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Blue Pencil, then traditional pencil....does it effect the collectability/value?
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35 posts in this topic

2 hours ago, vodou said:

Chris does both. It's Sean Phillips whose blue is only digital ;)

Alan Davis does that too, sketch on computer, print out rough blue line, then pencil/ink.

 

Malvin

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5 hours ago, Blastaar said:

Here is a good example of what I was really getting at. I am interested in this cover but a little turned off by the heavy use of the blue pencils. If it was graphite I would most likely purchase without hesitation. 

 

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I agree with you on this. I don't mind subtle blue lines, but this distracts from the finished image imo. I've noticed this about Hawthorne's work on Alberts site, for example. 

Seems to be 2 schools of thought I've noticed. Some appreciate the piece for the process and others by the finished product. I personally find myself in the latter based off my preferences 

Edited by awayne83
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To be clear I am not knocking the process. These artist have a craft that I appreciate and admire....and yes it's also about the finished product. I'm just stating from a collectors point of view that tends to frame and display as apposed to collect and store, it is more appealing when the blue pencil is less visible. 

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The most expensive piece I own is a commission that I suspect only a very few would enjoy. The final work product is a print.

image.thumb.png.f141bd68e13a11e02f973d17a210252a.png

This is framed and on my wall. Click to embiggen.

I like the original art just as much. Yale uses a blue pencil and then inks. Yes, I'd prefer graphite, but it's still okay by me.

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The blue shading does show through, but it's interesting to see the changes he made.

All in all, I prefer graphic, but I don't mind blue pencils.

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2 hours ago, DA 73 said:

Blue lines can be distracting. Take in point this Rick Mays piece I used to own. Rick used blue line pencils to lay out a grid and then drew the art. It was much more noticeable in person than this scan. While I did really enjoy the Zatanna, all the blue boxes became too distracting when I looked at it and I eventually sold it.

 

Zatanna Everyday Magic by Mays Comic Art

Was this a published piece?  Could you have had it colored to get rid of the blue lines?

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I have a couple of Silver Age X-Men pages with blueline pencils still visible but rarely see any full pencils with traditional and blueline in them. Here is one example I have. Would of preferred all graphite but the blue isn't that distracting.

John Carter of Mars #1 splash by Abhishek Malsuni

 

 

 

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On 5/21/2019 at 7:00 AM, vodou said:

I won't pay extra for it, but consider blue pencil under/around inks a visual enhancement.

Here's two examples, Romita who famously used it extensively, and now Chris Burnham who seems to as well.

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I have come to regard blue pencil as a desirable thing, giving an insight into the artist's process.  With Romita's work even more so because he worked so often with other artists who did black pencils over his blue and then someone else did the inks.  The telltale blue lets you know how much he had a hand in it.

 

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On 5/23/2019 at 3:06 PM, bluechip said:

I have come to regard blue pencil as a desirable thing, giving an insight into the artist's process.  With Romita's work even more so because he worked so often with other artists who did black pencils over his blue and then someone else did the inks.  The telltale blue lets you know how much he had a hand in it.

 

I too like seeing the blue pencil. I have a Bruce Timm batman that is awesome with blue pencil goodness 

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Not desirable to me but not a deal breaker. They look just like the blue line photocopies artists sometimes work off.

Some artists will draw digitally and print out a blue line copy to ink. Not the same thing of course but they look the same.

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On a computer screen, sure. In hand, the blue pencil definitely looks different to a blue line. Some pencilers and pencils more than others. There are a number of inkers who don’t like blue pencil because again, depending on the pencil, the waxier ones don’t take ink the same way. 

Keeping in mind that the blue serves a purpose as part of the art making process for some artists.

I think the most important thing about whether to be into blue pencil, or not blue pencil (or bluelines, or any pencil at all), is for the collector to be honest with themselves and understand why they collect comic original art.

And as part of that, do they love the medium, are they into the history and the process of that comic’s creation, etc.?

While most comic art is created in one of a few ways, each particular issue, book, pencilled, inker, era has its own quirks.

Some people love those indicators of the creator’s hand at work. Some people hate the use of pasteovers, white out or correction fluid, some hate art without lettering. Some hate pencils and inks on separate boards. Etc and so on.

Do you like to see how an artist does their magic, or do you prefer that the artist’s work spring into an image fully formed and seemingly effortlessly? With the exception of a very few guys like Felix-repped Tradd Moore, very few artists get straight to a final image without a bit of effort. The other approach is only collecting those that light box their finals so there are no pencils at all. 

And think we all have to answer the questions for ourselves. What kind of collector are you? Forget everyone else. When you turn the computer off, and no one is there but you and the art, what do you dig? 

I am, for my part, a process guy. I love that a creator took pencil to paper and made a series of images. Some lines worked and some were refined in inking. I LOVE this. I like pasteovers (sometimes) and I like seeing the corrections and the adjustments or special effects added in whiteout or gouache. IMO, it’s what makes an original an original, instead of a simple enlarged copy of the inks. 

Some guys ably like hella clean inked pages, with pencils erased or nonexistent. Or only gray pencil lines.

Some people (evil evil people) have erased existing pencils from pages, because they wanted the pages to be clean that were not that way when the artists created them. Future generations lose the chance to study those pages in their original state. Gah!

Some people are disappointed that comic art is not in color. It’s much less widely accepted now, but there was a time when the stuff was cheap enough, these folks would have their pages colored, to be more like the comic. Again... GAH!!!

And so, each of us has to decide what we are into and what works for our own tastes. Does the market as a whole like blue pencil on comic art? It’s been that way for decades. The answer is very much yes. 

Are there folks who don’t like blue pencil, etc? Of course there are. And all things being equal, blue pencil and it’s use is just one more, in a massive massive list of personal elements of an OA piece (artist, title, content on the page, medium, size and composition, condition, price/marketplace, etc and so on) that we all run through, to decide where to park our money.

—-

I confess I’ve never seen non-repro blue pencil used on a pencil piece before. I can understand why, but it’s a new one on me. 

-e.

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8 hours ago, Oddball said:

Some artists will draw digitally and print out a blue line copy to ink. Not the same thing of course but they look the same.

 

48 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

On a computer screen, sure. In hand, the blue pencil definitely looks different to a blue line

YES!! (emphasis above...MINE!!)

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And on digital printouts, while most are clean lines that are printed in blue and inked, there are some artists that have digitally created that rough sketch look for whatever reason to print and ink. 

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I can see why some might not like to see the blue line, but for me there is no problem. Sometimes it even enhances the piece of art. I am very fond of Marvin Stein, an artist who worked in the 50's. He would use blue pencil to rough out the composition and then go directly to inking (skipping pencils entirely).

Guilty57.jpg

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