Tales of Suspense 39 Jack Kirby All ??? 0

[drdroom]

2 minutes ago, bluechip said:

If you believe the "scenario" I posited is untrue, that's fine.  Because that's your opinion and if it's based on logical assessment, even better.

If you say I am wrong about that (even though I didn't say I knew that "scenario" to be a fact). that is fine, as well  

But when you say I am "completely wrong" that the tracing would be an equal amount of actual work on the page as exists on other pieces by Kirby, you are conflating opinions with facts.

Your opinion is that it's not his work if it's not an "original...creation" but that is not how "work" is defined.   If it were, we'd never say that ANY recreation was an artists' actual work.

What I said is that IF Kirby traced his own work, it means there may well be as much of his actual hand on that piece as there is on another piece on which he did layouts (especially if those layouts were then erased).    

It doesn't change that because, as you say, the "layouts (were) an act of original creation".   

Your opinion (or anyone's opinion) of them as a lesser work of creation or being of lesser value is not the issue I was addressing. 

 

 

  

I stand corrected! IF Jack did the tracing, the page could have been impacted with a comparable amount of physical pencil pressure by Jack. Although, if it were lightboxed, as seems likely, then the page might be lacking the "Kirby Seasoning"-- dark smudges on the back from Jacks drawing board. So I have to ding the value 3% for that.

[drdroom]

4 minutes ago, bluechip said:

The suggestion that the family put one over on collectors is a bold one (though I can see the logical behind it).   I can even see the logic behind the idea that Kirby might have been unable to do the work and agreed to "do" the recreations so his family would get some money before he passed.   But why, oh WHY, does the person quoted in this article then take it a giant leap further and say that we should presume Kirby didn't touch these because he'd been on record as saying he didn't like to ink or do recreations because it meant he was doing the work "twice"?  

The simple fact that Kirby formally and contractually agreed to provide those recreations completely undercuts that particular assertion for questioning their value.   Yet it's pretty front and center here.   And any time someone uses a false assertion, you can -- and should -- question the agenda behind the other assertions that support his conclusion.  

 

I don't think Kirby is even on record, that's just Theakston informing us that Jack didn't like to repeat himself. Unreliable source, but it tracks with comments from better sources, IIRC, to the effect Kirby found the covers a chore because he'd already finished that story and wanted to be doing the next one.

Your main point is the one that stops me from writing these off completely though. Jack, from all I know, was an honest man. I don't think it would sit right with him to pass these off as his work without putting his hand to them in some way, but I'm not 100% on that, given that misattribution of credit was an industry standard practice. All kinds of artists produced "Simon & Kirby" pages, back in the day. That didn't make Jack a cheat, that made him a boss! Jack wouldn't want to hurt collectors, but what would he have thought they really cared about? If they were into real artistic creation from Jack's hand they would be clamoring after New Gods pages or Captain Victory or Boy's Ranch or whatever floated their boat. But these recreation collectors, he might reason, are different. The artwork itself isn't the central value. They are looking for something LESS creative: one-of-a-kind souvenir pieces featuring iconic characters, the creator paying homage to his own creation, which has now outgrown him. If Jack supervises it, signs it, takes a picture with it-- well, everybody's happy, he might have figured. 

 

[vodou]

50 minutes ago, drdroom said:

signs it

This is a problem. It's pretty well known hobby lore that Jack stopped signing in front of people four or five, maybe more (somebody step up here please!), years before these recreations/auction. Why? The Shake. Roz was signing for him. Now then, that makes this problematic then too...

52 minutes ago, drdroom said:

Jack, from all I know, was an honest man.

Except maybe, he just wanted to give the fans what they wanted, something, a memory, to take with them? I can see that. Not exactly honest but falls into the category of "the ends justify the means" reasoning, pointing to this...

53 minutes ago, drdroom said:

Jack wouldn't want to hurt collectors, but what would he have thought they really cared about?

 

[grapeape]

37 minutes ago, vodou said:

This is a problem. It's pretty well known hobby lore that Jack stopped signing in front of people four or five, maybe more (somebody step up here please!), years before these recreations/auction. Why? The Shake. Roz was signing for him. Now then, that makes this problematic then too...

Except maybe, he just wanted to give the fans what they wanted, something, a memory, to take with them? I can see that. Not exactly honest but falls into the category of "the ends justify the means" reasoning, pointing to this...

 

This was an assignment, a taxing assignment for a good man who was suffering illness at the time of the creations.

I hate that Theakston came out with this without naming names. I will always think of Jack Kirby and Roz Kirby as decent good people. The life they lived reflects that.

If Jack had a chance to tell us what happened with these, I have a feeling we would be satisfied. But he died. Roz died. These controversies arose long after that.

These pieces of art were never meant to be worth $20K + Hell published work at the time of that auction was still reasonable. 

There are a handful of living people that could still shed light on the authenticity of the artwork. I believe they could shed light on what contribution if any Jack lent to them.They aren’t talking. 

Personally recreations are not for me. Reinterpretation of originals is interesting. I admire many artists tackling an old subject with fresh ideas.

i appreciate all the opinions. There is no bigger fan of the Kirby’s then ol grape ape. My only point is that today 2020 going forward when these recreations/commissions come to market the seller should include a statement that the possibility exists that assistants were involved with the work.

 

[The Voord]

13 hours ago, drdroom said:

JACK DON'T TRACE. Jack don't ink, & Jack definitely don't fill blacks. Filling blacks is first day assistant stuff, before they are skilled enough to rule borders! My theory was ghost markers, but I defer to Vodou, OhDannyBoy, and a closer examination of the Comiclink scan & accept the piece as all pencil. I wonder if the plan was to have it inked and that didn't happen for some reason?

No doubt all very true until the idea of these recreations came along at a time when, "Jack don't do regular comics anymore".

Recreating something, as opposed to creating from scratch, comes with its own set of problems and would, I imagine, involve light-boxing to get the pencil lines where they need to be.  Or do you think these covers were all done freehand away from such devices?  I don't, which is why I suggested some tracing of basic lines. Please feel free to provide your own thoughts as to how you would attribute the breakdown of labour on these cover recreations.

Glad to see you now acknowledging the cover to be all pencils, as per my original contention.  At least that eliminates your theory of Jack and his magic marker pen.

Heck, everyone knows that , "Jack don't do marker pens."   

Edited May 24, 2020 by The Voord

[The Voord]

On 5/22/2020 at 10:29 PM, christosgage said:

I have no knowledge about the art itself but I thought I remembered that someone else did the lettering on these recreations. But I can't remember where I heard it and I'm not sure that's even a factor.

"Jack don't do lettering"   

[pemart1966]

14 hours ago, drdroom said:

JACK DON'T TRACE. Jack don't ink, & Jack definitely don't fill blacks. Filling blacks is first day assistant stuff, before they are skilled enough to rule borders! My theory was ghost markers, but I defer to Vodou, OhDannyBoy, and a closer examination of the Comiclink scan & accept the piece as all pencil. I wonder if the plan was to have it inked and that didn't happen for some reason?

Jack didn't do JACK!!!

[The Voord]

1 hour ago, pemart1966 said:

Jack didn't do JACK!!!

[drdroom]

6 hours ago, The Voord said:

No doubt all very true until the idea of these recreations came along at a time when, "Jack don't do regular comics anymore".

Recreating something, as opposed to creating from scratch, comes with its own set of problems and would, I imagine, involve light-boxing to get the pencil lines where they need to be.  Or do you think these covers were all done freehand away from such devices?  I don't, which is why I suggested some tracing of basic lines. Please feel free to provide your own thoughts as to how you would attribute the breakdown of labour on these cover recreations.

Glad to see you now acknowledging the cover to be all pencils, as per my original contention.  At least that eliminates your theory of Jack and his magic marker pen.

Heck, everyone knows that , "Jack don't do marker pens."   

My theory was never Jack with a marker! It was Assistant with a marker. Now discredited of course. As to my breakdown of labor theory, let me quote from my earlier comment: There is no basic pencilling required to produce this result. It is traced, and then there is a careful process of heavy pencil drawing to emulate lines that were originally done in ink. It would have been elder abuse to make Jack perform any of this tedious work. There are a few variations from the original in the black spotting, like the black dots on Iron Man's hand, so I could see Jack adding some finish touch-up marks, similar to the ink touch ups he used to add to other artists pages in the S&K shop days.

So where we differ seems to be that you imagine a light tracing of basic lines by Jack, whereas I believe the piece is intensively traced, in almost every detail, not by Jack. Perhaps someone with Photoshop skills will someday do an overlay with an original cover scan in search of this part of the answer.

[The Voord]

40 minutes ago, drdroom said:

My theory was never Jack with a marker! It was Assistant with a marker. Now discredited of course. As to my breakdown of labor theory, let me quote from my earlier comment: There is no basic pencilling required to produce this result. It is traced, and then there is a careful process of heavy pencil drawing to emulate lines that were originally done in ink. It would have been elder abuse to make Jack perform any of this tedious work. There are a few variations from the original in the black spotting, like the black dots on Iron Man's hand, so I could see Jack adding some finish touch-up marks, similar to the ink touch ups he used to add to other artists pages in the S&K shop days.

So where we differ seems to be that you imagine a light tracing of basic lines by Jack, whereas I believe the piece is intensively traced, in almost every detail, not by Jack. Perhaps someone with Photoshop skills will someday do an overlay with an original cover scan in search of this part of the answer.

No-one was making Jack do all the tedious work; these recreations were performed voluntarily to earn some money for his family at a time when the days of churning-out several books' worth of art per month were well behind him.

Like I said earlier in this thread, it's all guess work as to who did what.  Unless you were present in the same room, or know people in the know, it can be nothing else.  Yes, I realise that you're possibly trying to extrapolate a possible scenario based on how work for regular comics was produced . . . but this is away from the industry.  You only have to look at the lousy lettering on these cover recreations to realise that Jack didn't have access to/wasn't using a professional letterer.

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by The Voord

[drdroom]

7 minutes ago, The Voord said:

No-one was making Jack do all the tedious work; these recreations were performed voluntarily to earn some money for his family at a time when the days of churning-out several books' worth of art per month were well behind him.

Like I said earlier in this thread, it's all guess work as to who did what.  Unless you were present in the same room, it can be nothing else.  Yes, I know you're trying to extrapolate a possible scenario based on how work for regular comics was produced . . . but this is away from the industry.  You only have to look at the lousy lettering on these cover recreations to realise that Jack wasn't using a professional letterer.

 

Not so much how regular comics were produced, but how Jack had always worked plus how artists in general make use of assistants, plus Jack's physical condition at the time. Typically the assistants do the less creative parts, like tracing. A straight recreation like this is basically ALL less creative work, so it makes sense to have the assistants do most of it. I do a fair amount of tracing from projections in my own work and it's pretty tiring for the eyes and requires a degree of steadiness in the hand. That seems like the worst part of the job to give to Jack in his last years. In my scenario, Jack does the only tiny creative bit: a few black spotting marks that are different from the original cover rendering. Jazzing up the blacks would have felt familiar to him as he had done it for years on S&K shop pages, both his own and others. As you say, we are just guessing, and that's my guess.

[The Voord]

2 hours ago, drdroom said:

Not so much how regular comics were produced, but how Jack had always worked plus how artists in general make use of assistants, plus Jack's physical condition at the time. Typically the assistants do the less creative parts, like tracing. A straight recreation like this is basically ALL less creative work, so it makes sense to have the assistants do most of it. I do a fair amount of tracing from projections in my own work and it's pretty tiring for the eyes and requires a degree of steadiness in the hand. That seems like the worst part of the job to give to Jack in his last years. In my scenario, Jack does the only tiny creative bit: a few black spotting marks that are different from the original cover rendering. Jazzing up the blacks would have felt familiar to him as he had done it for years on S&K shop pages, both his own and others. As you say, we are just guessing, and that's my guess.

And my guess was that Jack laid down some basic outlines and said to his assistant, "Over to you", which is pretty much akin to those times he did layouts for other artists to follow.  You idea is that Jack added some finishing touches.  We're not exactly poles apart as I do think Jack's involvement was minimal. I don't have a problem in the world with you having a different opinion, it's just that earlier on in this thread you were too heavy-handed in your dismissal of contrary opinions to your own.  For example, your exchanges with Bluechip guy which he called you out on.   You can respectfully disagree over opinions, which is not quite the same as telling the other person, "You're completely wrong." 

Edited May 24, 2020 by The Voord

[bluechip]

2 hours ago, The Voord said:

And my guess was that Jack laid down some basic outlines and said to his assistant, "Over to you", which is pretty much akin to those times he did layouts for other artists to follow.  You idea is that Jack added some finishing touches.  We're not exactly poles apart as I do think Jack's involvement was minimal. I don't have a problem in the world with you having a different opinion, it's just that earlier on in this thread you were too heavy-handed in your dismissal of contrary opinions to your own.  For example, your exchanges with Bluechip guy which he called you out on.   You can respectfully disagree over opinions, which is not quite the same as telling the other person, "You're completely wrong." 

I think he dialed that back very magnanimously.

Not sure who made the point earlier but somebody said something to the effect that these were never meant to be pieces worth 20K or whatever.   I don't know if they are actually selling for that, but it seems to me that disagreement or disapproval of the value of things is what sometimes leads people to overstate their complaints.   But if people never disagreed about what things are worth, nobody would ever buy or sell anything.    It'd be like...

Seller: "20k?  That's what I paid for it and if I can only get 20K I'll just hang onto it."   

Buyer:  "But it's only worth 20K, not a penny more.   And when I sell it I'm gonna have to sell it for 20K..."

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by bluechip

[The Voord]

24 minutes ago, bluechip said:

Not sure who made the point earlier but somebody said something to the effect that these were never meant to be pieces worth 20K or whatever.   I don't know if they are actually selling for that, but it seems to me that disagreement or disapproval of the value of things is what sometimes leads people to overstate their complaints.   

 

 

I would never want to own any of these recreations, so value is of lesser interest to me.  What fascinates me is the background story behind them.

Edited May 24, 2020 by The Voord

[grapeape]

1 hour ago, bluechip said:

I think he dialed that back very magnanimously.

Not sure who made the point earlier but somebody said something to the effect that these were never meant to be pieces worth 20K or whatever.   I don't know if they are actually selling for that, but it seems to me that disagreement or disapproval of the value of things is what sometimes leads people to overstate their complaints.   But if people never disagreed about what things are worth, nobody would ever buy or sell anything.    It'd be like...

Seller: "20k?  That's what I paid for it and if I can only get 20K I'll just hang onto it."   

Buyer:  "But it's only worth 20K, not a penny more.   And when I sell it I'm gonna have to sell it for 20K..."

 

 

My point about the 20 K (TOS 39 sold for $23,000 + just last year.) is that these art works at auction we’re meant to

1) make a little money for the artists

2) create an exciting auction event for collectors

At one point after changing hands I believe the Amazing Fantasy 15 asking price was $80,000 from a dealer.

No way Kirby was thinking that these pieces were one day going to become desired for that kind of money.

The point....Again is whatever they are selling for today privately or at auction it’s imperative potential buyers know that  there are questions about the amount of work Kirby actually contributed.

Presumptively the seller who bought this recreation late last year for $23k has it up for sale now and last I checked bidding was just under $4 K. 
Will that person get their money back?

Will the ComicLink winning bidder a week from now understand they bought art that is considered by many to be suspect?

All sellers must disclose now that there exists questions about the art.

These covers originally estimated for a few thousand dollars. Today they potentially could sell at auction or privately for quite a bit more.

Edited May 25, 2020 by grapeape

[grapeape]

Actual Auction Results with prices realized.

[drdroom]

3 hours ago, The Voord said:

And my guess was that Jack laid down some basic outlines and said to his assistant, "Over to you", which is pretty much akin to those times he did layouts for other artists to follow.  You idea is that Jack added some finishing touches.  We're not exactly poles apart as I do think Jack's involvement was minimal. I don't have a problem in the world with you having a different opinion, it's just that earlier on in this thread you were too heavy-handed in your dismissal of contrary opinions to your own.  For example, your exchanges with Bluechip guy which he called you out on.   You can respectfully disagree over opinions, which is not quite the same as telling the other person, "You're completely wrong." 

Yeah, turned out Bluechip WASN'T completely wrong! And I guess you were not indulging in wishful thinking either, since you're not attributing really any more pencilling to Jack than I am. My bad!

 

[drdroom]

1 hour ago, bluechip said:

It'd be like...

Seller: "20k?  That's what I paid for it and if I can only get 20K I'll just hang onto it."   

Buyer:  "But it's only worth 20K, not a penny more.   And when I sell it I'm gonna have to sell it for 20K..."

 

 

This is like a Zen koan.

[bluechip]

2 hours ago, grapeape said:

My point about the 20 K (TOS 39 sold for $23,000 + just last year.) is that these art works at auction we’re meant to

1) make a little money for the artists

2) create an exciting auction event for collectors

At one point after changing hands I believe the Amazing Fantasy 15 asking price was $80,000 from a dealer.

No way Kirby was thinking that these pieces were one day going to become desired for that kind of money.

The point....Again is whatever they are selling for today privately or at auction it’s imperative potential buyers know that  there are questions about the amount of work Kirby actually contributed.

Presumptively the seller who bought this recreation late last year for $23k has it up for sale now and last I checked bidding was just under $4 K. 
Will that person get their money back?

Will the ComicLink winning bidder a week from now understand they bought art that is considered by many to be suspect?

All sellers must disclose now that there exists questions about the art.

These covers originally estimated for a few thousand dollars. Today they potentially could sell at auction or privately for quite a bit more.

I bid on them in 1994 and a couple times on the ones that showed up again but I never won one so I guess I didn't value them as much as someone else did.

 

[grapeape]

37 minutes ago, bluechip said:

I bid on them in 1994 and a couple times on the ones that showed up again but I never won one so I guess I didn't value them as much as someone else did.

 

I thought they were cool when I saw the auction but I was comics only until 1996. They went more then estimate also so I was never a threat to win one.