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Is anyone here buying into monoprints
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225 posts in this topic

On 5/4/2019 at 7:38 AM, vodou said:

If the two options are this (above) or the 1/1 monprint...monoprint is far superior. Copy is a copy, even if by the original folks. (Might as well make that photocopy per previous poster, get it "signed" and save a whole tonna money! And by the way, how do you think that would be done...printout in blueline and then 'inked' over, mostly likely.) Lot of people don't care, thinking recreation is not copy (with all associated baggage of that word). I do. Others do. So that's an individual call.

If you go monoprint, just make sure that you and the artist work out (both parties agree on, in writing), to your satisfaction, what the definition/terms of "mono" (=one) is and then be assured that everybody will be on the same page for the rest of both of your lives ;)

And don't pay too much (relative to what you're getting and not getting). It really isn't the same. But if you like Shepard Fairey (not that you do, but as an "art world" example)...it's going to be screen prints, collages, stenciled work...all 'mulltiples' with some being closer to unique than others, but there are NO straight up drawings or paintings such as we're all used to thinking of things. More and more artists are moving in this direction, and that's their call (of course). It's a trend. If you want to collect contemporary, you have to collect what they produce, not the other way around.

The good news for more traditional collectors is that trends run their course, in due time, and tend to reverse also.

If I have this right, the value of a monoprint exists because there is actually no original art beyond a digital file, even working drawings?

If that is the case, my preference would be for a hand-drawn, signed, piece by a favorite artist, even though hand-drawing may not be the artist's preferred medium.

David

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25 minutes ago, aokartman said:

If I have this right, the value of a monoprint exists because there is actually no original art beyond a digital file, even working drawings?

If that is the case, my preference would be for a hand-drawn, signed, piece by a favorite artist, even though hand-drawing may not be the artist's preferred medium.

David

A monoprint is just that, a singular print or 1/1. For purposes of this discussion board it would likely be something printed out, but the term is borrowed and somewhat bastardized from fine art.

A monoprint is a single impression of an image made from a reprintable block. Materials such as metal plates, litho stones or wood blocks are used for etching upon. Rather than printing multiple copies of a single image, only one impression may be produced, either by painting or making a collage on the block. (from wikipedia)

Getting back to comic art, there may be working drawings, etc before or after the digital phase (further hand-embellishment?) Or it's a purely digital situation and the print button is hit at the end. We're talking about art here, not widgets, so perhaps it's preferable to be flexible and allow that different artists -even those using the same tools- can and will produce art in different ways? As soon as you try to define a set of rules for whatever, there will be a guy that doesn't do it that way, then what? I guess this really bothers some people, gosh imagine the first guy that decided to add ink to a pencil drawing...GAH! The horror of it all!!

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1 hour ago, vodou said:

A monoprint is just that, a singular print or 1/1. For purposes of this discussion board it would likely be something printed out, but the term is borrowed and somewhat bastardized from fine art.

A monoprint is a single impression of an image made from a reprintable block. Materials such as metal plates, litho stones or wood blocks are used for etching upon. Rather than printing multiple copies of a single image, only one impression may be produced, either by painting or making a collage on the block. (from wikipedia)

Getting back to comic art, there may be working drawings, etc before or after the digital phase (further hand-embellishment?) Or it's a purely digital situation and the print button is hit at the end. We're talking about art here, not widgets, so perhaps it's preferable to be flexible and allow that different artists -even those using the same tools- can and will produce art in different ways? As soon as you try to define a set of rules for whatever, there will be a guy that doesn't do it that way, then what? I guess this really bothers some people, gosh imagine the first guy that decided to add ink to a pencil drawing...GAH! The horror of it all!!

That's a great comment, Michael!

The rules part of it is what makes it unfortunately problematic.  Who is the enforcer?  If the image is posted on the internet, who stops the bootleg grab?  This is why I prefer hand drawn art.

David

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On 11/1/2018 at 11:40 PM, Will_K said:

I saw the same thing.  It's priced at $1,000.

In general, if it wasn't limited, you could get a random signed print at a convention for $20 - $30 (and 2 for $50).  Some artists (e.g. Adam Hughes) have sold limited signed/numbered prints of some of their covers.

Some artists work digitally, sell a monoprint and delete the file.  But if the art gets published (not necessarily the art in question), there could be any number of bootleg prints or copies of the digital file.  Does anyone know if publishers and printers have protections against unauthorized prints or copying of digital files??  After all, wasn't one of the reasons original art was chopped up was to prevent bootlegs ?

So you're basically being asked to pay a LOT for a signature and "1/1" on the print.

If I paid even $100 for a "1 of 1" print and saw someone selling an unnumbered/unsigned print of the same thing, that would really suck.

Speaking as an IT professional once an image is digitized it is incredibly difficult to keep a reign on it. Even in a password protected folder people have access. Some may download a copy for themselves people go and new people come in.  Look no further than the massive digital files leaked or stolen on a regular basis and many of those are from insider threats. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in the limited nature of these. My opinion.

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I figure if it's monoprints or else, folks will just not buy new art. The market for such work will be small, and never grow to the limits of what we know OA to be today.

Will there be some buyers for it? Sure. But I'd expect a much smaller pool.
Then again, I'm often floored to see what people drop very serious money on (even outside comic art), so who the heck really knows what the new norms may be some day. I just know it won't involve me.

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7 hours ago, vodou said:

This is a certainty.

I can't imagine it would have the same value, but 30 years ago, people expected inked pages and word balloons, too on the same page.

If the price stays really low, it may end up creating a bigger market. But it sure won't be the same. 

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On 5/4/2019 at 8:47 AM, Rick2you2 said:

Anyone else have thoughts? Any supporters? Please...  

I have bought 2 1/1 prints from an inker who has gone exclusively digital. I only paid $20 each for them as well. Both were penciled by Scott Clark. One was signed by Clark before he died.

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1135996

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1135995

Elizabeth Breitweiser also did one off Giclee prints of the work she has colored. I didn't ask the prices at the time (2014). I am not sure if she still does or not.

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Not mono-prints or comics but this is the only forum I think of where I can show off these bad boys:roflmao:It's original scientific art from this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Cats-Their-Fossil-Relatives/dp/0231102283/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=3A46NV08QZ2RN&keywords=the+big+cats+and+their+fossil+relatives&qid=1557278856&s=gateway&sprefix=the+big+cats+%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-1-fkmrnull 

IMG_0966.JPG

IMG_0967.JPG

Edited by Xenosmilus
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Monoprints have already come and sold at auction before this batman example. A little while back I noticed that in one of Comiclink's featured auctions that someone (probably the artist) had consigned two monoprints from the Female Thor comic. Issue #1. This was while the series was in the news at the time. The pieces were the printed out cover and the interior page in where she picked up the hammer and transformed into Thor. Both ended up selling for a few thousand a piece with the interior page coming to auction again a little later and selling for a few thousand again.

On a semi-related note. I remember talking to someone about art a while back who told me that they spent some money on a one-off print. Ten or eleven thousand I think. So the idea of selling and people buying these isn't really a foreign concept and seems to be accepted in the art world even if it's not in our subfield of comic art.

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11 hours ago, Xenosmilus said:

Not mono-prints or comics bought this is the only forum I think of where I can show off these bad boys:roflmao:It's original scientific art from this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Cats-Their-Fossil-Relatives/dp/0231102283/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=3A46NV08QZ2RN&keywords=the+big+cats+and+their+fossil+relatives&qid=1557278856&s=gateway&sprefix=the+big+cats+%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-1-fkmrnull 

IMG_0966.JPG

IMG_0967.JPG

That's a nice Sabercat. Just out of curiosity, did it come with any species' identification or other information?

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2 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

That's a nice Sabercat. Just out of curiosity, did it come with any species' identification or other information?

Yes, the first piece is of Smilodon (the most famous/ well l know saber tooth cat). The second piece is of Thylacosmilus. Thylacosmilus is actually a marsupial and not a cat and were in South America. Both pieces came with over lays that identified muscles and bone names. Xenosmilus is another cool saber tooth cat!

Edited by Xenosmilus
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7 hours ago, DeadpoolJr. said:

Monoprints have already come and sold at auction before this batman example. A little while back I noticed that in one of Comiclink's featured auctions that someone (probably the artist) had consigned two monoprints from the Female Thor comic. Issue #1. This was while the series was in the news at the time. The pieces were the printed out cover and the interior page in where she picked up the hammer and transformed into Thor. Both ended up selling for a few thousand a piece with the interior page coming to auction again a little later and selling for a few thousand again.

Great post, I remember those now (the original CLINK offering) and the speculation was rampant at the time that they wouldn't do well. I didn't remember that they went for four figures each though. And again, on at least one re-sale. Wow and wow. Bigger numbers than I would have expected and a nice pushback on the generally negative assumption being made  on these.

7 hours ago, DeadpoolJr. said:

On a semi-related note. I remember talking to someone about art a while back who told me that they spent some money on a one-off print. Ten or eleven thousand I think. So the idea of selling and people buying these isn't really a foreign concept and seems to be accepted in the art world even if it's not in our subfield of comic art.

Fine art is just fine with prints, going back to at least Rembrandt and friends. It's only in comic art where "who's on it, what are they wearing, and what are they doing" is more important than "who made it and why". But no worries, surely MOMA is going to walk away with...Egyptian Queen...whatever it takes ;)

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15 hours ago, vodou said:

Great post, I remember those now (the original CLINK offering) and the speculation was rampant at the time that they wouldn't do well. I didn't remember that they went for four figures each though. And again, on at least one re-sale. Wow and wow. Bigger numbers than I would have expected and a nice pushback on the generally negative assumption being made  on these.

Fine art is just fine with prints, going back to at least Rembrandt and friends. It's only in comic art where "who's on it, what are they wearing, and what are they doing" is more important than "who made it and why". But no worries, surely MOMA is going to walk away with...Egyptian Queen...whatever it takes ;)

Yeah, I was pretty surprised myself. And as a correction to what I said, after looking it wasn't the cover but the splashpage that showed her for the first time as Thor. It looks like he sells one page from each book and didn't just print these two out. You can see the auction listing for the splashpage on comicartfans along with another page that someone bought from the artist.

https://www.comicartfans.com/SearchResult.asp

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20 hours ago, vodou said:

 Fine art is just fine with prints, going back to at least Rembrandt and friends.

I am afraid this is a misleading comparison. Rembrandt and other fine artists used techniques like etching and lithograph to produce prints. These all required skill in printing, a skill not found in the so called "monoprint" comic art. And even with the fine artists the number of prints in an edition often had an effect on the monitory value of a print. Some modern fine artists have produced the equivalence of "monoprints" but with a mixed response from collectors for the same reasons of that from collectors of comic book art. Primarily the value greatly depends on the number of prints made. This depends on the honesty of whoever has a copy of the digital file from which the print was made. And since the prints are made from a computer, prints made years later are indistinguishable from the original edition.

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1 minute ago, hmendryk said:

I am afraid this is a misleading comparison. Rembrandt and other fine artists used techniques like etching and lithograph to produce prints. These all required skill in printing, a skill not found in the so called "monoprint" comic art. And even with the fine artists the number of prints in an edition often had an effect on the monitory value of a print. Some modern fine artists have produced the equivalence of "monoprints" but with a mixed response from collectors for the same reasons of that from collectors of comic book art. Primarily the value greatly depends on the number of prints made. This depends on the honesty of whoever has a copy of the digital file from which the print was made. And since the prints are made from a computer, prints made years later are indistinguishable from the original edition.

If you read between the lines of my previous posts, I not so subtly suggest that creative artists could enhance their monoprints and the market for them by doing more than simply hitting ctrl+p.

What you describe, pieces of paper with no direct artistic involvement in the production, are not prints, they are posters. (Anybody that went to art school or even took a printmaking class in high school knows this.) The fan hobby has been fooled on this point for a very long time, going back to the earliest Middle Earth and SQP days forty some odd years ago. Adding a signature to these things shouldn't add any more "value" than adding that same signature to an index card or a baseball, et al. I'm describing something else, something very different from all those guys in artists alley humping color copier 8.5 x 11 "prints" that they sign on demand, then print another batch for the next show lollollol It has little to do with numbering, though that does matter to a certain extent...but not monoprints ;)

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3 hours ago, vodou said:
3 hours ago, hmendryk said:

I am afraid this is a misleading comparison. Rembrandt and other fine artists used techniques like etching and lithograph to produce prints. These all required skill in printing, a skill not found in the so called "monoprint" comic art. And even with the fine artists the number of prints in an edition often had an effect on the monitory value of a print. Some modern fine artists have produced the equivalence of "monoprints" but with a mixed response from collectors for the same reasons of that from collectors of comic book art. Primarily the value greatly depends on the number of prints made. This depends on the honesty of whoever has a copy of the digital file from which the print was made. And since the prints are made from a computer, prints made years later are indistinguishable from the original edition.

If you read between the lines of my previous posts, I not so subtly suggest that creative artists could enhance their monoprints and the market for them by doing more than simply hitting ctrl+p.

What you describe, pieces of paper with no direct artistic involvement in the production, are not prints, they are posters. (Anybody that went to art school or even took a printmaking class in high school knows this.) The fan hobby has been fooled on this point for a very long time, going back to the earliest Middle Earth and SQP days forty some odd years ago. Adding a signature to these things shouldn't add any more "value" than adding that same signature to an index card or a baseball, et al. I'm describing something else, something very different from all those guys in artists alley humping color copier 8.5 x 11 "prints" that they sign on demand, then print another batch for the next show lollollol It has little to do with numbering, though that does matter to a certain extent...but not monoprints ;)

What would you gentlemen suggest to add to a monoprint to add to its uniqueness? Adding art to the print, say, a doodle, would change the "original" print itself. Fancy paper or a signature isn't enough.

I would be more than happy to pass on your thoughts to the dealer. Maybe the artists would use them to embellish and improve their own market.

 

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45 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

What would you gentlemen suggest to add to a monoprint to add to its uniqueness?

It's the artists and reps that stand to gain here, they should be the ones to figure out what the market wants and is willing to pay. They are the creatives. Not me, unless I'm a paid consultation.

46 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Adding art to the print, say, a doodle, would change the "original" print itself. Fancy paper or a signature isn't enough.

Completely agree, that stuff is creative value added only in the laziest of ways and to the most uncritical of eyes.

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My take on prints is they are nice but not a good investment. As an example, I purchased two D ick Sprang Batman prints.  These were those large sized prints.  I love them but I bought them in the 90s and the price I would have too pay to acquire them today is the same worst case and less best case (I have seen several sell for less than I paid and I bought directly from the source).  These were limited to like 2000 I think so not a super high number but enough to keep prices flat to down.

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