B level art 1 1

[delekkerste]

1 hour ago, Panelfan1 said:

I think what you say is fair if A, B etc.. is across all artists and titles.. but within a character or single artist - perhaps there can be another measure?

 

Also - would it be fair to say while there are few As, there are way more Bs etc..

Within the character (Cap), this page is still a C. Maybe even a D because we no longer have to consider things like no-name artists on no-name characters, as all the art is Cap. 

As for within the artist's oeuvre...i think the term A-level becomes pretty meaningless when you're talking about any artist who is not at least a B-lister, with the exception of one-off type pages that are important/valuable in spite of who drew it. 

I would also agree that there are far, far, far fewer A pieces than most people think. It is not the case that A refers to the top quartile, B the second quartile, C the third quartile and D the fourth/bottom quartile. There is far, far, far, far, far, far, far more B art than A art.

Secret Wars 1 is an A+ piece. Secret Wars 8 is an A piece (even though I personally don't care for it). 

 

[ESeffinga]

The entire conversation rests on where the goalposts are placed, and who is placing them. That is no doubt.
And comparing an artist's work against his or her oeuvre is pretty self-explanatory. Every individual has their own internal ranking, and average enough together and certain preference patterns will emerge.

What is a more interesting mental exercise to me personally, is when we do start to look at those un-like comparisons at a strictly dollar for dollar level. I was just reading though some of the ongoing threads here on the boards, and pulling these two completely different comps together, I'm struck by how conflicted it makes me feel.

I am thinking of the recent Killing Joke 1 page, and the recent Frazetta painting sale. Some proffering that the KJ page is a B (or even C), and many feel similarly about the Frazetta piece. I know that examining these individually myself, neither does a whole lot for me, so irregardless of their prices, I'd never be actively chasing either one. Which leaves me feeling at least somewhat objective in looking at where they do really stand if I was comparing these apples and oranges as if they were obtainable.

They are from completely different disciplines, with completely different goals. They are also both works created when many feel they were in their "prime" years. The Frazetta is "complete" in that it doesn't require any before and after, to know what it is. It's light, for a Frazetta. There's danger, but the palette is almost pretty and reminiscent of Frank's lighter whimsical watercolor pieces. The piece is more about a tenseness and suspense, rather than the explosion of action that so many other pieces of Frazettas have. These could all be seen or pros or cons, depending on the viewer.

While I may not be a huge fan of this particular Frazetta, I can't help but find myself being surprised that the KJ piece even within 1/6 the value.

Killing Joke IS a seminal work. Moore and Bolland at their finest. And yet, this exact page feels to me, like a consolation prize.
Would a truly stellar page from KJ feel worth more than the Frazetta to me? Absolutely. I'd take a top-tier KJ page over the Mid-Tier Frazetta any day. But this ain't that.

To me, the Batman arrival page is total setup. And not even important setup, or exposition, or anything narratively crucial to the book. On the art side, you get some rain, a couple non-dynamic Batmobile partials, Batman limb, a small Batman Silo Batman from the back, and then 2 decent shots of Gordon and an officer with bits of Batman in the corners. It's VERY solid storytelling, and beatifully rendered but it's wholly unremarkable. The most remarkable thing about it is what it is a part of. The remarkable stuff is ALL on the other pages of the book though.

And then I think of the other thread, and how upon seeing all the thumbnails of the pages laid out before me, I said I felt like I'd take any page from about half or more of the book, than this one. Looking back on it now, I'd probably take more than 3/4 of the book over P1.

So I look at the KJ page end price, and I look at the Frazetta one, and it's a little scary to me how close the P1 KJ gets to the Frazetta.

We all know all this stuff is relative and subjective, but as I said in the other thread, it's a little freaky how quickly these "nostalgia" driven prices are rising.

And if you don't like the Frazetta comparison, I seem to recall someone said that a really good KJ page could set you back $500-600K. I'd trade 6 copies of P. 1 for the great pages all day long and twice on Sunday, if that comparison makes more sense to folks. The idea that it would only take 6 p.1 quality pages to have a great piece seems like a deal to me.

But then looking at what P1 costs, what a Great page costs, I come back to reality. How did we get to these figures in the first place? By rationalizations like mine.

It's nuts!
I'm nuts.

 

-e.

Edited August 13, 2018 by ESeffinga
Typos galore!

[Panelfan1]

2 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

The entire conversation rests on where the goalposts are placed, and who is placing them. That is no doubt.
And comparing an artist's work against his or her oeuvre is pretty self-explanatory. Every individual has their own internal ranking, and average enough together and certain preference patterns will emerge.

What is a more interesting mental exercise to me personally, is when we do start to look at those un-like comparisons at a strictly dollar for dollar level. I was just reading though some of the ongoing threads here on the boards, and pulling these two completely different comps together, I'm struck by how conflicted it makes me feel.

I am thinking of the recent Killing Joke 1 page, and the recent Frazetta painting sale. Some proffering that the KJ page is a B (or even C), and many feel similarly about the Frazetta piece. I know that examining these individually myself, neither does a whole lot for me, so irregardless of their prices, I'd never be actively chasing either one. Which leaves me feeling at least somewhat objective in looking at where they do really stand if I was comparing these apples and oranges as if they were obtainable.

They are from completely different disciplines, with completely different goals. They are also both works created when many feel they were in their "prime" years. The Frazetta is "complete" in that it doesn't require any before and after, to know what it is. It's light, for a Frazetta. There's danger, but the palette is almost pretty and reminiscent of Frank's lighter whimsical watercolor pieces. The piece is more about a tenseness and suspense, rather than the explosion of action that so many other pieces of Frazettas have. These could all be seen or pros or cons, depending on the viewer.

While I may not be a huge fan of this particular Frazetta, I can't help but find myself being surprised that the KJ piece even within 1/6 the value.

Killing Joke IS a seminal work. Moore and Bolland at their finest. And yet, this exact page feels to me, like a consolation prize.
Would a truly stellar page from KJ feel worth more than the Frazetta to me? Absolutely. I'd take a top-tier KJ page over the Mid-Tier Frazetta any day. But this ain't that.

To me, the Batman arrival page is total setup. And not even important setup, or exposition, or anything narratively crucial to the book. On the art side, you get some rain, a couple non-dynamic Batmobile partials, Batman limb, a small Batman Silo Batman from the back, and then 2 decent shots of Gordon and an officer with bits of Batman in the corners. It's VERY solid storytelling, and beatifully rendered but it's wholly unremarkable. The most remarkable thing about it is what it is a part of. The remarkable stuff is ALL on the other pages of the book though.

And then I think of the other thread, and how upon seeing all the thumbnails of the pages laid out before me, I said I felt like I'd take any page from about half or more of the book, than this one. Looking back on it now, I'd probably take more than 3/4 of the book over P1.

So I look at the KJ page end price, and I look at the Frazetta one, and it's a little scary to me how close the P1 KJ gets to the Frazetta.

We all know all this stuff is relative and subjective, but as I said in the other thread, it's a little freaky how quickly these "nostalgia" driven prices are rising.

And if you don't like the Frazetta comparison, I seem to recall someone said that a really good KJ page could set you back $500-600K. I'd trade 6 copies of P. 1 for the great pages all day long and twice on Sunday, if that comparison makes more sense to folks. The idea that it would only take 6 p.1 quality pages to have a great piece seems like a deal to me.

But then looking at what P1 costs, what a Great page costs, I come back to reality. How did we get to these figures in the first place? By rationalizations like mine.

It's nuts!
I'm nuts.

 

-e.

And there's the rub.

[Pete Marino]

3 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

The entire conversation rests on where the goalposts are placed, and who is placing them. That is no doubt.
And comparing an artist's work against his or her oeuvre is pretty self-explanatory. Every individual has their own internal ranking, and average enough together and certain preference patterns will emerge.

What is a more interesting mental exercise to me personally, is when we do start to look at those un-like comparisons at a strictly dollar for dollar level. I was just reading though some of the ongoing threads here on the boards, and pulling these two completely different comps together, I'm struck by how conflicted it makes me feel.

I am thinking of the recent Killing Joke 1 page, and the recent Frazetta painting sale. Some proffering that the KJ page is a B (or even C), and many feel similarly about the Frazetta piece. I know that examining these individually myself, neither does a whole lot for me, so irregardless of their prices, I'd never be actively chasing either one. Which leaves me feeling at least somewhat objective in looking at where they do really stand if I was comparing these apples and oranges as if they were obtainable.

They are from completely different disciplines, with completely different goals. They are also both works created when many feel they were in their "prime" years. The Frazetta is "complete" in that it doesn't require any before and after, to know what it is. It's light, for a Frazetta. There's danger, but the palette is almost pretty and reminiscent of Frank's lighter whimsical watercolor pieces. The piece is more about a tenseness and suspense, rather than the explosion of action that so many other pieces of Frazettas have. These could all be seen or pros or cons, depending on the viewer.

While I may not be a huge fan of this particular Frazetta, I can't help but find myself being surprised that the KJ piece even within 1/6 the value.

Killing Joke IS a seminal work. Moore and Bolland at their finest. And yet, this exact page feels to me, like a consolation prize.
Would a truly stellar page from KJ feel worth more than the Frazetta to me? Absolutely. I'd take a top-tier KJ page over the Mid-Tier Frazetta any day. But this ain't that.

To me, the Batman arrival page is total setup. And not even important setup, or exposition, or anything narratively crucial to the book. On the art side, you get some rain, a couple non-dynamic Batmobile partials, Batman limb, a small Batman Silo Batman from the back, and then 2 decent shots of Gordon and an officer with bits of Batman in the corners. It's VERY solid storytelling, and beatifully rendered but it's wholly unremarkable. The most remarkable thing about it is what it is a part of. The remarkable stuff is ALL on the other pages of the book though.

And then I think of the other thread, and how upon seeing all the thumbnails of the pages laid out before me, I said I felt like I'd take any page from about half or more of the book, than this one. Looking back on it now, I'd probably take more than 3/4 of the book over P1.

So I look at the KJ page end price, and I look at the Frazetta one, and it's a little scary to me how close the P1 KJ gets to the Frazetta.

We all know all this stuff is relative and subjective, but as I said in the other thread, it's a little freaky how quickly these "nostalgia" driven prices are rising.

And if you don't like the Frazetta comparison, I seem to recall someone said that a really good KJ page could set you back $500-600K. I'd trade 6 copies of P. 1 for the great pages all day long and twice on Sunday, if that comparison makes more sense to folks. The idea that it would only take 6 p.1 quality pages to have a great piece seems like a deal to me.

But then looking at what P1 costs, what a Great page costs, I come back to reality. How did we get to these figures in the first place? By rationalizations like mine.

It's nuts!
I'm nuts.

 

-e.

I think the hobby is so big that i think you need to have categories.  I think there's a discussion to be had about the "A" level, best of breed comic art overall.  But once you get to "B" and "C" level stuff you need to start going into sub categories.

"A" / "B" / "C" list for Alan Moore 80's books, Indy boom books, 90's Xtreme, Bronze age superhero, Romance, early vertigo... ect.

Once we start to chunk up into sub categories i think we can have meaningful discussions.

[delekkerste]

On 8/9/2018 at 5:17 PM, J.Sid said:

....a good start. So where does the KJp1 fall on this scale? Give it a C? D? (there are a lot of great pages in that book, and there's a big drop-off between those and the P1 IMO)

I don't think there are D pages in the book.  Even the shrimp pages are desirable to some extent (call those the C pages).  There are a handful of A pages, most of the rest of the book is B (including page 1), and then there are a few pages that would be a C.  

B pages from this book are more desirable than most As out there of anything else.  Not that I think $120K for that page makes sense.  

[PhilipB2k17]

12 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Within the character (Cap), this page is still a C. Maybe even a D because we no longer have to consider things like no-name artists on no-name characters, as all the art is Cap. 

As for within the artist's oeuvre...i think the term A-level becomes pretty meaningless when you're talking about any artist who is not at least a B-lister, with the exception of one-off type pages that are important/valuable in spite of who drew it. 

I would also agree that there are far, far, far fewer A pieces than most people think. It is not the case that A refers to the top quartile, B the second quartile, C the third quartile and D the fourth/bottom quartile. There is far, far, far, far, far, far, far more B art than A art.

Secret Wars 1 is an A+ piece. Secret Wars 8 is an A piece (even though I personally don't care for it). 

 

I look at the rankings like a Pyramid. With A stuff being at the tip.

But, I think that Arvell Jones page is a good conversation piece for this thread, because it gets to the heart of how you define this material. Just from a purely objective standpoint, that Cap page is great. It has everything anyone would want in that kind of a page. It's got self-contained dialogue that does not need to be explained. It has a big Cap image of him punching the Red Skull (his arch nemesis) in a mirror image of his Hitler punch from the cover of Cap Comics #1, and some additional fight panels pages. It's well-rendered, and actually is pretty dynamic. If this was Zeck, or even Sal Buscema (not even listing Kirby here) it would be at least a low 4 figure page, no question in my mind. 

This would be true regardless of the storyline or title. 

Now, on the positive side it's from the mainline Captain America title, albeit from an Annual.  On the negative, it's by Arvell Jones, who is admittedly no better than a C list artist in the hobby (although he does have some fans). But, I actually think this is among some of his best stuff (and I've seen qute a bit of it because he does a lot of the conventions in Michigan).  But, regardless it's really good -- for Arvell.

On the positive: It has word balloons, and is pretty clean as far as the art goes. (I've seen the OA). It looks really nice in person. A Cap OA collector might see this as a really great example that they could hang on the wall.

Now, it's not "A" art, which I freely admit. It may not even be A art for Arvell (which is limited to probably his early Misty Knight pages). But it's definitely high B level - for him. 

I think it's fair to say that this is an overall C level Cap page, but only because it's Arvell. If this were Zeck, or Sal, then it would be a solid B, IMHO. 

All that said, I still didn't buy it because the asking price was too high (in my mind). I have no doubt that heavy hitters like Gene (understandably) don't think this page rates. Gene is collecting Dave Stevens covers, and the like, so his standards for what constitutes A level and B level are at a different stratosphere from the ham and eggers like me. A Killing Joke page - ANY killing joke page - is an "A" page to us, because it's way out of our league. Now, in the hobby as a whole, maybe that's not true. But it depends upon where you sit.

In any case, that's just my two cents. Your mileage at vary. 

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by PhilipB2k17

[Panelfan1]

55 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

B pages from this book are more desirable than most As out there of anything else.  Not that I think $120K for that page makes sense.  

No intention to start a fight with fans of this page - as it's purely  personal opinion/taste . This is my take on the KJ page.

I think when you say desirable- but not worth the 120k - that is to say - for most collectors - even if the funds were available - the 120 could be better spent on other art (multiple pieces perhaps) that have more meat on the bone.  I understand that this is by a key artist and a key book - but it's (for my personal enjoyment taste) very undesirable because of the page content.  As an example - my favorite comic is Groo  If this were a groo page - priced in line with other Groo pages - I wouldn't buy it - as it's not a good example of that series.  Likewise I don't understand the desire to own any example from a book regardless of content- just to own a piece of it.  If you are a collector who buys any art simply as an example to add to your collection, feel free to chime in and give us insight into what drives this. 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Panelfan1

[PhilipB2k17]

19 hours ago, Panelfan1 said:

No intention to start a fight with fans of this page - as it's purely  personal opinion/taste . This is my take on the KJ page.

I think when you say desirable- but not worth the 120k - that is to say - for most collectors - even if the funds were available - the 120 could be better spent on other art (multiple pieces perhaps) that have more meat on the bone.  I understand that this is by a key artist and a key book - but it's (for my personal enjoyment taste) very undesirable because of the page content.  As an example - my favorite comic is Groo  If this were a groo page - priced in line with other Groo pages - I wouldn't buy it - as it's not a good example of that series.  Likewise I don't understand the desire to own any example from a book regardless of content- just to own a piece of it.  If you are a collector who buys any art simply as an example to add to your collection, feel free to chime in and give us invite into what drives this. 

LOL! And here comes panelfan undermining the logic of my previous post. 

I personally think any KJ page is an "A" page. Now, are there KJ pages that are better than others? Yep. This I would classify as the A+ or A++ pages. But ANY page from this book is "A" level. So, I don't think it's inconsistent to say that a lower tier KJ page is not worth "$120,00, (although technically it IS because someone paid that for it) but also acknowledge that it's still a hobby A page. 

So, again, this gets to the heart of the question. For people whom a KJ page is an actual possibility, they are ranking that KJ page against Kirby FF covers, etc. They are not comparing it to the run of the mill stuff us ham and eggers collect. So, yes, to them it's lower on the totem pole. But, it depends on where you sit.

Edited August 14, 2018 by PhilipB2k17

[NinjaSealed]

44 minutes ago, Panelfan1 said:

 Likewise I don't understand the desire to own any example from a book regardless of content- just to own a piece of it.  If you are a collector who buys any art simply as an example to add to your collection, feel free to chime in and give us insight into what drives this. 

One thing that hasn't really been brought up, and something that actually makes KJ a poor example for comparing values, is the length of this book. 46 pages plus the cover. A lot of prelims if you are interested but don't quench the desire for most. Thats it. There are few as desirable works whose supply is so limited. You don't get to really choose your KJ example, (unless you are willing to make a LARGE offer privately.) No one wants to sell them, so the question is not what it is worth, but rather who is willing to bid the most. I am interested to see if this sale pulls another page or 2 out of the woodwork. It should be a very nice pay day for the top 50% of the pages.

If KJ was as long as DKR prices would be in line with what those pages sell for.

[Panelfan1]

1 hour ago, NinjaSealed said:

One thing that hasn't really been brought up, and something that actually makes KJ a poor example for comparing values, is the length of this book. 46 pages plus the cover. A lot of prelims if you are interested but don't quench the desire for most. Thats it. There are few as desirable works whose supply is so limited. You don't get to really choose your KJ example, (unless you are willing to make a LARGE offer privately.) No one wants to sell them.

You make a bunch of great points - but at the end of the day whoever paid that for this page - now has that page instead of something else.

Not sure if its a good analogy - but I am sure many of us have had the following shared experience. You go to a fancy restaurant. You order an expensive meal. You are served a tiny piece of meat with some greens stacked in the centre of an otherwise empty plate.  It's plated beautifully.  You finish eating. You pay the high bill. You are still hungry. It just wasnt satisfying.  At a low price  I can understand wanting a taste of something - but at the cost many times the multiple of other great options - I have a hard time justifying.

 

If someone wanted to argue that this placeholder will be used to trade up later - I would understand better. But not by much.

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Panelfan1

[J.Sid]

14 hours ago, delekkerste said:

I don't think there are D pages in the book.  Even the shrimp pages are desirable to some extent (call those the C pages).  There are a handful of A pages, most of the rest of the book is B (including page 1), and then there are a few pages that would be a C.  

 B pages from this book are more desirable than most As out there of anything else.  Not that I think $120K for that page makes sense.  

I totally get that KJ pages are more prestigious/valuable than say a Bolland page from Batman 400.

I guess I was comparing it to other pages within the book. I came up with 30+ that I would pick over the P1. I have a tough time assigning a page in the bottom third of the book a "B" grade. After all, the grades are there to help us differentiate, right?

Edited August 14, 2018 by J.Sid
typo

[RabidFerret]

7 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

All that said, I still didn't buy it because the asking price was too high (in my mind). I have no doubt that heavy hitters like Gene (understandably) don't think this page rates. Gene is collecting Dave Stevens covers, and the like, so his standards for what constitutes A level and B level are at a different stratosphere from the ham and eggers like me. A Killing Joke page - ANY killing joke page - is an "A" page to us, because it's way out of our league. Now, in the hobby as a whole, maybe that's not true. But it depends upon where you sit.

In any case, that's just my two cents. Your mileage at vary. 

Killing Joke as a 'book' is an A-list book.

But that does not mean every page is an A-list page, regardless of your finances.

If the best you can afford is the worst page from an A-list book, that does not make it an A-list page.

It's almost a combination lock, right? This page that just sold was an A-B page, meaning an A book and a B page within that book.

By comparison the Cap Annual piece that was posted may be a C book but a B page, so it's more of a C-B piece.

The Joker shooting Barbara page from Killing Joke would be an A-A piece.

You could even go a step further and include the artist as well.

Page 1 of KJ could be an A-B-A piece if you consider Bolland an A artist.

The Cap piece may be C-B-D.

And so on...

Edited August 13, 2018 by RabidFerret

[jaykza]

2 hours ago, RabidFerret said:

Killing Joke as a 'book' is an A-list book.

But that does not mean every page is an A-list page, regardless of your finances.

If the best you can afford is the worst page from an A-list book, that does not make it an A-list page.

It's almost a combination lock, right? This page that just sold was an A-B page, meaning an A book and a B page within that book.

By comparison the Cap Annual piece that was posted may be a C book but a B page, so it's more of a C-B piece.

The Joker shooting Barbara page from Killing Joke would be an A-A piece.

You could even go a step further and include the artist as well.

Page 1 of KJ could be an A-B-A piece if you consider Bolland an A artist.

The Cap piece may be C-B-D.

And so on...

Agree with this. However, I find the letters ABC to be a bit imprecise as their may be a range within each level/letter. Just did a runthrough on some of the pieces from the last auction with a 3 category ranking (1-10). Obviously this is subjective but I tried to tie values to at least what the market looks to be rating each category. For a piece such as the KJ page, looks to me like whatever the buyer ranks the quality of the page would determine price it went at and this buyer rated it at least on the higher end of B (4-7). Anyway, it was a fun exercise for me to get an idea of why things might be priced a certain way and probably would help me to allocate my future spending.

Full disclosure: guessed a bunch on many silver age pieces because I don't really have a clue why certain arcs or runs may be important. 

[Panelfan1]

18 minutes ago, jaykza said:

Agree with this. However, I find the letters ABC to be a bit imprecise as their may be a range within each level/letter. Just did a runthrough on some of the pieces from the last auction with a 3 category ranking (1-10). Obviously this is subjective but I tried to tie values to at least what the market looks to be rating each category. For a piece such as the KJ page, looks to me like whatever the buyer ranks the quality of the page would determine price it went at and this buyer rated it at least on the higher end of B (4-7). Anyway, it was a fun exercise for me to get an idea of why things might be priced a certain way and probably would help me to allocate my future spending.

Full disclosure: guessed a bunch on many silver age pieces because I don't really have a clue why certain arcs or runs may be important. 

Cool idea.  Maybe this can be combined with the Andy Robbins method to come up with a definitive measurement standard.

[drdroom]

It's interesting to me to see that I'm using the letter grade system wrong, or at least in a small minority usage. As I use it in conversation, 'A' is purely relative to the specific category. Everybody gets to have 'A' pages. The example given above may be an 'A' Arvell Jones Cap page (I wouldn't know). Sure, it's not in the same league as a 'D' Kirby page, but that's not the use-value of the grading system. There's not that much need to compare Arvell Jones with Jack Kirby. What I might need to do is estimate the value of my Arvell page in the market, and the key to that is how it measures up to the other Arvell pages out there. So I grade it A-F on the Arvell curve. If I'm trying to grade it relative to a Kirby-Sinnott FF page, then the alphabet's not long enough for me to locate poor old Arvell's position. 

If we want to consider the most valuable pages hobby-wide, then I go to the 'blue-chip' concept. Killing Joke is blue chip. But then if you need to distinguish between KJ pages, you go to the letter grade, applied purely within KJ.

[Carlo M]

12 hours ago, RabidFerret said:

Killing Joke as a 'book' is an A-list book.

But that does not mean every page is an A-list page, regardless of your finances.

If the best you can afford is the worst page from an A-list book, that does not make it an A-list page.

It's almost a combination lock, right? This page that just sold was an A-B page, meaning an A book and a B page within that book.

By comparison the Cap Annual piece that was posted may be a C book but a B page, so it's more of a C-B piece.

The Joker shooting Barbara page from Killing Joke would be an A-A piece.

You could even go a step further and include the artist as well.

Page 1 of KJ could be an A-B-A piece if you consider Bolland an A artist.

The Cap piece may be C-B-D.

And so on...

I think this is a very interesting angle.  While all this thread is about how subjective and nuanced grading of OA is, there is some merit in trying to give some objectivity to the whole thing.

A three-pronged grading system: quality of book / run; artist; quality of page.

The easiest is the third one: quality of page.  4/4 of an interior with the main character (or characters for team books), action, costumes, etc. makes it to A.

The other two are a bit more complicated-

Artists:  no doubt artists like Kirby, Ditko, Miller, JLee and McFarlane make it to A (each within his own period).  Then you have Romita, Buscema, Byrne, Perez (sorry I am a Marvel guy...).  I remember there was not a consensus on Romita and Buscema on this forum.

And then you have the point of the inker.  Where could you fit that part of the equation?

Book / run: how strict would one be? DKR, KJ, Coming of Galactus, Dark Phoenix saga, Days of Future Past, Death of Gwen...they all would make it. But how about broader runs? Does all Ditko AMS or Byrne UXM qualify?  Does any of Byrne FF make it to A?

Food for thought...

Carlo M

[RabidFerret]

4 hours ago, Carlo M said:

The easiest is the third one: quality of page.  4/4 of an interior with the main character (or characters for team books), action, costumes, etc. makes it to A.

I don't think this is quite so cut and dried. I'm very much in agreement with MichaelDouglas that there are far fewer A pages than people think. And oftentimes it's about the content more than costumes or action. The KJ page with Joker shooting Barbara has no costumes in it and the Joker is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Another example would be the Punisher 10 cover by Whilce, an iconic and memorable A-level cover, but it's of the Punisher's back.

Take Art Adams' 3 issue run on Fantastic Four 347-349. Excluding covers, I would argue there are only 4 A-level pages, 1 B+ page, and then 33 in the B/B- range. The B pages would mostly fall into the description of 'costumes, action, etc', but they're also all roughly interchangeable, and whether you get this B piece or that B piece, the merits are splitting hairs. But those handful of A-level pieces stand out so much, that if you gave 100 people first pick of the art, the vast majority would take those 4 pieces.

My view has always been that there are A-level pieces for every artist, every book, every title, etc. - but that they are few and far between and not always worth anything. There are absolutely A-level pieces from Quasar and Ravage 2099 and Darkhawk, but they aren't in the same financial world as A-level pages from DKR.

At the end of the day, it's a stew made up of a variety of factors, each of which can weigh strongly in different cases. In one case it's weighed by the title, in another the artist, or another the impact. There may be 10 factors we could combine to create a complex algorithm of page quality, but there would always be unexpected exceptions and times where that horrible title and bad artist and weak character somehow churn out an A-level piece, or when an amazing artist on a great book with iconic characters somehow has nothing but B pages.

Edited August 14, 2018 by RabidFerret

[Stefanomjr]

Digesting everyone's comments. So is it safe to say that first appearance of Wolverine is a D-artist C-book and C-page that just so happens to be worth what it's worth due to first appearance of a beloved character. 

[Timely]

So is it safe to say that first appearance of Wolverine is a D-artist (NO) C-book (NO) and C-page (NO)

If this page was not Wolverine's 1st appearance but just a random page, here is my take on it.

B- artist, B book & B page.  Being his 1st panel appearance I'd raise it to A page (due to historical significance).

Edited August 14, 2018 by Timely

[PhilipB2k17]

22 minutes ago, Timely said:

So is it safe to say that first appearance of Wolverine is a D-artist (NO) C-book (NO) and C-page (NO)

If this page was not Wolverine's 1st appearance but just a random page, here is my take on it.

B- artist, B book & B page.  Being his 1st panel appearance I'd raise it to A page (due to historical significance).

If it's not Wolvy: C Artist, B book, C-D page.