Prelim Cover prices/feelings 1 1

[MIL0S]

I love prelims and have a bunch in my collection from a variety of artists, they're typically dynamic and capture the creative spark and all for a fraction of the cost of the final piece so you get a lot of bang for your buck. 

Here's a Tim Sale sketchbook cover: 

An Aaron Lopresti Wonder Woman cover (vol 3 #23): 

A Jim Davis Garfield prelim: 

And a John Buscema Conan illustration that was an alternative layout for a European convention program cover: 

[BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES]

On 7/12/2023 at 7:53 AM, Bronty said:

It varies a ton.   Every prelim is different.   I’d say 2-20% with around 5% being the median?

I'd love to see the A-list prelim covers you are selling for 2-5%

 

[Twanj]

I love a good prelim too. And agreed, there's a wide range of prelims from rough/tight, pencils/inked, small sizes on tracing paper to full size. Now, sometimes the prelim is the only piece of art with original pencils.

 

[Grant Turner]

I have the prelim for the first appearance (birth page) of kid Loki 

I bought it for 15 euros.  Paid more for shipping than for it

(and I LOVE it)

[Xatari]

I personally think all of the Liefeld art marked as “prelim” from the 90s is gold. Most collectors don’t understand his process during this time. 

During the 90s Rob used pencils on very smaller thin paper format which he would then Xerox to enlarge. From here, either he or Marat Mychaels (most of the time) would ink over the enlarge facsimile. These smaller examples are the original pencils for the published pages.  

For more information straight from Rob's mouth about his process during this time check out the following Robservations podcasts at the specified time stamps. These are much more than "prelims". 

The Making of Deadpool part 2 - 46:30

The Making of Deadpool part 3 - 52:00; 1:09:00

[Andahaion]

I love that podcast!  Amps me up to read some funny books, baby.

[Unstoppablejayd]

Pre lims can be a lot of fun.. and a much more affordable way to collect an artist.. sometimes even more affordable than commissions. The issues with pricing prelims is they vary wildly not only quality  wise but size finish etc so to try to tag an arbitrary % to buying them is tough. Here are a couple pieces I recently picked up from Alan Davis.. a “rough” and a “prelim” they are both on letter size paper.. and cost (for both) maybe 5% of what the cover would cost and maybe 20% of a full figure pencil commission would cost: 

 

 

[The Voord]

Finished (unused) cover by Mike Mayhew for PULSE # 2 (later re-used as an interior pin-up), along with the prelims Mike included in this Ebay purchase of something like 15 years ago.

 

[The Voord]

Marshall Rogers color prelim cover for his 1986 graphic novel adaptation of Harlan Ellison's DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND . . . along with a scan of the published cover for comparison:

[BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES]

On 7/12/2023 at 3:46 PM, Twanj said:

I love a good prelim too. And agreed, there's a wide range of prelims from rough/tight, pencils/inked, small sizes on tracing paper to full size. Now, sometimes the prelim is the only piece of art with original pencils.

 

I read here that this sort of thing is worth 2% of the published version, but because I like this so much I will gladly pay you 3% of the published version value, which means you will make a cool 50% on your investment.  But act fast before I come to my senses.

Edited July 14, 2023 by BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES