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OA tips for spotting forgeries and duplications
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9 posts in this topic

Hi all,

I am just now getting into the world of OA collecting and wanted to know what are some of the strategies you all use to detect potential counterfeits or duplicates. There are a few good threads that already have some tips, but there are some points that I haven't really been able to find an answer to.

1. Do most modern comic OA come on bristol board with the blue ink publisher insignias or is it also common for the artists to work on blank pages? How common is this when the penciler and inker are different artists?

2. Do most modern comic OA with a different penciler and inker happen on separate bristol boards (ie inkers work on blue ink prints of the penciled versions).

3. Do pencilers commonly reprint versions in blue ink and draw over them? Are there typically multiple penciled 'original' versions circulating in the market? How do you tell a penciled version is used in the final published page?

4. Do pencilers often use blue pencils before final sketches with graphite pencils?

5. Are the dimensions for comic OA always 11x17 or are they sometimes printed and drawn or inked in smaller dimensions (larger margins) on 11x17 bristol board?

6. Do artists print their own bristol board or are they distributed by the publishing houses? Is it weird for a bristol board to have different publishing insignias?

7. Do artists ever duplicate their own works?

8. What are some resources and communities available to keep track of OA to cross-check duplications?

Different artists probably have different approaches to their art process, so it would be nice to see what trends you all have observed from artists you collect from.

Whatever you can chime in, I would love to hear!

Thanks!

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Hi, Sounds like you have a pencil piece and are wondering if it is "the" pencil preliminary piece for a page of comic book art.  Throw up an image!

There's nothing to stop an artist from recreating (over, and over) an image from their past work, other than a stop from the higher-ups.  

David

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You need to attend a convention featuring original art work my friend. There’s nothing like seeing art in person. Holding the art in your hands.

Most pages have a different inker over the pencils. Good practice is crack open your comics look at the indica. See who did what art wise and study the pages inside to familiarize yourself.

Most of the action takes place on one page where the artist does pencils or layouts then the inker takes over to finish the page. There are times when an inker does his work separate from the penciler. An example I think of Silver Surfer 1 shot John Byrne and Tom Palmer where the Cover was created this way.

multiple penciled versions of a published piece are not the norm. A big mistake new collectors make is buying recreated works thinking maybe there’s only 1 published version and now they have the 1 and only recreated version. Many artists will recreate the same work over and over due to popular requests. So your homework. Stick to one of a kind published interior pages when you start out.

There are not that many penciled pieces for purchase that were used in the production of a published page. Most were inked over. 

Blue pencils are used by some artists but not by most. I don’t mind them but some collectors don’t like them.

11x17 is typical for seventies on up but sixties pages have some larger size art and some artists like Frank Quitely draw smaller. Bristol board and typically marvel or dc art boards. One thing that will throw you is artists draw on anything they can get their hands on. I’ve seen published pages where the artists used a DC board on a Marvel published art or visa versa.

Artists typically have duplicated a published cover as an example and I think it’s truly best to avoid these as a new collector:

Comic Art Fans (CAF) has a huge selection of collected art and tags for the major OA dealers. A great resource.

Heritage Auctions has a great data base for all the art they’ve sold:

comiclink might be useful to some degree

LEARN YOUR INKERS. inkers usually make or break a page.

johb buscena and Dan Adkins Silver Surfer Beautiful 

john buscema and Abel Silver Surfer ugggh

Bad inkers ruin art. Study your comics and see who you like.

Finally artists have peak periods generally acknowledged when they did their best work. Not everybody agrees but it’s good to know: The money you spend should shadow Fair Market Value. That will be your biggest challenge when you buy: Hey welcome aboard and best of luck.

grapeape mike in sunny Southern California 

 

 

Edited by grapeape
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On 8/10/2019 at 7:51 AM, Mike R V said:

Hi all,

I am just now getting into the world of OA collecting and wanted to know what are some of the strategies you all use to detect potential counterfeits or duplicates. There are a few good threads that already have some tips, but there are some points that I haven't really been able to find an answer to.

1. Do most modern comic OA come on bristol board with the blue ink publisher insignias or is it also common for the artists to work on blank pages? How common is this when the penciler and inker are different artists?

2. Do most modern comic OA with a different penciler and inker happen on separate bristol boards (ie inkers work on blue ink prints of the penciled versions).

3. Do pencilers commonly reprint versions in blue ink and draw over them? Are there typically multiple penciled 'original' versions circulating in the market? How do you tell a penciled version is used in the final published page?

4. Do pencilers often use blue pencils before final sketches with graphite pencils?

5. Are the dimensions for comic OA always 11x17 or are they sometimes printed and drawn or inked in smaller dimensions (larger margins) on 11x17 bristol board?

6. Do artists print their own bristol board or are they distributed by the publishing houses? Is it weird for a bristol board to have different publishing insignias?

7. Do artists ever duplicate their own works?

8. What are some resources and communities available to keep track of OA to cross-check duplications?

Different artists probably have different approaches to their art process, so it would be nice to see what trends you all have observed from artists you collect from.

Whatever you can chime in, I would love to hear!

Thanks!

1. Do most modern comic OA come on bristol board with the blue ink publisher insignias or is it also common for the artists to work on blank pages? 

DC and Marvel and to a lesser extent Dark Horse usually provide bristol stock with publishing marks. Many artists working on their own creations or smaller publishers will mostly use bristol with not markings. I have seen a few pieces done on bristol stock from DC or Marvel but the work is for another company, just left over stock the artist had

 

1A. How common is this when the penciler and inker are different artists? 

Its been very common to have a different penciler and inker going back to the golden age. Many would concentrate on one area pencils or inks. Some were better with story telling and anatomy than other artists so one might choose penciling and another inking. These days it all depends on the artist, many will ink their own work but other just concentrate on inking.

 

 

2. Do most modern comic OA with a different penciler and inker happen on separate bristol boards (ie inkers work on blue ink prints of the penciled versions). 

Depends on where each artists is there are still alot of pencilers and inkers that will work on the same piece of bristol but they tend to live near each other. Now that comic books are international in terms of the artists and writers, many times its done on seprate boards since each might be in a different country or they find it faster to send scans of the pencils to the inker. who can either pint in blueline on the board and ink over or ink it digitally.

 

3. Do pencilers commonly reprint versions in blue ink and draw over them? 

They may lightbox rough pencils and tighten them up giving two different versions or redraw a whole page using lightbocxng (rare) but then it would look different from the published page

 

3A.Are there typically multiple penciled 'original' versions circulating in the market?

There usually isn't multiple versions of the pencils on the market, as mentioned about if they are its usually a very rough layout then finished tight pencils

 

4A. How do you tell a penciled version is used in the final published page?

Ask the artist him or herself. Also compare the penciled to the finished page, it should be very close, editor might ask for changes by inker

 

4. Do pencilers often use blue pencils before final sketches with graphite pencils?

Pencilers can use all types of methods, blueline pencils are not sualed alot

 

5. Are the dimensions for comic OA always 11x17 or are they sometimes printed and drawn or inked in smaller dimensions (larger margins) on 11x17 bristol board?

After 1967 most art is done on 11x17 stock. But there are exceptions, in the 80s DC had produced bristol stock 13x20 and some artists used them on the comic book printed on Baxter paper stock. Most artist work larger than the printed comic book. When drawing larger and then shrinking down the artwork to comic book size it will sharpen up the lines for printing.

 

6. Do artists print their own bristol board or are they distributed by the publishing houses? Is it weird for a bristol board to have different publishing insignias?

See first aswer above.

 

7. Do artists ever duplicate their own works?

What do you mean by duplicate? Some are commissioned to recreate a cover or splash from a comic book that is very popular. Many artist will do recreations on their own and offer then for sale. Most will sign it and indicate its a recreation not the original created for publiscations.

 

8. What are some resources and communities available to keep track of OA to cross-check duplications?

If you mean to see if something is the original done for publication or a recreation. This CGC message board is a good resource so are some facebook groups.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/459273764470607/?ref=bookmarks

Or the artists facebook pages themselves. If you have the option best to ask the artist themselves.

 

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On 8/10/2019 at 7:51 AM, Mike R V said:

Hi all,

I am just now getting into the world of OA collecting and wanted to know what are some of the strategies you all use to detect potential counterfeits or duplicates. There are a few good threads that already have some tips, but there are some points that I haven't really been able to find an answer to.

1. Do most modern comic OA come on bristol board with the blue ink publisher insignias or is it also common for the artists to work on blank pages? How common is this when the penciler and inker are different artists?

2. Do most modern comic OA with a different penciler and inker happen on separate bristol boards (ie inkers work on blue ink prints of the penciled versions).

3. Do pencilers commonly reprint versions in blue ink and draw over them? Are there typically multiple penciled 'original' versions circulating in the market? How do you tell a penciled version is used in the final published page?

4. Do pencilers often use blue pencils before final sketches with graphite pencils?

5. Are the dimensions for comic OA always 11x17 or are they sometimes printed and drawn or inked in smaller dimensions (larger margins) on 11x17 bristol board?

6. Do artists print their own bristol board or are they distributed by the publishing houses? Is it weird for a bristol board to have different publishing insignias?

7. Do artists ever duplicate their own works?

8. What are some resources and communities available to keep track of OA to cross-check duplications?

Different artists probably have different approaches to their art process, so it would be nice to see what trends you all have observed from artists you collect from.

Whatever you can chime in, I would love to hear!

Thanks!

I think in general the answer to your questions is yes, but it's rare, but here are my detailed answers:

1. There are already boards where the artists use whatever paper he has on hand.  But in general, for older art from DC and Marvel, it is typically on DC or Marvel stock.  Today, it probably still the majority, but not as large a majority.  I have seen DC artwork drawn on Marvel board (and vice versa) but its rare.

2. Pencil and ink are typically on the same board, unless it is inked over reproduced blue lines, in which case it would be 2 boards (or 1 board if the pencils are digital and there are no boards)

3. Pencillers do not commonly do that, I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.  There is only 1 pencil original (which if often erased if ink).  There can be preliminaries though, but those are rough and not considered pencil original

4. Most pencillers either use purely  blue pencils or graphite pencils, but some do in fact have a rough sketch in blue then use graphite.

5. 11x17 is the majority, but there are tons of other sizes (including non-standard ones).  Even DC board is actually slightly larger than 11x17

6. I answered that in 1, but artists sometimes use whatever board they have, including DC board for a Marvel project and vice versa.

7. Very rare, but yes, there are recreations out there, including some not clearly marked as recreations.

8. I don't think there is a single source or database you just have to ask around.

Malvin

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Thanks for all the helpful responses! I've made a few purchases recently of important pages from storylines that I've been following. All of them are from dealers and representatives that people recommended here or that the artists referred me to. Only one pencil which pretty closely matches the published page. I couldn't tell if it was a recreation or not. The only weird thing I noticed was that the actual working dimensions are slightly less than 11x17 and the Marvel blue ink insignia was printed on a Dark Horse board. The artist has worked for Dark horse, though, so I figured that might not be too weird. Everything else is ink on pencil. I didn't realize how absolutely gorgeous they were until I had them in hand.

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