great to see some of this stuff.  

[The Shoveler]

On 5/27/2017 at 0:28 AM, Flambit said:

I can't imagine what a prime 70s Perez Avengers cover would go for now, vs five or ten years ago, and I don't think that's just a case of rising values.   It seems like I can vaguely recall one being sold that had them all busting though though a wall recently, but I can't recall what it sold for...

Avengers #168 by George Pérez and Terry Austin sold for $59,750 on Heritage in the 17-19 November 2016 auction: https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/george-perez-and-terry-austin-avengers-168-cover-original-art-marvel-1978-/a/7141-93187.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515.  This cover is Henry Peter Gyrich's NYX #3 equivalent.

 

Is this the Ron Wilson cover you saw? https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/ron-wilson-and-john-romita-avengers-123-cover-original-art-marvel-1974-/ae/7147-92243.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515.  This #123 cover with Mantis sold for $35.8K in Aug 2015 and currently has a Buy-It-Now for $55K.

The cover to Avengers #118 also sold for big bucks ($65K?) on Heritage within the last few years.  That cover is full of Avengers, Defenders, Loki & Dormammu!  But alas, there is no Gyrich on it to justify the auction price.

[Kevin76]

Best time to sell?  Simple, when you are in retirement 

[Flambit]

1 hour ago, The Shoveler said:

Avengers #168 by George Pérez and Terry Austin sold for $59,750 on Heritage in the 17-19 November 2016 auction: https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/george-perez-and-terry-austin-avengers-168-cover-original-art-marvel-1978-/a/7141-93187.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515.  This cover is Henry Peter Gyrich's NYX #3 equivalent.

 

Is this the Ron Wilson cover you saw? https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/ron-wilson-and-john-romita-avengers-123-cover-original-art-marvel-1974-/ae/7147-92243.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515.  This #123 cover with Mantis sold for $35.8K in Aug 2015 and currently has a Buy-It-Now for $55K.

The cover to Avengers #118 also sold for big bucks ($65K?) on Heritage within the last few years.  That cover is full of Avengers, Defenders, Loki & Dormammu!  But alas, there is no Gyrich on it to justify the auction price.

It just seems like this is a huge spike; these pages are now next level pages.  And yes, most people want a Perez Avengers cover, but I would have placed it in the 40k range.  Even most Miller DD covers and most Byrne FF covers still hit around 40k (obviously there are exceptions to both).  But when the Ron Wilson cover is hitting at almost 36k, and that 118 is hitting at 65k (admittedly, by Romita) Avengers-movie mania is here for the duration, I think.  

But as an Prime Avenger, The low hammer price for that Cap 211 cover still perplexes me (I wasn't the seller btw). I blame fresh to market on this one for its low sales. But Kirby CA should be hot now!  Perhaps seller should have waited until closer to the first Avengers movie, or next year some time.  Also on Clink there was an amazing Romita CA cover a couple of years ago that had Panther and Falcon in pinup poses running across a rooftop - only 25k I believe.  And I think it was sold to coincide with Civil War, so it should have done as well as it possibly could!  I would have said 40k easy for that one.  If it wasn't for the couple of instances recently in 30-40k sales for Kirby Cap covers, I'd say maybe this is the time to invest in prime Cap material?  He doesn't have another movie coming out anytime soon, and he may not even survive the Avengers films, if rumors are true. 

[simplyrob]

Bill definitely knows the GOTG market.

 

I suppose I'm in somewhat of a similar situation with Invincible. I've seen 1 page sell on eBay since the film announcement, way more than it should've. I mean, we are at least 2 years away from anything on screen, the series ends in 6 months, by the time the movie comes out, maybe people will of forgotten all about Invincible.