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For those who collect both OA and comics... how do you "balance" them?
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22 posts in this topic

Pun intended.  What I've found myself doing is purchasing the occasional comic whenever I really dig the art but would prefer not to hunt down/pay for the original.  Have become a bargain hunter with comics; fun to scour some board threads once in a while, keeping the above in mind.  When a comic for the art in question doesn't exist, I might instead go for a small poster (Jusko) or print (Ebas), but this is quite rare -- I have to seriously love the art.

Sometimes, I'll also pick up the comic for an OA piece I own so as to have the art in color... no hard/fast rules there except can't be $$.

Once I picked up a variant because I loved the cover art, only for it to skyrocket 10x in price afterwards.  Pretty odd -- am the farthest thing from a variant collector, but so be it.

Edited by exitmusicblue
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I find it is one or the other as a focus. I was OA for 25+ years before getting into comic collecting (as opposed to reading and accumulating). Then I went to comics mostly for a few years and now am moving back to OA a bit. It is hard unless your funds are really flowing. My plan was to flip comics to generate art income but they sucked me in! Split focus means split results. I spend more time on comics but then once or twice a year spend a few grand on art like I did last month with Mignola. But I only do 4 figures art so it is a bit easier to be back and forth without really spending large large amounts. 

I missed the pun though. (shrug)

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2 minutes ago, Bird said:

I find it is one or the other as a focus. I was OA for 25+ years before getting into comic collecting (as opposed to reading and accumulating). Then I went to comics mostly for a few years and now am moving back to OA a bit. It is hard unless your funds are really flowing. My plan was to flip comics to generate art income but they sucked me in! Split focus means split results. I spend more time on comics but then once or twice a year spend a few grand on art like I did last month with Mignola. But I only do 4 figures art so it is a bit easier to be back and forth without really spending large large amounts. 

I missed the pun though. (shrug)

Balance.. and balance.....  :O

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I seem to go back and forth, one feeding into the other.

In 2012 I bought my first few pages of comic art.  Then nothing till 2016, when I decided to collect every Alan Moore book in existence, either in hardcover for single issue format.

I completed that objective in about a year and the next stage of collecting was naturally collecting OA pages from books written by Alan Moore. 

Over 2017 and early 2018 I managed to get my hands on a number of Alan Moore written OA pages including Skizz, Swamp Thing, Supreme, Top Ten, Tom Strong and WildCATs and Judgment Day.  This was definitely not easy of the wallet (or balance), although what I spent on each page would likely be considered paltry by many.  But for me it all added up. 

Then I started getting interested in other OA, primarily Jack Kirby. But the Kirby OA I wanted was so damn expensive, I figured the only way I could experience the art in some collectible version was to get some of the original comics. So I bought some Kirby drawn comics like FF 48, 49, 51, 52.  That led me buying yet more Silver and Bronze Age comic like ASM 50, Giant size X-Men 1 etc, mostly in low to mid grades. This  led to more comics and since mid 2018 I have been focusing on comics whilst original art took a back step.

But recently I bought a Kirby Artists Edition and the desire to own a page from Kirby has hit me again.

And it occurs to me that if I sold all the Silver and Bronze Age comics I could probably afford to buy a semi decent Kirby page. But I’m not sure I can. 

 

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The internet and CGC have commoditized comics to the point where it’s not a very interesting pursuit. I can pick virtually any title of the last 60 years, issue, and grade and google it and purchase it at will 24/7 from my phone. I can do the same thing with stocks. With slabbed books, the actual artifact has become less important (can’t read the damn thing) just like you don’t get actual stock certificates any more. Might as well leave it in some virtual account. No one “collects” stocks do they? Not as a hobby, no. We’ve reached a point of sophistication in the comic hobby that barriers to acquiring comics have been removed and the market is over-saturated- this has led to the most OCD of collectors to fabricate new collecting goal like signature series and registry sets, variant covers, foreign editions or getting everything in 9.8, anything to make it a challenge. It’s a tremendous waste of time and money to achieve some goal or acquire some item that is the embodiment of  contrived or manufactured scarcity.

Or, you can collect original art. More specifically, original published art.

if I want to read comics, purely for enjoyment of the story and art, there’s plenty of economical collected and digital reprints to be had.

the scarcity of OA, the fact that it’s one of a kind is anathema to the real OCD comic collector, and I suspect that’s why many never ever dip a toe in those waters, it would be pure torture. The few OA collectors that do have that obsessive trait (you know who you are!) are haunted by the sheer insurmountable nature of some of their collecting goals. Those guys need therapy, or they need to pick a different thing to collect, like Pogs....

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5 hours ago, Skizz said:

I seem to go back and forth, one feeding into the other.

In 2012 I bought my first few pages of comic art.  Then nothing till 2016, when I decided to collect every Alan Moore book in existence, either in hardcover for single issue format.

I completed that objective in about a year and the next stage of collecting was naturally collecting OA pages from books written by Alan Moore. 

Over 2017 and early 2018 I managed to get my hands on a number of Alan Moore written OA pages including Skizz, Swamp Thing, Supreme, Top Ten, Tom Strong and WildCATs and Judgment Day.  This was definitely not easy of the wallet (or balance), although what I spent on each page would likely be considered paltry by many.  But for me it all added up. 

Then I started getting interested in other OA, primarily Jack Kirby. But the Kirby OA I wanted was so damn expensive, I figured the only way I could experience the art in some collectible version was to get some of the original comics. So I bought some Kirby drawn comics like FF 48, 49, 51, 52.  That led me buying yet more Silver and Bronze Age comic like ASM 50, Giant size X-Men 1 etc, mostly in low to mid grades. This  led to more comics and since mid 2018 I have been focusing on comics whilst original art took a back step.

But recently I bought a Kirby Artists Edition and the desire to own a page from Kirby has hit me again.

And it occurs to me that if I sold all the Silver and Bronze Age comics I could probably afford to buy a semi decent Kirby page. But I’m not sure I can. 

 

If you ever decide you really want to, just ping me -- I have a contact at D&A who gave me a very fair deal on 37 slabs.  Had I pieced them out and sold separately, it would have been torture, and I never would've moved some of the non-keys.  Used the funds to obtain the best OA piece in my collection.

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3 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

The internet and CGC have commoditized comics to the point where it’s not a very interesting pursuit. I can pick virtually any title of the last 60 years, issue, and grade and google it and purchase it at will 24/7 from my phone. I can do the same thing with stocks. With slabbed books, the actual artifact has become less important (can’t read the damn thing) just like you don’t get actual stock certificates any more. Might as well leave it in some virtual account. No one “collects” stocks do they? Not as a hobby, no. We’ve reached a point of sophistication in the comic hobby that barriers to acquiring comics have been removed and the market is over-saturated- this has led to the most OCD of collectors to fabricate new collecting goal like signature series and registry sets, variant covers, foreign editions or getting everything in 9.8, anything to make it a challenge. It’s a tremendous waste of time and money to achieve some goal or acquire some item that is the embodiment of  contrived or manufactured scarcity.

Or, you can collect original art. More specifically, original published art.

if I want to read comics, purely for enjoyment of the story and art, there’s plenty of economical collected and digital reprints to be had.

the scarcity of OA, the fact that it’s one of a kind is anathema to the real OCD comic collector, and I suspect that’s why many never ever dip a toe in those waters, it would be pure torture. The few OA collectors that do have that obsessive trait (you know who you are!) are haunted by the sheer insurmountable nature of some of their collecting goals. Those guys need therapy, or they need to pick a different thing to collect, like Pogs....

I also know that some of our comics-only brethren purposefully steer clear of OA because they don't want to go down that rabbit hole -- same reason why I never touched World of Warcraft. lol  Avoiding addiction.

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I stopped buying comics, except to the extent I buy new published art and want the comic its from. In fact, I was only buying new comics for a while, just so I could understand the context for all the new art I was buying. But, the sheer cost of it was draining and I found that I was mostly speculating, and not even reading a good portion of the stuff I thought I would eventually read. So, I stopped buying comics altogether. I am in the process of inventorying and organizing my collection, so I can eventually sell it, frankly.

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7 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

The internet and CGC have commoditized comics to the point where it’s not a very interesting pursuit. I can pick virtually any title of the last 60 years, issue, and grade and google it and purchase it at will 24/7 from my phone. I can do the same thing with stocks. With slabbed books, the actual artifact has become less important (can’t read the damn thing) just like you don’t get actual stock certificates any more. Might as well leave it in some virtual account. No one “collects” stocks do they? Not as a hobby, no. We’ve reached a point of sophistication in the comic hobby that barriers to acquiring comics have been removed and the market is over-saturated- this has led to the most OCD of collectors to fabricate new collecting goal like signature series and registry sets, variant covers, foreign editions or getting everything in 9.8, anything to make it a challenge. It’s a tremendous waste of time and money to achieve some goal or acquire some item that is the embodiment of  contrived or manufactured scarcity.

Or, you can collect original art. More specifically, original published art.

if I want to read comics, purely for enjoyment of the story and art, there’s plenty of economical collected and digital reprints to be had.

the scarcity of OA, the fact that it’s one of a kind is anathema to the real OCD comic collector, and I suspect that’s why many never ever dip a toe in those waters, it would be pure torture. The few OA collectors that do have that obsessive trait (you know who you are!) are haunted by the sheer insurmountable nature of some of their collecting goals. Those guys need therapy, or they need to pick a different thing to collect, like Pogs....

Awesome post. That first paragraph, I never quite figured it out for myself, "why?", but you nailed it. So now I don't have to. Thanks.

Art...take it or leave it (re: condition of 1/1) was/is so liberating to a formerly OCD condition collector. Such a blessing to let that go and just enjoy life instead!

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5 minutes ago, vodou said:

Awesome post. That first paragraph, I never quite figured it out for myself, "why?", but you nailed it. So now I don't have to. Thanks.

Art...take it or leave it (re: condition of 1/1) was/is so liberating to a formerly OCD condition collector. Such a blessing to let that go and just enjoy life instead!

Yup. Reaching this same conclusion early on hyperfueled my OA collecting. Nothing else to distract me.

I figured anything else I liked-- comics/slabs, prints, posters, etc.-- I didn't have to actively collect. Because someone else out there was doing it for me. Anytime I actually wanted to *own* it, I just had to pick it up off eBay or Amazon or any number of outlets. Things might cost more later. But they also might cost less. So no urgency at all.

Unlike OA.

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The first time I saw original art was on my visit to my very first comic con where, to my continued sorrow, I learned that comic art is black and white. :frown:

8 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

I can pick virtually any title of the last 60 years, issue, and grade and google it and purchase it at will 24/7 from my phone.

Yup.  I originally set out to collect from all eras but escalating prices and decreasing interest in the more common books led me to explore the 10 cent era.  I am a comic book collector but I also buy related items that provide context for them and that's why I have a small selection of original art.  Up to the year 2000, I bought very little art as I needed every spare penny to flesh out the comic book collection.  After that, I decided that it was okay to divert money for art purchases and I try to pick up at least one piece every year.  The comic book budget still outpaces the art budget but only once (2018) did I fail to pick up a piece of original art.

I'm pretty selective in what I like and can afford so I'm always looking at both art and comics to see what strikes me and what would mean the most and be the best value for the collection.  Sometimes that is art and sometimes it's comics.  I have no set rules and it can be quite a challenge when determining what to bid/buy but that just makes the hobby more enjoyable for me.  If it was too easy, I'd lose interest.

Edited by adamstrange
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22 minutes ago, ThothAmon said:

As a collector of both comics and illustration/comic art I can say it is “balanced” by opportunity. Do I want it, and can I afford it, are really the only issues when a piece becomes available. 

 

This is the best answer. He wins. Especially with auctions and conventions, you know ahead of time what is coming up and can prepare for it to some degree. No purchases of any larger amount should be made spur of the moment, and collectors should know this. Accumulators buy on the spur of the moment but if you want a collection it involves planning.

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16 minutes ago, Nexus said:

Things might cost more later. But they also might cost less. So no urgency at all.

Unlike OA. 

True for when you started collecting art, but even just the decade prior (not to mention the two decades prior to that!), the urgency was that you might never see it again*, not that prices were moving against you. Because, mostly, they weren't. eBay and HA...a blessing and a curse, lots more art...for lots more money.

 

*references Lifetime Black Hole Collections

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19 minutes ago, Nexus said:

I figured anything else I liked-- comics/slabs, prints, posters, etc.-- I didn't have to actively collect. Because someone else out there was doing it for me.

Totally agree, except for one category: Popy Jumbo Machinder Villains. They are a bit more plentiful now than twenty years ago, but as another old-time Japanese toy guy, I think you know they are still effing tuff. And now...really, really pricey too!

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Just now, vodou said:

True for when you started collecting art, but even just the decade prior (not to mention the two decades prior to that!), the urgency was that you might never see it again*, not that prices were moving against you. Because, mostly, they weren't. eBay and HA...a blessing and a curse, lots more art...for lots more money.

 

*references Lifetime Black Hole Collections

Yes, that's what I also meant: Whereas other collectibles would almost always be available, that's not the case with OA. You might only have one shot.

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14 minutes ago, Nexus said:

Yes, that's what I also meant: Whereas other collectibles would almost always be available, that's not the case with OA. You might only have one shot.

It depends on what comics you collect.  For me, one shot or two shots is pretty typical and there's not much difference between comics and original art.

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