Real or Fake - Kirby Kublak sketch 1 1

[RBerman]

30 minutes ago, glendgold said:

To the OP's question: do you have the Kirby Checklist? https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=123_139_145&products_id=640&zenid=fea62e08e65dd7d5b4415b9b2d6e6b23

I find that it really helps track down oddball work.  If you want to make the bigger investment, get the update: https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_97&products_id=1361&zenid=fea62e08e65dd7d5b4415b9b2d6e6b23

Professor Kublak - including this sketch - shows up there. I don't see anything to make me suspicious about it (though I'm not 100% sure what's going on at the bottom - is he turning invisible? Did Jack just not finish?Did something get erased?).  It's a cool piece. I know some long-time Kirby fans who were interested in it.

I did not know about this book but have now ordered it, thanks. If the sketch is in the book, then at least that supports the idea that Kirby did draw a sketch which looks just like the one I bought. Hopefully the very one that I bought.

Kublak's powers do not appear to include invisibility, so I assume the fading left leg is just for effect/unfinished. It doesn't look erased. Here's his apperance in Phantom Force:

[RBerman]

In cast anyone wants to see some up close shots of various parts... I see a small area on the left foot, more obvious on the photo than with the naked eye, which looks like a bit of erasing. Other areas show a bit of underlying sketch.

Edited January 28, 2020 by RBerman

[grapeape]

On 1/24/2020 at 6:45 AM, vodou said:

Man I've looked and then looked again (now my eyes are bleeding as Chaykin would say) and still I just cannot find those straight lines except the borders done with a ruler (and -whoosh- more than a bit of slop present even with the ruler ).

Here again, because I'll never tire of posting this image...

I hope you do realize that this is a complete and utter POS, right? Rick's Arak example, oof, runs circles around it...and typing that physically hurts.

Wow. (Nearly) #speechless and #nocomment except...without the signature, I believe everyone (but Glen Gold) would call this a guaranteed forgery. That's just how bad it is.

It's so bad it's "good" (as the art world would say), because while all the style is gone just enough of the basic wonky undercarriage is present to see that it is Kirby.

I used atrocity to describe Rick's Arak example, this is Atrocity+++ and very much needs to be inked, and by all means erase all the pencils ( ), by Mick or anybody younger than 90...ASAP!

The Kirby Estate/Museum folks should have made an offer the owner couldn't refuse to buy it back for insta-destruction (or banishment to the Negative Zone); this being "out there" only diminishes the fine name and reputation of Jacob Kurtzberg.

 

So help me if anyone asks, “who is Jacob Kurtzberg?” I’m dousing my eyeballs with tobaasco and summoning Ghostbusters to implore the spirit of Vince Colletta to erase all of Roz’s Jack Kirby signatures!!!

Edited January 25, 2020 by grapeape

[pemart1966]

3 hours ago, RICKYBOBBY said:

 still waiting.. 

And petsmart1966 - you clearly have a hard time understanding - you forget to take your meds? That old age must be getting to you.

 

Vodou is right - you're peddling pure fantasy around here.  You need to take off your rose coloured glasses and smell the ink...

Speaking of old age catching up to one:  when asked in 2017 why you unloaded your JIM cover you said "Needed the monies. Buying a house in the coming spring so doing some selling."

In this thread however, your response to the same question was " I just didn’t like Ayers inks on the piece. Or I would have kept my JIM piece."

You're absolutely right, I am having a hard time understanding...unless of course these were two different pieces, then I do understand.

Edited January 25, 2020 by pemart1966

[The Voord]

On 1/24/2020 at 12:48 AM, vodou said:

Thank you, you proved every point I made in this entire thread with that one. At least that one is real.

For all, in case the image disappears on CAF at some point.

That's 1987 Jack in all his glory with a snazzy Roz Kirby signature to the right even...phantabulous

Kinda sad to see the quality of Jack's work taking a big nose-dive in the artist's later years.  Let's be honest with ourselves, this is all-too-obviously not good and, for me, is painful to look at.  Best to remember Jack at the height of his powers and not dwell or be reminded of what old age brought.

Edited January 25, 2020 by The Voord

[Unca Ben]

On 1/25/2020 at 1:32 AM, The Voord said:

Kinda sad to see the quality of Jack's work taking a big nose-dive in the artist's later years.  Let's be honest with ourselves, this is all-too-obviously not good and, for me, is painful to look at.  Best to remember Jack at the height of his powers and not dwell or be reminded of what old age brought.

I look at it another way.  Yeah, it's clear Kirby's ability greatly declined as he got older.  A lot of talented folks can no longer produce quality work because of cognitive and physical limitations when they get old.

But Kirby was still drawing at 70 years of age.  Doing what he loved.  That should be celebrated.  This perspective puts the focus on his joy, not on mine. 

Yeah, it would have been great if Jack had retained his abilities, but he didn't.  Ageing, and all it entails, is not something to be feared or shunned.  It's just another glorious stage of life.  It's reality.  

I embrace all of it.
 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Unca Ben

[vodou]

3 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

It's just another glorious stage of life.

There's something to be said for knowing when you've already sung your best high note and accepting that.

Not this...

 

[Prince Namor]

4 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

I look at it another way.  Yeah, it's clear Kirby's ability greatly declined as he got older.  A lot of talented folks can no longer produce quality work because of cognitive and physical limitations when they get old.

But Kirby was still drawing at 70 years of age.  Doing what he loved.  That should be celebrated.  This perspective puts the focus on his joy, not on mine. 

Yeah, it would have been great if Jack had retained his abilities, but he didn't.  Ageing, and all it entails, is not something to be feared or shunned.  It's just another glorious stage of life.  It's reality.  

I embrace all of it.
 

Damn right.

[Crowzilla]

On 1/24/2020 at 9:45 AM, vodou said:

Man I've looked and then looked again (now my eyes are bleeding as Chaykin would say) and still I just cannot find those straight lines except the borders done with a ruler (and -whoosh- more than a bit of slop present even with the ruler ).

Here again, because I'll never tire of posting this image...

And yet, I would buy 10 of these before I would buy the Shuster "original" in the other thread...

[The Voord]

10 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

I look at it another way.  Yeah, it's clear Kirby's ability greatly declined as he got older.  A lot of talented folks can no longer produce quality work because of cognitive and physical limitations when they get old.

But Kirby was still drawing at 70 years of age.  Doing what he loved.  That should be celebrated.  This perspective puts the focus on his joy, not on mine. 

Yeah, it would have been great if Jack had retained his abilities, but he didn't.  Ageing, and all it entails, is not something to be feared or shunned.  It's just another glorious stage of life.  It's reality.  

I embrace all of it.
 

Very nicely put, Unca Ben, and I respect most of what you're saying even if I have a different opinion.

[RBerman]

Never give up.

Never surrender.

Back to the original post... does anyone know whose collection was being auctioned by Profiles in History in December? It's the one in which Frank Darabont bought the Wrightson Frankenstein for $1.2 million.

[The Voord]

51 minutes ago, RBerman said:

Never give up.

Never surrender.

Back to the original post... does anyone know whose collection was being auctioned by Profiles in History in December? It's the one in which Frank Darabont bought the Wrightson Frankenstein for $1.2 million.

Jim Young (which I've previously mentioned),  A lot of the EC stories and two Ditko ASM pages originated from my collection.  Met Jim a few times when he was working in the UK; first time he came down to visit me to buy art in person.  Nice guy, glad he did well out of the auction.

[vodou]

7 hours ago, Crowzilla said:

And yet, I would buy 10 of these

I really want to see hands raised on this, and how much any of you would actually pay in cash. Go on...all of you man up. I will: "no" and "zero". Addendum: somebody buy up and burn this, please.

7 hours ago, Crowzilla said:

the Shuster "original" in the other thread...

False choice...nobody should buy fakes for any price. That fact doesn't justify there being a market for godawful late Kirby. The two are unrelated.

[ESeffinga]

[RBerman]

People are all over the map for collecting. More seasoned collectors may hold out for an example of prime Kirby. Others may be happy as a clam to get even a late, sub-prime Kirby piece. I wouldn't have purchased "Kublak sketch, undated" if a page of The Pact were easily available and affordable. But it's not, so I got what was available.

[glendgold]

59 minutes ago, RBerman said:

People are all over the map for collecting. More seasoned collectors may hold out for an example of prime Kirby. Others may be happy as a clam to get even a late, sub-prime Kirby piece. I wouldn't have purchased "Kublak sketch, undated" if a page of The Pact were easily available and affordable. But it's not, so I got what was available.

You got a cool piece at a good price, in my arrogant opinion.  I'm not so sure it's excessively late Kirby, either - to my eye it could have come from pretty much any time from 1981 onward.  I'm sure someone else around here knows the exact date.

G

 

[grapeape]

On 1/23/2020 at 3:22 PM, RICKYBOBBY said:

Signing your signature for hundreds of people and doing sketches is much different then signing your name once on one piece . And how am I saying he got much much better? And how did he go from worse to immaculate? These are line for line recreations - you think he couldn’t light box at that time? With his health declining his process changed and had assistants help him - is that so far fetched ?

And yeah I’m sure people keeping quiet all this time to protect Sotheby’s from legal action ()

And not a mistake purchase - I just didn’t like Ayers inks on the piece. Or I would have kept my JIM piece. The piece is now in a well known Jack Kirby collectors collection now. Excellent for him. 
Your entitled to your opinion and you don’t like stuff from Jack after a certain period - then that’s cool. But you aren’t everyone.

[RBerman]

This is the problem of production art techniques getting shoehorned into a fine art collectible paradigm. In the former, attribution is of little interest, whether one or fifty people had a hand in the final published piece. In the latter, attribution is everything. A talented artist who reproduces a masterpiece stroke-by-stroke has simply committed forgery, if he lists the original artist's name first (or only) as a selling point.

[davidtere]

23 hours ago, glendgold said:

You got a cool piece at a good price, in my arrogant opinion.  I'm not so sure it's excessively late Kirby, either - to my eye it could have come from pretty much any time from 1981 onward.  I'm sure someone else around here knows the exact date.

G

 

I agree with that. It doesn't look like 'excessively late' Kirby to me at all. It's as good an 80's Kirby pencil piece as I have seen and I have a few 80's Kirby pencil pieces that I absolutely treasure. 

[vodou]

2 minutes ago, RBerman said:

A talented artist who reproduces a masterpiece stroke-by-stroke has simply committed forgery, if he lists the original artist's name first (or only) as a selling point.

True. But not a popular statement among...dealers/auctioneers where feigned ignorance can be worth 10x or more. Caveat Emptor.