How many Comic OA collectors are really out there? 1 1

[Aahz]

This topic has probably been covered at some point, so my apologies.  I just go to thinking, there is a lot of art that I have never ever seen in some one's collection or for sale.  I'm not necessarily talking about high end pieces.  So I figured 1) there must be a lot of art in the hands of dealers that is no circulated often; 2) there is a lot of art that was just lost or destroyed at some point; or 3) there is a lot of art collectors that do show their art or collect quietly.

For example, early on in the history of Vertigo, there was a one shot graphic novel called "Mercy."  I've seen a grand total of 1 page, which I bought at the Baltimore Comic Con probably 10 years ago (see attached).  Where's the rest of it?

Just made me wonder.

[Peter L]

I think there are a lot out there that maybe even have just a few pieces.  

In my CAF gallery, I have a few pieces I posted about 10 years ago that have 10,000 views.   I never made the top viewed lists.  When I post something today, I get less than 50 for even better pieces.  I don't know if there were really 10,000 collectors back then or they would repeatedly look at things, but I think more people are more disconnected.

At WonderCon I went to artist alley.  I liked a piece of art in a stack.  The artist said it was a Vertigo cover that was published about 10 years ago.  I have never seen or heard about it and it was just sitting in a stack, that the guy next to me knocked over onto the floor.  

[bluechip]

I believe there 2463 OA collectors.

Wait, someone just got hit by a truck.

2462

 

[alxjhnsn]

IIRC, Bill Cox said that that CAF has 40K accounts.

Edited April 13, 2019 by alxjhnsn

[Brian Peck]

There are a number of big collectors that don't post on CAF. I have also come across people who have small or modest collections who have never heard of CAF. I bet there are some great art hidden in closets of people who bought it back in the 70s and 80s cheap because they were comic book fans but forgot about them. Ho mach forgotten comic art is out there?

 

[Bird]

I have a friend from college who would get sketches every once in a while. I do not think that he has anything published but I really have no idea. Unfortunately he shared with me that he has ALS and we are meeting up soon for me to take his comics and art to sell for him. So I will see what a closet OA collector has in the closet, one case data point. It is a sad thing though. 

[vodou]

37 minutes ago, Brian Peck said:

There are a number of big collectors that don't post on CAF.

 

Right off the top of my head I can think of four I know personally that have very large holdings of the stuff that makes this board go truly batty at auction for. These guys, never ever on CAF.

I'm not one of them, plenty of art but only a minority is "batty" variety. And I have posted some of it on CAF in the past too.

Just about everything from the mid-70s to present is "out there"; earlier is hit or miss and opinions vary widely as to "how much".

If you just want "some" comic art to take a position, it's everywhere. I just won a cover by a "name" artist for $200 at ComicLink, that's a pretty low barrier to entry. But if you are looking for a very specific piece...you may never find it. This goes doubly if the book or artist is obscure and the art wouldn't be worth much, what's going to pull it out of the woodwork hmmm?

[stinkininkin]

On 4/13/2019 at 10:41 AM, Peter L said:

I think there are a lot out there that maybe even have just a few pieces.  

In my CAF gallery, I have a few pieces I posted about 10 years ago that have 10,000 views.   I never made the top viewed lists.  When I post something today, I get less than 50 for even better pieces.  I don't know if there were really 10,000 collectors back then or they would repeatedly look at things, but I think more people are more disconnected.

At WonderCon I went to artist alley.  I liked a piece of art in a stack.  The artist said it was a Vertigo cover that was published about 10 years ago.  I have never seen or heard about it and it was just sitting in a stack, that the guy next to me knocked over onto the floor.  

It's been brought up before that CAF no longer seems to be a barometer for much of anything anymore.  I still enjoy CAF and still support it, but it gets just a fraction of eyes compared to years past, for reasons that are still unclear to me.  But I tend to doubt that the base size of art collectors has changed as much as the way art is now shared (or not shared) via social media, etc. versus CAF.

[Pete Marino]

18 minutes ago, stinkininkin said:

It's been brought up before that CAF no longer seems to be a barometer for much of anything anymore.  I still enjoy CAF and still support it, but it gets just a fraction of eyes compared to years past, for reasons that are still unclear to me.  But I tend to doubt that the base size of art collectors has changed as much as the way art is now shared (or not shared) via social media, etc. versus CAF.

Maybe i'm in the wrong groups, but I don't see tons of people sharing "fresh" art in Facebook groups, the ones i'm in, it's about the same 3-5 members sharing stuff, and then a few different people selling.

IG has a few people that share art, but pretty much all of them post on CAF as well, but I have found the odd collector that is a comic fan and is a "1 off" comic art purchase.  It is a great place to see artists that are doing modern stuff share their work.

CAF needs to update.  Their site is a few generations behind the modern internet that needs to be revamped, and they need an app if they want those eyes again (IMO).

[Rick2you2]

38 minutes ago, Pete Marino said:

Maybe i'm in the wrong groups, but I don't see tons of people sharing "fresh" art in Facebook groups, the ones i'm in, it's about the same 3-5 members sharing stuff, and then a few different people selling.

IG has a few people that share art, but pretty much all of them post on CAF as well, but I have found the odd collector that is a comic fan and is a "1 off" comic art purchase.  It is a great place to see artists that are doing modern stuff share their work.

CAF needs to update.  Their site is a few generations behind the modern internet that needs to be revamped, and they need an app if they want those eyes again (IMO).

What improvements do you think would help?

It would be nice if they included an “up” arrow on the right side to improve scrolling, but that’s not a big deal. I also wish that if things are being listed for sale, but no one is there anymore to respond, that should be automatically removed from the for sale listing, but again, not a big deal. 

[malvin]

1 hour ago, stinkininkin said:

It's been brought up before that CAF no longer seems to be a barometer for much of anything anymore.  I still enjoy CAF and still support it, but it gets just a fraction of eyes compared to years past, for reasons that are still unclear to me.  But I tend to doubt that the base size of art collectors has changed as much as the way art is now shared (or not shared) via social media, etc. versus CAF.

Same here in terms of supporting CAF. I think FB and other social media definitely takes away some attention.  Each artist has their own FB group (either official or fan based) and people go there.

The other thing is, I'm speaking more from my point of (and my circle of collecting friends) but my collecting has "matured" so there are less things that I am seeking to buy.  And I hate to say it, I'm also harder to impress now.  Where in the past I would wow at a piece and comment, a similar piece I would look at the thumbnail and not even click.

 

Malvin 

[Peter L]

1 hour ago, stinkininkin said:

It's been brought up before that CAF no longer seems to be a barometer for much of anything anymore.  I still enjoy CAF and still support it, but it gets just a fraction of eyes compared to years past, for reasons that are still unclear to me.  

 

1 hour ago, Pete Marino said:

CAF needs to update.  Their site is a few generations behind the modern internet that needs to be revamped, and they need an app if they want those eyes again (IMO).

 

26 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

What improvements do you think would help?

I couldn't figure out why people aren't going as much to CAF but then these comments made it clear to me.  The page is several generations old and not made for a tablet or phone.  As most of the population moved away from desktops except for work and spend more leisure time on tablets or phones, CAF became too difficult to navigate so people just don't go there anymore.  

I'm on my phone most of the day.  I read my news and communicate with friends by phone apps like instagram or facebook or email.  The only way I can access CAF is if I happen to be near a desktop.  If I tried to look at CAF on my phone it would be really small and hard to read.  

A lot of CAF is not intuitive as modern sites.  I had a friend who worked for apple and was a top engineer.  His job was to make sure things flowed well and were intuitive.  It is odd, for example, that on  CAF you can move around your top gallery mainpage images by drag and dropping, but to move around images in an individual gallery you have to use a drop down menu and reorder as if it were 1998.  It becomes so much work and difficult to maintain a CAF gallery that I can see why people give up.  If you could just upload an image like on instagram or facebook with not much hassle than it would get more interaction. 

[Peter L]

3 minutes ago, malvin said:

Same here in terms of supporting CAF. I think FB and other social media definitely takes away some attention.  Each artist has their own FB group (either official or fan based) and people go there.

The other thing is, I'm speaking more from my point of (and my circle of collecting friends) but my collecting has "matured" so there are less things that I am seeking to buy.  And I hate to say it, I'm also harder to impress now.  Where in the past I would wow at a piece and comment, a similar piece I would look at the thumbnail and not even click.

 

Malvin 

I also recall about 10 years ago at CAF, they didn't have thumbnails, so you had to click on everything to see what the image was.  It was a pain but it did make more clicks.  I suggested that problem back then but was told they didn't want to see all the images.  Fortunately things changed.  I think it is still a great site and love it and the work that has gone into it.  But I can see why it is losing eyeballs.

[Rick2you2]

36 minutes ago, Peter L said:

 

 

I couldn't figure out why people aren't going as much to CAF but then these comments made it clear to me.  The page is several generations old and not made for a tablet or phone.  As most of the population moved away from desktops except for work and spend more leisure time on tablets or phones, CAF became too difficult to navigate so people just don't go there anymore.  

I'm on my phone most of the day.  I read my news and communicate with friends by phone apps like instagram or facebook or email.  The only way I can access CAF is if I happen to be near a desktop.  If I tried to look at CAF on my phone it would be really small and hard to read.  

A lot of CAF is not intuitive as modern sites.  I had a friend who worked for apple and was a top engineer.  His job was to make sure things flowed well and were intuitive.  It is odd, for example, that on  CAF you can move around your top gallery mainpage images by drag and dropping, but to move around images in an individual gallery you have to use a drop down menu and reorder as if it were 1998.  It becomes so much work and difficult to maintain a CAF gallery that I can see why people give up.  If you could just upload an image like on instagram or facebook with not much hassle than it would get more interaction. 

I never set up a gallery, but I look at CAF all the time on my iPad and its fine (just smaller). For viewing purposes, I don't see how a phone could do justice to art.

I don't like the way it bounces me between CAF and "Comic Art Shop", nor to I know the reason for it.

[alxjhnsn]

I'd change two things (or really create two new things):

1. I want an App that's quick and easy to navigate
2. I want a report that I can use to document my collection with an insurance company. 

Those are my big two wants.

[batman_fan]

I use to go to CAF every day.  I would always look over all the new splash pages and covers posted.  I now visit it about once a month.  I use to have my collection posted but now have almost nothing up anymore mostly because I got tired of getting offers on my stuff that could be quite rude at times.

[delekkerste]

9 hours ago, Peter L said:

I couldn't figure out why people aren't going as much to CAF but then these comments made it clear to me.  The page is several generations old and not made for a tablet or phone.  As most of the population moved away from desktops except for work and spend more leisure time on tablets or phones, CAF became too difficult to navigate so people just don't go there anymore.  

I met a collector the other evening who said the same thing to me.  I guess I'm in the minority - I love just having the regular CAF shrunk down for your tablet or phone.  I find it intuitive and easy to navigate, don't lose any functionality, and can easily embiggen the pics.

I think the real reason for CAF's decline is all the Facebook OA groups that really started gaining huge traction from early 2018-present.  Of course, CAF does many things better than these OA groups, but, I think there are a number of major advantages the FB platform has.  I think people like being able to easily scroll through and see what's new (and not be overwhelmed by all the junk that gets posted to CAF in addition to the good stuff).  I think people really enjoy the social aspect and being able to easily both comment and interact.  I think people like that you don't have to be a BSD to get views, likes and comments on Facebook, whereas if you're not well-known or posting high-end stuff, you may not get much of any of those in your CAF gallery.  

I still love CAF, and think it serves a number of critical functions in our hobby.  But, I think it's basically settled science at this point that it's losing traction because Facebook's platform is inherently more interactive and egalitarian.

[SquareChaos]

Older collectors had (mostly) nothing but CAF, therefore CAF was popular. There are simply more options now... it's the same reason we're not all watching some modern version of Uncle Walter on the nightly news.

CAF is not likely to dry up and blow away due to simple lack of users though. As anyone that works in software will tell you, users get used to what they use - an interface will become natural and intuitive to them through simple repetition, even if a new user introduced to it might want to claw their eyes out due to poor UX design. However, that poor design absolutely will turn away new users that have other options, and even some of the embedded users might decide to be Facebook or IG unfaithful every  now and then before returning to their more familiar bedfellow.

 

As to how many collectors are there... an impossible question to answer. Better to speculate as to whether there will be more tomorrow than there are today.

[AnkurJ]

Enough collectors that even Thanos couldn’t make a dent.

[stinkininkin]

53 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

I met a collector the other evening who said the same thing to me.  I guess I'm in the minority - I love just having the regular CAF shrunk down for your tablet or phone.  I find it intuitive and easy to navigate, don't lose any functionality, and can easily embiggen the pics.

I think the real reason for CAF's decline is all the Facebook OA groups that really started gaining huge traction from early 2018-present.  Of course, CAF does many things better than these OA groups, but, I think there are a number of major advantages the FB platform has.  I think people like being able to easily scroll through and see what's new (and not be overwhelmed by all the junk that gets posted to CAF in addition to the good stuff).  I think people really enjoy the social aspect and being able to easily both comment and interact.  I think people like that you don't have to be a BSD to get views, likes and comments on Facebook, whereas if you're not well-known or posting high-end stuff, you may not get much of any of those in your CAF gallery.  

I still love CAF, and think it serves a number of critical functions in our hobby.  But, I think it's basically settled science at this point that it's losing traction because Facebook's platform is inherently more interactive and egalitarian.

I actually posted a Miller Daredevil page on one of the main Facebook group pages today for the first time and was surprised by comments from people there that didn't even know what CAF was.  I made assumptions that anyone who would join an original art Facebook group would at least be familiar with CAF, even if wasn't their favorite platform.  I never bothered looking at the Facebook group pages in the past because I thought it was redundant, but I have to rethink things.

 

Edited April 17, 2019 by stinkininkin