Confessions of a Newbie Collector 1 1

[Skizz]

8 hours ago, bisquitodoom said:

Really cool that you were able to find the published book!

Yeah, that was cool. The shop owner gave me a certificate of authenticity which said the name of the magazine. I punched it in eBay and there it was for fairly cheap. 

[Garf]

Interesting thread. I haven't been very active in the hobby for a few months due to work, holiday, etc ... I would have otherwise commented earlier. I too am a bit of a Moore fanboy who made the transition to OA, can't say that I appreciate the competition

( http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1347515 )

Congrats on getting your Moebius piece. That's really cool.

If you want to connect with other OA collectors on the UK scene then Facebook has a nice invite only group if you haven't happened across it already. It's a bit like this place but with more of a bias towards conventions rather than auctions... shoot me a PM and I can invite you. Just expect the running "Alan Moore? Never heard of him." joke from the Marvel fanboys.

 

 

[Skizz]

On 31 August 2017 at 3:28 PM, Garf said:

Interesting thread. I haven't been very active in the hobby for a few months due to work, holiday, etc ... I would have otherwise commented earlier. I too am a bit of a Moore fanboy who made the transition to OA, can't say that I appreciate the competition

( http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1347515 )

Congrats on getting your Moebius piece. That's really cool.

If you want to connect with other OA collectors on the UK scene then Facebook has a nice invite only group if you haven't happened across it already. It's a bit like this place but with more of a bias towards conventions rather than auctions... shoot me a PM and I can invite you. Just expect the running "Alan Moore? Never heard of him." joke from the Marvel fanboys.

 

 

Thanks mate. Sent you a PM.

Regarding competing for Moore written pages, I feel like Moore has been so prolific, there's plenty to go around for all of us.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Skizz

[Skizz]

I'm not really a 'covers' guy.  Even less so for modern covers, that generally tend to be just characters posing for the camera without giving any sense of the story. 

But everyone else seems to be into them. And a part of me wanted to see what the fuss was about. But I didn't want to break the bank doing it.  

This is a cover re-creation of a 90s X-Men give-away comic, done by the original inker that popped up on eBay. It looks like the inker printed a blue line copy of the original and quickly inked it.  The logo and caption are printed, but everything else is original inks.

It was available for the price of a mid level restaurant meal and I do have a certain amount of nostalgia for 90s X-Men. So I got it in order to satiate my desire for a cover.  It's cool for what I paid it, but my overall feeling is, well ... "meh". I think I'll probably stick to panel pages in the future. 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Skizz

[Skizz]

No comic art today. Just posting to express my sadness at the passing away of Len Wein.  The focus of my comic art collecting is Alan Moore and X-Men/Wolverine. And Len Wein had a big part in both.  

[Skizz]

This is a page from #0 of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory, illustrated by J.H. Williams III.  

I love J H William's sense of design and how he can change his style so drastically to suit the project.  And I absolutely love the art in this Western style page that almost looks like something out of Blueberry by Jean Giraud (Moebius).  

But it also sets off my OCD bells something fierce, because it doesn't quite fit neatly into my collection. The primary focus of my collection is art from Alan Moore books, followed by 90s X-Men and finally art from masters like Moebius, Eisner, Kirby etc (although I don't actually have anything from the latter two ... yet). But this page doesn't quite fit anywhere.

But, I do love the art and it is from a book written by the other British heavyweight writer ... Grant Morrison. So there's that. 

Edited September 17, 2017 by Skizz

[Will_K]

7 hours ago, Skizz said:

This is a page from #0 of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory, illustrated by J.H. Williams III. 

:

But it also sets off my OCD bells something fierce, because it doesn't quite fit neatly into my collection. The primary focus of my collection is art from Alan Moore books, followed by 90s X-Men and finally art from masters like Moebius, Eisner, Kirby etc (although I don't actually have anything from the latter two ... yet). But this page doesn't quite fit anywhere.

:

But, I do love art and it is from a book written by the other British heavyweight writer ... Grant Morrison. So there's that. 

So you're basically saying... you're almost on the edge of the slippery slope that is collecting original comic art.

How's the view??  Watch out, the first step is a doozy.

 

[Skizz]

4 hours ago, Will_K said:

So you're basically saying... you're almost on the edge of the slippery slope that is collecting original comic art.

How's the view??  Watch out, the first step is a doozy.

 

Yeah, yeah, yup. I'm slipping all right. And the view is ... expensive.

This is me trying to work out how I can afford the next piece. 

[vodou]

2 hours ago, Skizz said:

Yeah, yeah, yup. I'm slipping all right. And the view is ... expensive.

This is me trying to work out how I can afford the next piece. 

Having little to budget toward comic art is actually a good thing. The only difference between collecting comic art and having an all-consuming drug addiction is: you won't beg, borrow, steal (,kill?) from anybody and everybody you bump into to get your next original. Bunch of somebodys are now going to pile on now and say they or they have collecting friends that would, but no not really. So tight budget is a big limiting factor and the more limitation the better. A few special pieces that you spent months budgeting for (and also spending that time picking just the right piece for the money) far beats dropping 65% of your after-tax in every month on whichever auction house is up next, accumulating a mish-mash of whatevers just to feed that gnawing black hole at the center of your being. I wish I was broke.

[SquareChaos]

10 hours ago, Skizz said:

Yeah, yeah, yup. I'm slipping all right. And the view is ... expensive.

This is me trying to work out how I can afford the next piece. 

Acquisitions really slowed down for me a few years into collecting. Though it does sound like you've already found your focus, and if it is wide enough, I could see that being a problem if you're not exceedingly flush!

[Skizz]

On 15 September 2017 at 10:50 AM, vodou said:

Having little to budget toward comic art is actually a good thing. The only difference between collecting comic art and having an all-consuming drug addiction is: you won't beg, borrow, steal (,kill?) from anybody and everybody you bump into to get your next original. Bunch of somebodys are now going to pile on now and say they or they have collecting friends that would, but no not really. So tight budget is a big limiting factor and the more limitation the better. A few special pieces that you spent months budgeting for (and also spending that time picking just the right piece for the money) far beats dropping 65% of your after-tax in every month on whichever auction house is up next, accumulating a mish-mash of whatevers just to feed that gnawing black hole at the center of your being. I wish I was broke.

I did have a budget when I started some five months ago. At the time it seemed like such a large sum of money (at least by my standards) that I would never spend on luxury items or hobbies. But I burned through that pretty quickly and now it's basically what you describe - trying the use a portion of the monthly income towards the hobby. It's rather challenging, but I have to say that trying to work out the jigsaw puzzle of what and how I can afford and choosing just the right piece without neglecting any real life expenses is quite fun as well.  In fact, I feel like the challenge makes me appreciate every piece that I do buy.

So far nothing I have purchased has been over $1,000. I am however gearing up towards purchasing something special and expensive, and for that I'd have to stop any new purchases for the next few months and save up.

On 15 September 2017 at 6:33 PM, SquareChaos said:

Acquisitions really slowed down for me a few years into collecting. Though it does sound like you've already found your focus, and if it is wide enough, I could see that being a problem if you're not exceedingly flush!

Yeah, I have to say that having a focus does help mitigate too many haphazard or impulsive purchases. 

Edited September 17, 2017 by Skizz

[PunisherPunisherPunisher]

Unbreakable 2 is getting made

[Skizz]

21 minutes ago, PunisherPunisherPunisher said:

Unbreakable 2 is getting made

Yeah, so pumped about that.

By the way, anyone who is fan of Unbreakable (or of the early M. Night movies) needs to watch Split. I'll say no more lest I go into spoilers. 

Edited September 17, 2017 by Skizz

[Skizz]

So I overstretched myself with all my art purchases over the last few month and had to put the piece below on eBay for sale to recover. 

But being based in UK, after adding international postage, customs duty, PayPal/eBay charges to the cost price, the asking BIN amount became so high that it just sat on eBay for a few weeks without selling. 

And a good thing too because I was able to sell some comics in this time and, thankfully, didn't have to sell the land. 

I have to say, it was really difficult having to pick a page to sell.  But it did make me take a good look at my (still small) collection and appreciate which pieces are more meaningful to me and why.

http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1431790 

[Skizz]

This is my first purchase from someone on this site. It was very easy dealing with the seller.  His price was fair, communication prompt and item was packaged very well. 

In fact, it was packed so well that when I opened it, I couldn't find the page and freaked out. So I sent the seller a message and, naturally, he freaked out as well. Turns out the page was sandwiched between a number of styrofoam and wooden boards, and I was looking between the wrong boards. 

I've apologised to the seller in private, but do so here again and thank him for letting me add this to my slowly but growing collection.

In any case, here is a page from Top Ten: 49ers by Gene Ha and written by Alan Moore.

My CAF

Edited December 17, 2017 by Skizz

[bisquitodoom]

Congratulations!  That's a really nice page!  Gene Ha's work is always so intricate and great to look at. 

[GotSuperPowers?]

2 hours ago, Skizz said:

This is my first purchase from someone on this site. It was very easy dealing with the seller.  His price was fair, communication prompt and item was packaged very well. 

In fact, it was packed so well that when I opened it, I couldn't find the page and freaked out. So I sent the seller a message and, naturally, he freaked out as well. Turns out the page was sandwiched between a number of styrofoam and wooden boards, and I was looking between the wrong boards. 

I've apologised to the seller in private, but do so here again and thank him for letting me add this to my slowly but growing collection.

In any case, here is a page from Top Ten: 49ers by Gene Ha and written by Alan Moore.

My CAF

Yeah, part of the added pain of the "art isn't here" message was me JUST posting about the Keown Hulk page arriving with me after someone sent me an empty package...

Glad it did make it safe and sound!

Simon

[Will_K]

That's a great page.  Gene Ha should be a superstar comics artist.  Not sure why not.  Great detailed art.  Every line means something.  Love the fish eye lense drawing the the bottom panel.

 

 

[Skizz]

14 hours ago, Will_K said:

That's a great page.  Gene Ha should be a superstar comics artist.  Not sure why not.  Great detailed art.  Every line means something.  Love the fish eye lense drawing the the bottom panel.

 

 

Yeah, baffles me too that he is not. In fact, I can't think of any major work of his outside of the Top Ten series.

 

20 hours ago, bisquitodoom said:

Congratulations!  That's a really nice page!  Gene Ha's work is always so intricate and great to look at. 

Thanks, means a lot especially given your own collection. I was fortunate Simon agreed to sell it to me. 

[Skizz]

I was able to get a page from one of my favourite issues of Tom Strong, ‘Memories of Pangaea’.

Although, it went for a fairly reasonable price in the eBay auction, emotions took over in the final moment and I bid way way way over (like 7x over) the final hammer price as my max.

If there had been an underbidder who was anywhere near as crazy as I had been, I would have had to pay through the nose for this page.

http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1451076 

Edited February 6, 2018 by Skizz