New Details emerge re: Amazing Fantasy #15 donation to the LOC 0

[PhilipB2k17]

https://www.newsarama.com/45817-the-mystery-of-amazing-fantasy-15-s-original-art-spider-man-first-appearance-debut.html

We don't find out who donated the pages, except to confirm that it wasn't Steve Ditko. It also confirms that Ditko knew about the donation. 

The article does have some interesting commentary, however, from a lawyer about whether or not the art that was "liberated" from Marvel's storage room all those years ago are legally the property of their current owners. And, a point I have not seen elsewhere: The recent Ditko Dr. Strange pages that were sold on Heritage (from Strange Tales #117) were sold anonymously, and also were not part of Irene Vartanoff's 1975 Marvel art inventory. Suggesting that, possibly, the AF #15 donor and the Dr. Strange pages seller owner might have been the same person? There is also a quote from Tom Brevoort about the fate of those classic early Marvel covers. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by PhilipB2k17

[glendgold]

Good article, but it is a massive leap to suggest the donor and the consignor are the same person.  Many different people removed art before the inventory list.  And it's not  that ST 117 and AF 15 were the only things missing from that list -- there were dozens of other complete books also missing.  So maybe there's a 5% chance it's the same person, but I just don't see the connection.

The lawyer's commentary is interesting, however. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by glendgold
clarity

[PhilipB2k17]

9 minutes ago, glendgold said:

Good article, but it is a massive leap to suggest the donor and the consignor are the same person.  Many different people removed art before the inventory list.  And it's not just that ST 117 and AF 15 were the only things missing from that list -- there were dozens of other complete books also missing.  So maybe there's a 5% chance it's the same person, but I just don't see the connection.

The lawyer's commentary is interesting, however. 

I think it might be more than a 5% chance. Whoever took the ST #117 pages, took the complete book, not just some of the pages. It's also Ditko artwork. So, the Ditko connection is interesting.  Also, the number of candidates for the theft or "liberation" of this material (as some call it) is rapidly dwindling. Granted, though, it could be an old time collector or dealer who obtained the Dr. Strange pages right after it was initially appropriated (a la the ASM #1 and X-Men #1 pages). 

[mxs7]

1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I think it might be more than a 5% chance. Whoever took the ST #117 pages, took the complete book, not just some of the pages. It's also Ditko artwork. So, the Ditko connection is interesting.  Also, the number of candidates for the theft or "liberation" of this material (as some call it) is rapidly dwindling. Granted, though, it could be an old time collector or dealer who obtained the Dr. Strange pages right after it was initially appropriated (a la the ASM #1 and X-Men #1 pages). 

Back in the mid 1980s I knew the guy who owned the ST 117 Ditko Dr. Strange art at that time. No connection to Marvel. I would put the odds of him being the owner of the AF 15 art at less than 1%. Much less. 

Mike

[ThothAmon]

Always agreed with the lawyers statement myself. The alternative would make it almost impossible to deal in any art as the provenance is so often non-existent. 

[PhilipB2k17]

2 hours ago, mxs7 said:

Back in the mid 1980s I knew the guy who owned the ST 117 Ditko Dr. Strange art at that time. No connection to Marvel. I would put the odds of him being the owner of the AF 15 art at less than 1%. Much less. 

Mike

How did he get it?

[Jordysnordy]

Very interesting article. 

Hopefully one day the donor will step forward.

Either way, extremely generous of him/her to make this donation.

[grapeape]

I wonder if any of the sandwich delivery kids have their original art page tips ha ha. Imagine giving Stan Lee a pastrami sandwich and he hits you with an interior 60's or 70's page?

Complete conjecture in 3..2.. 1 ..Steve Ditko knew about the AF 15 but he wasn't the donor. Is there anyone else that thinks maybe Stan Lee had those pages. Ditko and Lee agree to donate? End of sleuthing conjecture no facts to back up...just thinking aloud.

John Romita acknowledges he never knew art would be coveted by more than just a handful of die hard collectors.But you have the careful cataloging for a year. You have bundles of art disappear. There are a handful of people that have flashed quality pieces that could have come from "removal" from the Marvel offices.This is so intriguing. When I first started collecting in the mid nineties ````No facts to back up I heard stories of bundles of art tossed in garbage bins or walked out the back door. I have no proof pure conjecture: some dealer or collector posses never before seen covers and pages from key issues. We haven't seen them because legal challenge- threats have come and gone.It's a waiting game.

It is what it is. If we can do anything to help the artist we should. For example buy a commission from Neal Adams rather than buy his examples from an ebay flipper. As a collector I know these once "worthless" art pages have tremendous value because lunatics like myself have created a monster throwing cash at them.

Edited July 2, 2019 by grapeape

[Hekla]

3 hours ago, grapeape said:

I wonder if any of the sandwich delivery kids have their original art page tips ha ha. Imagine giving Stan Lee a pastrami sandwich and he hits you with an interior 60's or 70's page?

2010 or 2011-ish, when i was still a newb buying OA, there was an ebay listing of 2 1940’s era Captain America panel pages where the seller claimed his grandfather was a delivery boy and given the pages from the Timely office. The pages were taken off ebay IIRC (guessing a deal was worked out off-ebay?). 

[bluechip]

Articles suggest FF1 art is lost.   But the original art to the origin story was horrifically altered with white out "corrections" and used in the FF Annual 1  It was later discovered when it was sold (as art from FF Annual 1) and the lucky buyer found it was FF1.   Imagine the white out corrections could have or could be removed.   But do not know if that was done or where it ended up.

[bluechip]

The writer suggests that the original art to FF1 might give a "clue" to the origin of the strip if the title of the strip, usually written at the top, were something other than FF1.  That reminded me that original office stats to the art for FF 1 have surfaced over the years and that I have scans on my laptop, which I looked at to see any clues...   and I saw that the stats are either cut very close to the art or cut strangely on the top, tilting oddly down, close to the art on the left side, which is what would happen if somebody started cutting and then realized they had to cut closer to cut away any writing in the margin.   Of course, they might have done that no matter what it said at the top (be that "fantastic four" or something else), so it's not proof of anything.   But is is interesting.

[pemart1966]

Given what's already "known" - I don't think that there are any new details in this article at all.

[Peter L]

56 minutes ago, bluechip said:

The writer suggests that the original art to FF1 might give a "clue" to the origin of the strip if the title of the strip, usually written at the top, were something other than FF1.  That reminded me that original office stats to the art for FF 1 have surfaced over the years and that I have scans on my laptop, which I looked at to see any clues...   and I saw that the stats are either cut very close to the art or cut strangely on the top, tilting oddly down, close to the art on the left side, which is what would happen if somebody started cutting and then realized they had to cut closer to cut away any writing in the margin.   Of course, they might have done that no matter what it said at the top (be that "fantastic four" or something else), so it's not proof of anything.   But is is interesting.

I recall reading on these boards in the last few weeks about how art was printed back then, on rollers, and it was easier to cut away the art than peel the tape away.  This is why the older art may be cut down from a full size board.  I may have the terms wrong but something like that.  

[bluechip]

48 minutes ago, Peter L said:

I recall reading on these boards in the last few weeks about how art was printed back then, on rollers, and it was easier to cut away the art than peel the tape away.  This is why the older art may be cut down from a full size board.  I may have the terms wrong but something like that.  

I have seen vintage 2x production pages with three pages on them, all reduced to actual comics size.   Perhaps done to save space and money,.

 

[grapeape]

2 hours ago, Hekla said:

2010 or 2011-ish, when i was still a newb buying OA, there was an ebay listing of 2 1940’s era Captain America panel pages where the seller claimed his grandfather was a delivery boy and given the pages from the Timely office. The pages were taken off ebay IIRC (guessing a deal was worked out off-ebay?). 

That's right! I remember that thank you.

[PhilipB2k17]

8 hours ago, bluechip said:

Articles suggest FF1 art is lost.   But the original art to the origin story was horrifically altered with white out "corrections" and used in the FF Annual 1  It was later discovered when it was sold (as art from FF Annual 1) and the lucky buyer found it was FF1.   Imagine the white out corrections could have or could be removed.   But do not know if that was done or where it ended up.

Wait, WHAT?!!  People know where the Pages from FF #1 are?!? 

[delekkerste]

1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Wait, WHAT?!!  People know where the Pages from FF #1 are?!? 

Yes.  

[grapeape]

6 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Yes.  

Classic response ha ha

[Blastaar]

Here's an older article with Jim Shooter. Perhaps it was in there?

http://jimshooter.com/2011/03/mystery-of-missing-box-of-marve.html/

 

Around about early 1978, Marvel’s warehouse got broken into and ransacked. Other than scattering artwork all over the floor–they apparently hadn’t taken any of it that we could tell–but this warehouse was a dump! It was completely unsafe; anybody could break in there. I went to the people that ran the warehouse and said, “I want that artwork all moved to my office.” So it was. You should’ve seen it. It was me in a little corner, and wall-to-wall files full of art, because my office was the safest place in the building. You had to go through three doors to get to my office: The front door, the door to the editorial suite, and then my door, and I was the only one who had a key. It was safer there than it was in the warehouse.
Then when Marvel moved, around the end of 1979, we got a brand new state-of-the-art safe warehouse, so the stuff was moved from my office to the new warehouse; except for one box, which for some reason was moved to the Marvel lunchroom. When I was made aware of that, I went to get Bernie, the office manager, and said, “That box goes to the warehouse right now!” I went back to my office, then Bernie came in a few minutes later and said he went to get the box and it wasn’t there. Somebody had obviously grabbed the box, went straight out to the freight elevator–which was near there–and was gone. I have no idea what it contained. There was probably Jack Kirby’s stuff in it among other things. To this day I have no idea who took it.

 

(the comment section is also worth a read)

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by Blastaar

[glendgold]

5 minutes ago, Blastaar said:

Here's an older article with Jim Shooter. Perhaps it was in there?

http://jimshooter.com/2011/03/mystery-of-missing-box-of-marve.html/

 

Around about early 1978, Marvel’s warehouse got broken into and ransacked. Other than scattering artwork all over the floor–they apparently hadn’t taken any of it that we could tell–but this warehouse was a dump! It was completely unsafe; anybody could break in there. I went to the people that ran the warehouse and said, “I want that artwork all moved to my office.” So it was. You should’ve seen it. It was me in a little corner, and wall-to-wall files full of art, because my office was the safest place in the building. You had to go through three doors to get to my office: The front door, the door to the editorial suite, and then my door, and I was the only one who had a key. It was safer there than it was in the warehouse.
Then when Marvel moved, around the end of 1979, we got a brand new state-of-the-art safe warehouse, so the stuff was moved from my office to the new warehouse; except for one box, which for some reason was moved to the Marvel lunchroom. When I was made aware of that, I went to get Bernie, the office manager, and said, “That box goes to the warehouse right now!” I went back to my office, then Bernie came in a few minutes later and said he went to get the box and it wasn’t there. Somebody had obviously grabbed the box, went straight out to the freight elevator–which was near there–and was gone. I have no idea what it contained. There was probably Jack Kirby’s stuff in it among other things. To this day I have no idea who took it.

Ah, yes, good to recognize historical fiction. 

Jim Shooter did a lot of good for me, personally, but I am skeptical of his accounts of anything to do with artwork in general and Kirby art in specific.  What he remembers and what every other person involved remembers diverges drastically. 

Edited July 3, 2019 by glendgold