Why comic OA is better than fine art 1 1

[bluechip]

3 hours ago, drdroom said:

All in all, I think the contemporary art world has an appropriate relationship to the geniuses of popular art, e.g. Kirby, Hitchcock, Kubrick, etc. Sometimes they do museum shows on such artists, but it's understood that these works were not made for the museum/gallery, nor to hang on collectors walls. A Kirby Demon page is not even a complete artwork, it's just a fraction of a larger story which became complete when it was printed in color. So it's appropriate that the fine art world has to do a bit of translation in the presentation.

Comic OA with iconic content will I think continue to gain interest and appreciation but will favor the pieces that make a good standalone presentation, especially covers, splashes, pinups and page that don't need explanation to know what is going on.   The OA community still relies to a certain extent on metrics that give less regard to one-glance experience and instead looks to a formula in which artist name, comic title, size of art, character inclusion, etc can determine a price without even a look at the art itself.   That could change over time. 

[bluechip]

11 minutes ago, bluechip said:

Good points.   I think Comic OA with iconic content will continue to gain interest and appreciation but will favor the pieces that make a good standalone presentation, especially covers, splashes, pinups and page that don't need explanation to know what is going on.   The OA community still relies to a certain extent on metrics that give less regard to one-glance experience and instead looks to a formula in which artist name, comic title, size of art, character inclusion, etc can determine a price without even a look at the art itself.  So you get pieces with similar valuations even though on is easy to "grok" in an instant, while the other has unappealing images and it's unclear what's going on from seeing only that page.  That could change over time if buyers outside the hardcore long term OA community begin apply more of the fine art aesthetic.    

 

Edited September 9, 2017 by bluechip

[BCarter27]

18 hours ago, bluechip said:

The OA community still relies to a certain extent on metrics that give less regard to one-glance experience and instead looks to a formula in which artist name, comic title, size of art, character inclusion, etc can determine a price without even a look at the art itself.

I know I've been guilty of this. "Box-checking" can get to be a bad habit.

[Pete Marino]

If comic art is going to continue to grow, I think it'll be the panel pages, the storytelling that will be the interesting part.

There are artists that can draw anything.  our hobby is not unique to that, IMO it's the storytelling, the panel pages, how they work together and combine pictures with words to tell a story.  Not saying splashes and covers won't have a premium, I just think that multiple is too high right now.

[drdroom]

3 hours ago, Pete Marino said:

If comic art is going to continue to grow, I think it'll be the panel pages, the storytelling that will be the interesting part.

There are artists that can draw anything.  our hobby is not unique to that, IMO it's the storytelling, the panel pages, how they work together and combine pictures with words to tell a story.  Not saying splashes and covers won't have a premium, I just think that multiple is too high right now.

Yeah, this is what I think. It's not that comic art should be valued by the standards of painting, but that it should be valued according to the artistic achievement embodied. This marketplace which measures everything according to it's distance from an ideal hero pin-up is theoretically immature. The comics medium is so much greater than that.

[bluechip]

3 hours ago, Pete Marino said:

If comic art is going to continue to grow, I think it'll be the panel pages, the storytelling that will be the interesting part.

There are artists that can draw anything.  our hobby is not unique to that, IMO it's the storytelling, the panel pages, how they work together and combine pictures with words to tell a story.  Not saying splashes and covers won't have a premium, I just think that multiple is too high right now.

I would agree that some panel pages are better than splash pages or even covers.   Especially the ones that happen to have a self-contained moment and function almost like a clip from a great movie scene.   Whereas some splash pages, especially Marvel's, can be like an expositional shot at the beginning of a movie, and therefore not as compelling as a high point in the story.   One example which comes to mind just because I saw it recently is ASM 68, which established the story but with a shot of Kingpin's back while he comments on a slide show.   I would much rather have any number of interior pages from the book.  

[bluechip]

4 hours ago, BCarter27 said:

I know I've been guilty of this. "Box-checking" can get to be a bad habit.

I think we all do it.   The prices got high so long before I got into OA that I found I had to look for attributes which didn't fit into any of the usual boxes.   If a piece had things going for it which seemed to be undervalued,. or even ignored because they didn't fit into an established box, then I might see it as underpriced and buy it.  Problem is that it may remain undervalued for the same reasons when you go to sell it.

[kav]

4 hours ago, bluechip said:

I would agree that some panel pages are better than splash pages or even covers.   Especially the ones that happen to have a self-contained moment and function almost like a clip from a great movie scene.   Whereas some splash pages, especially Marvel's, can be like an expositional shot at the beginning of a movie, and therefore not as compelling as a high point in the story.   One example which comes to mind just because I saw it recently is ASM 68, which established the story but with a shot of Kingpin's back while he comments on a slide show.   I would much rather have any number of interior pages from the book.  

I prefer pages to splashes.  Covers are another matter but I'd rather see a paneled page than a 'pin-up'.  I'm like a portfolio reviewer at conventions-NO PIN UPS.  Kirby is the exception-his splashes especially on stuff like Eternals is so jam packed and awe inspiring.

Edited September 11, 2017 by kav

[Bronty]

On 2017-09-10 at 9:39 AM, Pete Marino said:

If comic art is going to continue to grow, I think it'll be the panel pages, the storytelling that will be the interesting part.

There are artists that can draw anything.  our hobby is not unique to that, IMO it's the storytelling, the panel pages, how they work together and combine pictures with words to tell a story.  Not saying splashes and covers won't have a premium, I just think that multiple is too high right now.

 Cray cray talk IMO.   As was pointed out pages are incomplete works.   Asking someone to mentally judge the storytelling of the page in context of the rest of the story isn't going to happen.   I can see (and I think we have seen) key dialogue being prized, to your point, but a single panel page in a single story is rarely enough to demonstrate effective storytelling, and ultimately from a supply standpoint the panels are far more common.    

There is also the issue of subjectivity.   Part of the reason values fall back to check the box approaches is because the boxes are objective and verifiable.  Wolverine either has his claws out or he doesn't.   Batman either has his costume on, or he doesn't.   These points can't be argued.    Asking for valuations to start relying more heavily on subjective factors like effectiveness of storytelling is an unlikely trend IMO.   Image quality is a price factor and is subjective, but you can't get away from that one and frankly it gets trumped all the time by the more pedestrian considerations like Batmans cape.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Bronty

[SquareChaos]

9 minutes ago, Bronty said:

 Cray cray talk IMO.   As was pointed out pages are incomplete works.   Asking someone to mentally judge the storytelling of the page in context of the rest of the story isn't going to happen.   I can see (and I think we have seen) key dialogue being prized, to your point, but a single panel page in a single story is rarely enough to demonstrate effective storytelling, and ultimately from a supply standpoint the panels are far more common.    

I basically agree... I primarily collect panel pages due to a mix of aesthetic preference and economic value. The mark up on most covers is simply not worth the expense to me... but I still find it difficult to consider that the hobby's focus may shift from splashes and covers to panel pages in a post-dialogue-on-the-page era. 

[kav]

You absolutely can tell storytelling ability from single pages.  That's pretty much what they want to see in portfolio reviews when they hire artists.  They want to see: an action page.  a team page.  A quiet page.  2 examples of each usually.

Edited September 13, 2017 by kav

[SquareChaos]

I don't think anyone would dispute that a well rounded artist is more desirable than the alternative when actually reading a comic book. That doesn't really change what @Bronty said.

For what it is worth, I agree with him, but I also do not disagree when @Pete Marino states that the multiple for covers and splashes seems high.

[Pete Marino]

3 hours ago, Bronty said:

 Cray cray talk IMO.   As was pointed out pages are incomplete works.   Asking someone to mentally judge the storytelling of the page in context of the rest of the story isn't going to happen.   I can see (and I think we have seen) key dialogue being prized, to your point, but a single panel page in a single story is rarely enough to demonstrate effective storytelling, and ultimately from a supply standpoint the panels are far more common.    

There is also the issue of subjectivity.   Part of the reason values fall back to check the box approaches is because the boxes are objective and verifiable.  Wolverine either has his claws out or he doesn't.   Batman either has his costume on, or he doesn't.   These points can't be argued.    Asking for valuations to start relying more heavily on subjective factors like effectiveness of storytelling is an unlikely trend IMO.   Image quality is a price factor and is subjective, but you can't get away from that one and frankly it gets trumped all the time by the more pedestrian considerations like Batmans cape.

Bronty, you can't tell a good panel page from a bad one?

I find that hard to believe.

There are plenty of pages that have good storytelling, good panel design that leads the eye from one frame to another, and still can have impressive large images.

And some of them will even have Batman and his Cape.  I'd venture to guess even today, a good / well designed panel page with great content gets a premium.

[kav]

[kav]

[Bronty]

@Pete Marino if you mean that a page with better storytelling will get a bump over a page that is otherwise equivalent but has lesser storytelling, I can understand that, but I'd say it's a small consideration overall.    The market is more into Liefelds than Eisners if you know what I mean and while what is prized today won't be what is prized tomorrow, if anything I see the storyline mattering less and less if we get past the era of those that grew up with the story.   

[Bronty]

3 hours ago, kav said:

You absolutely can tell storytelling ability from single pages.  That's pretty much what they want to see in portfolio reviews when they hire artists.  They want to see: an action page.  a team page.  A quiet page.  2 examples of each usually.

Talent scouts from Marvel yes.   Original art buyers, no, or not to the same extent, and that's if they care in the first place. 

[kav]

14 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Talent scouts from Marvel yes.   Original art buyers, no, or not to the same extent, and that's if they care in the first place. 

I'm an OA buyer and I have no interest in splash pages.  But yes overall you are correct-most collectors love em.

[SquareChaos]

41 minutes ago, kav said:

I'm an OA buyer and I have no interest in splash pages.  But yes overall you are correct-most collectors love em.

I have bought covers and splashes, but in general... same boat. I like the sequential part of sequential art when all of the pieces are fitting together just right. If this hobby wasn't so damn expensive, I may never have had to buckle down and really determine what it is about the medium that I like most - I'd just buy any damn thing that caught my eye. So I guess there is that silver lining.

[kav]

I do however have one splash page.  Its a Mahnke GL splash it was just amazing so I had to have it.