Success when contacting artists directly 1 1

[BuraddoRun]

I think it's always more meaningful when you're able to contact an artist directly to either purchase or get information about art. I've had a fair amount of success with both, which kind of surprised me honestly. My most recent contact was concerning one of the manga pieces I recently won in an auction. I actually won 2 different pieces done by the same artist, and despite the language barrier, and the fact that neither piece had information listed from what books they came from, I was able to quickly figure 1 of them out through Googling. The 2nd piece was a bigger mystery, though. Finally, tonight, I Googled the artist's name in Japanese and found his Twitter account. He had an email listed there, but stated it was for "business inquiries only." Despite that, I sent him a short email in both English and Japanese. I typed it in English, ran it through Google Translate, and copy/pasted the translation in Japanese. I included both English and Japanese versions in my email. And I asked him to forgive me for emailing for non-business purposes. I attached a pic of the art and asked where it came from. He replied in about 15 minutes with a very nice email. So now I know this is from Samurai Leaguers, which you wouldn't know from my page, but is a baseball-themed manga with fantastical stuff like samurai, ninja, and wrestlers!

If you're OK with sharing, what are some of your most memorable artist interaction successes? That is to say, when you've reached out concerning specific artwork.

[babsrocks31]

  It's always really nice. I've always found it interesting comparing contacting artists compared to reps. Both have prod and cons, but it is nice to at least have a small amount of direct communication with an artist (although I understand that isn't always possible).

 

[joefixit2]

One artist i was in general conversation for about three years before he agreed to let go of a piece I originally asked about.  Another artist, I have been talking to for over 11 years and I do enjoy the conversations with him but still not artwork.  Not gonna give up.

 

[Hockeyflow33]

I've emailed a ton of artists directly, whether for commissions or looking for pages they have worked on, and almost everyone seems to appreciate interest in their work. Most of these artists worked on books in the 70s through 90s and some are no longer in comics at all but work in other visual mediums. 

I think you're walking a fine line with some of these artists where you don't want to come off like a crazy stalker, but also want to convey how much you appreciate their work. As a grown adult it can be weird to be realize that you're just emailing with a regular guy who did a job a few decades ago but to you they're still larger than life because you think of that name in print as a kid. 

[Rick2you2]

I enjoy contacting artists when I can find them, particularly with newer or unappreciated art. In my never-ending quest to add Phantom Stranger art to my collection, and cartoony art in particular, I had been trying for years to find something from "Scribblenauts Unmasked", a mini-series based, apparently, on a video game or games. The only thing I heard from collectors/dealers was that it was digital, which took it off my plate. Then, I learned that the artist Adam Archer, had a Facebook page. So, I sent him an inquiry. It turned out that he had all the art I could ever want from the series, and it was very reasonably priced (he apparently doesn't do much fan-favorite type of work). So, I bought a double-cover. The communication was wonderful, the pricing was good, and delivery was quick. He even threw in a little pencil sketch is which is similar to his more typical artwork. I may even buy more.

 

[Mycroft]

I did it once. The artist didn't know where the art was. And that was it.

But years later he contacted me, having found the pages i was interested in. Except I had moved on and his prices were way higher than what I expected for art from a forgotten series from an artist that never had much success and had disappeared from mainstream comics.

That why I'm reluctant to contact artist directly. I don't know their prices and I don't want to realize I can't afford it, costing both of us time.

[Rick2you2]

12 minutes ago, Mycroft said:

I did it once. The artist didn't know where the art was. And that was it.

But years later he contacted me, having found the pages i was interested in. Except I had moved on and his prices were way higher than what I expected for art from a forgotten series from an artist that never had much success and had disappeared from mainstream comics.

That why I'm reluctant to contact artist directly. I don't know their prices and I don't want to realize I can't afford it, costing both of us time.

Still and all, he did remember you, and his effort should be appreciated.
I have some standing requests with artists to the effect that if they find “such and such”, please let me know. Tom Mandrake did that with me, and I was able to pick up two of his pages that way. Another artist also did that with me, too, but the art didn’t fit my needs. So, I left it with a thanks.

[Varanis]

I've only really done it once and had an amazing interaction. I got in touch with Ian Bederman to see if he'd sell the painting he did which inspired the character Cosmic Ghost Rider. Ian is a tattoo artist by trade and this is a split flash piece he did with his buddy Jeremy Cook. Ian is also Donny Cates' tattoo artist (and collaborator on Atomahawk). Ian showed Donny this piece and Donny showed it to Geoff Shaw as a template for Cosmic Ghost Rider. This piece was done 4 years before the character ever appeared in Marvel Comics. If you're familiar at all with my collection, you can probably imagine how massive of a grail this is for me.

Interacting with Ian has given me a lot of insight on the character's creation and I'm actually working on an article to document it all. Ian is phenomenal and I'm really excited to hopefully share all the background on Cosmic Ghost Rider's artistic origins soon.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Varanis

[BuraddoRun]

On 5/9/2021 at 10:54 AM, Rick2you2 said:

I enjoy contacting artists when I can find them, particularly with newer or unappreciated art. In my never-ending quest to add Phantom Stranger art to my collection, and cartoony art in particular, I had been trying for years to find something from "Scribblenauts Unmasked", a mini-series based, apparently, on a video game or games. The only thing I heard from collectors/dealers was that it was digital, which took it off my plate. Then, I learned that the artist Adam Archer, had a Facebook page. So, I sent him an inquiry. It turned out that he had all the art I could ever want from the series, and it was very reasonably priced (he apparently doesn't do much fan-favorite type of work). So, I bought a double-cover. The communication was wonderful, the pricing was good, and delivery was quick. He even threw in a little pencil sketch is which is similar to his more typical artwork. I may even buy more.

 

That's a really nice piece, too! Lots of great characters. I haven't played any of them, but Scribblenauts is basically a video game where the player solves puzzles by writing words that manifest as objects. Then you use the objects to solve the puzzles. It sounds fairly open-ended, as the word database is in the thousands, apparently. I looked up info on the DC game and it says it has about 2000 DC characters available to help solve puzzles. It sounds pretty fun, actually.

 

23 hours ago, Varanis said:

I've only really done it once and had an amazing interaction. I got in touch with Ian Bederman to see if he'd sell the painting he did which inspired the character Cosmic Ghost Rider. Ian is a tattoo artist by trade and this is a split flash piece he did with his buddy Jeremy Cook. Ian is also Donny Cates' tattoo artist (and collaborator on Atomahawk). Ian showed Donny this piece and Donny showed it to Geoff Shaw as a template for Cosmic Ghost Rider. This piece was done 4 years before the character ever appeared in Marvel Comics. If you're familiar at all with my collection, you can probably imagine how massive of a grail this is for me.

Interacting with Ian has given me a lot of insight on the character's creation and I'm actually working on an article to document it all. Ian is phenomenal and I'm really excited to hopefully share all the background on Cosmic Ghost Rider's artistic origins soon.

 

I love it! This kind of thing really enhances your collection beyond just grabbing art of a favorite character. Of course it helps that the art is nice, too. I'm sure you'll share it with us when you're finished, but I'm interested in reading that article.

[Rick2you2]

9 hours ago, BuraddoRun said:

That's a really nice piece, too! Lots of great characters. I haven't played any of them, but Scribblenauts is basically a video game where the player solves puzzles by writing words that manifest as objects. Then you use the objects to solve the puzzles. It sounds fairly open-ended, as the word database is in the thousands, apparently. I looked up info on the DC game and it says it has about 2000 DC characters available to help solve puzzles. It sounds pretty fun, actually.

 

 

I love it! This kind of thing really enhances your collection beyond just grabbing art of a favorite character. Of course it helps that the art is nice, too. I'm sure you'll share it with us when you're finished, but I'm interested in reading that article.

Thank you. Adam's work more typically looks like this free sketch he sent me:

 

[alxjhnsn]

Maybe my favorite was when Nick Cardy called me to ask if I was happy with my commission. 

Or maybe it was when Al Plastino called to talk about doing my commission because it was raining and he couldn't play golf!

Edited May 25, 2021 by alxjhnsn

[Will_K]

3 hours ago, alxjhnsn said:

Maybe my favorite was when Nick Cardy called me to ask if I was happy with my commission. 

It's a great commission.  I think Nick called me more than I called him.  For some reason, he'd ask me questions about his art.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Will_K

[JadeGiant]

On 5/10/2021 at 9:35 PM, Varanis said:

I've only really done it once and had an amazing interaction. I got in touch with Ian Bederman to see if he'd sell the painting he did which inspired the character Cosmic Ghost Rider. Ian is a tattoo artist by trade and this is a split flash piece he did with his buddy Jeremy Cook. Ian is also Donny Cates' tattoo artist (and collaborator on Atomahawk). Ian showed Donny this piece and Donny showed it to Geoff Shaw as a template for Cosmic Ghost Rider. This piece was done 4 years before the character ever appeared in Marvel Comics. If you're familiar at all with my collection, you can probably imagine how massive of a grail this is for me.

Interacting with Ian has given me a lot of insight on the character's creation and I'm actually working on an article to document it all. Ian is phenomenal and I'm really excited to hopefully share all the background on Cosmic Ghost Rider's artistic origins soon.

Fantastic back-story! Can't wait to read your write-up on this topic!