August HA Auction 1 1

[vodou]

Pencil "stare eyes" -

[comix4fun]

1 hour ago, zhamlau said:

Well no I’d say he was never average. He basically was like a .301 hitter with 90/90/120 rub/rbi/hit combo with 22 hr average a season....just he did it for 30 seasons (like 80-100 war?) Anyone who does that not only goes HOF he goes first ballot.

Haha I love sports comparisons.

That's true if you think he did exactly that for all thirty seasons....with no dips, slips, off years, stints on the IL, slumps, or platoon/part-time seasons. 

I know he had a nice run from around 1971 to the late 80's-early 90's without a noticeable dip or slippage of his skill level. He was enjoyable to read and never really offended the eye in all that time. 

The WAR comparison is where it gets hard to make the comparison for Sal. How far above "replacement level player" was he really for most of that time? He stuck around, sure. He did the work, got it done on time, kept the schedule, and did it without any glaring serious problems with his work output. He was a veteran clubhouse presence that kept the team chugging along, but he was never the Ace, never the clean up hitter, never the top of the lineup catalyst. That's mostly because comic art is a field that is measured in great part by how influential and what type of generational legacy the Hall of Famers left behind. Look at guys like Steranko, Kirby, Adams, Wood, Eisner, Frazetta (and a bunch more) and see, in their wake, the legion of artists who've been influenced in their own careers. That's the closest thing to WAR as you'll see in comic art. 

I think, for Sal, you can either make the case that he plugged away in a serviceable way for all those years doing a nice job OR that he had some nice years in there among the ok or good years. I don't think there's enough evidence in there that he was every bit as good in 2001 as he was in 1971. 

Best case scenario, Sal is the *Richard* Allen of the comic art field....Allen had a nice long career, 15 years (14 complete seasons), 7 all-star appearances, .292 BA, 25 homers and 80 ribbies on average, 11th in WAR per 162 games, and a permanent spot headlining the Hall of Very Good. 

[grapeape]

"Do not speak ill of the dead"

R I P Gentleman Jim Mooney

 

[tth2]

10 hours ago, delekkerste said:

I heard that song on the radio (Sirius XM 80s on 8) the other day for the first time in a long time. 

Is the song just bad...or, so bad it's good?  

I admit it...I listened to the whole thing.  

Do not do the faux hipster thing and turn something that's bad into "it's so bad it's good". 

Sometimes, bad is just bad.   Deservedly voted worst song in history in some poll, if I recall.

I remember a skit during some awards show (maybe it was an MTV awards) years ago where Will Ferrell and Jack Black did a spoof of "Panic Room" and played "We Built this City" on a boombox to try to drive Jodie Foster out of the panic room.  Still cracks me up. 

[tth2]

10 hours ago, vodou said:

I was ready for that.

Rebuttal below...

[tth2]

7 hours ago, comix4fun said:

The WAR comparison is where it gets hard to make the comparison for Sal. How far above "replacement level player" was he really for most of that time?

WAR is meaningless for Sal.  He was the theoretical average replacement.  He is the zero.

That's not to say he's bad, because then he'd be negative.  He is the benchmark of averageness against which all other artists are measured.

[mtlevy1]

3 minutes ago, tth2 said:

WAR is meaningless for Sal.  He was the theoretical average replacement.  He is the zero.

That's not to say he's bad, because then he'd be negative.  He is the benchmark of averageness against which all other artists are measured.

This is the crux of my argument as well - he performed well for a long time but I don't feel he ever had a MVP season - That said, I own 48 pages of his art
(only 2 for sale in my gallery).  What was his MVP year - now who else was playing that year?

[batman_fan]

6 minutes ago, tth2 said:

WAR is meaningless for Sal.  He was the theoretical average replacement.  He is the zero.

That's not to say he's bad, because then he'd be negative.  He is the benchmark of averageness against which all other artists are measured.

 

[comix4fun]

1 hour ago, mtlevy1 said:

This is the crux of my argument as well - he performed well for a long time but I don't feel he ever had a MVP season - That said, I own 48 pages of his art
(only 2 for sale in my gallery).  What was his MVP year - now who else was playing that year?

Sometime between 71 and 79 if I had to narrow it....to narrow it further the the first half of that range hits the era he was really working on a lot of books for Marvel and on some key runs that would be more well remembered. 

As for the second half of the question "Who else was playing?"  Marvel had quite the lineup during that time. They lost Ditko and Kirby but lots of talent there still. 

[tth2]

1 hour ago, comix4fun said:

As for the second half of the question "Who else was playing?"  Marvel had quite the lineup during that time. They lost Ditko and Kirby but lots of talent there still. 

I would dispute that Marvel had "lots of talent" during the early to mid-70s.  Defining this based on artists whose work was broken out in price guides due to demand from collectors, my recollection as a young collector during this period (which were Sal's salad days, and as a Captain America collector I was very familiar with his work), was that after Kirby, Adams, Steranko and Smith (later Windsor-Smith) left Marvel, there were no star artists at Marvel for a long time, until John Byrne and then a few years later Frank Miller.  Yes, Starlin had some popularity, but he was working on niche titles like MOKF and then Captain Marvel and Warlock, and Paul Gulacy also developed a following with MOKF.  

My recollection of the core line-up of Marvel artists during this period were John B, Sal B, John Romita Sr, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan (primarily on TOD, maybe DD), George Tuska and Herb Trimpe, and Gil Kane seemingly drawing every cover.  I'm sure there were others, but to me these guys were the Marvel BA, for better or for worse.  

[jjonahjameson11]

1 hour ago, tth2 said:

I would dispute that Marvel had "lots of talent" during the early to mid-70s.  Defining this based on artists whose work was broken out in price guides due to demand from collectors, my recollection as a young collector during this period (which were Sal's salad days, and as a Captain America collector I was very familiar with his work), was that after Kirby, Adams, Steranko and Smith (later Windsor-Smith) left Marvel, there were no star artists at Marvel for a long time, until John Byrne and then a few years later Frank Miller.  Yes, Starlin had some popularity, but he was working on niche titles like MOKF and then Captain Marvel and Warlock, and Paul Gulacy also developed a following with MOKF.  

My recollection of the core line-up of Marvel artists during this period were John B, Sal B, John Romita Sr, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan (primarily on TOD, maybe DD), George Tuska and Herb Trimpe, and Gil Kane seemingly drawing every cover.  I'm sure there were others, but to me these guys were the Marvel BA, for better or for worse.  

+ Ross Andru (ASM), Bob Brown (DD & others), Frank Brunner (Dr Strange & HTD), George Perez (Avengers), and others I’ve forgotten

[Bronty]

Kane really did draw like every flipping cover for five years  Good use of his talents actually; he’s great as a cover man but the interiors didn’t always work

[comix4fun]

7 hours ago, tth2 said:

I would dispute that Marvel had "lots of talent" during the early to mid-70s.  Defining this based on artists whose work was broken out in price guides due to demand from collectors, my recollection as a young collector during this period (which were Sal's salad days, and as a Captain America collector I was very familiar with his work), was that after Kirby, Adams, Steranko and Smith (later Windsor-Smith) left Marvel, there were no star artists at Marvel for a long time, until John Byrne and then a few years later Frank Miller.  Yes, Starlin had some popularity, but he was working on niche titles like MOKF and then Captain Marvel and Warlock, and Paul Gulacy also developed a following with MOKF.  

My recollection of the core line-up of Marvel artists during this period were John B, Sal B, John Romita Sr, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan (primarily on TOD, maybe DD), George Tuska and Herb Trimpe, and Gil Kane seemingly drawing every cover.  I'm sure there were others, but to me these guys were the Marvel BA, for better or for worse.  

Well I did mention the first half of the 71-79 range as my timeline....so before Windsor Smith left, Romita was still doing covers, Kane was doing his best work with his most complimentary inkers, John Buscema was working with Sinnott on FF, Colan was rolling on DD and TOD, Starlin had that monster run on Captain Marvel during this time, Brunner on Dr. Strange, Ploog on Werewolf by Night. 

This was the era of so many Bronze Keys, Conan1, ASM 121, 122, 129, Hulk 181...all the first appearances in Marvel Spotlight, Premiere, etc. 

And we can't forget how much great great artwork was hiding between the covers on all those Marvel Magazines that launched during this time period. All those tremendous painted covers, with interior stories from Adams, Ploog, Marcos and so many others. 

 

[Bronty]

Yeah fair point .   It’s really 75-79 or so that was generally the hot turd a couple artists excepted.

[delekkerste]

14 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yeah fair point .   It’s really 75-79 or so that was generally the hot turd a couple artists excepted.

Agreed, though, I'd say more 1976-79. 

With a few exceptions, the 30, 35 and 40 cent cover price era was...sub-optimal. 

[Bronty]

Yeah, it seems like the distribution crisis circa 74 caused lots of the existing talent to leave, and it took five years before they could restock the shelves.

[stinkininkin]

5 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

Agreed, though, I'd say more 1976-79. 

With a few exceptions, the 30, 35 and 40 cent cover price era was...sub-optimal. 

This is pretty accurate.  Always felt like the good stuff was the outlier.  My list of automatic buys included anything with art by Starlin, Ploog, Gulacy, Russell, Brunner, Golden, Mayerick, Grham and the like, mostly on Marvel's more fringey books.   Strangely, I wasn't at all into the art of Kirby's return in the mid 70's at all, so that was a massive dead zone for me.  But I was also becoming more aware of the power of certain inkers at the time, so would pick up stuff inked by Palmer, Rubenstein, Janson, Giordano, Day, Sinnott, Mcloud, Leialoha.  Even the stalwarts of the era like both Buscema's, Kane, Colan, Buckler were only deemed acceptable if inked by the "good" inkers.  What should be my nostalgic sweet spot is actually remembered as a less than inspired period artistically.

[drdroom]

22 hours ago, vodou said:

Pencil "stare eyes" -

Oh man, I've always hated that spread! Kirby's kids could be awkward. Major stare-eyes in this one all right, but not inappropriate for the gung-ho patriotic spirit of the shot.

[drdroom]

22 hours ago, grapeape said:

"Do not speak ill of the dead"

R I P Gentleman Jim Mooney

 

For me it's when they're still alive that I pull my punches! 

[grapeape]

7 minutes ago, drdroom said:

For me it's when they're still alive that I pull my punches! 

Sometimes pulling punches really means keeping one’s hands in pocket while the other fellas alive to do something about it.