Original pencils/inks vs. pencils and seperate blueline inks 0

[jjeanius]

It seems that nowadays more artists are pencilling their pages, then scanning/printing/inking these pages. When this happens, there are original pencils...and then the finished artwork, which is on a seperate art board. In some situations, the final artwork is merely lightboxed inks...in other situations, the final artwork is more involved (inkwash, etc). I'm just looking for some opinions on this...

 

1.) Which would you rather have (the original pencils, or the seperate inks)...assuming they are by the same artist?

 

2.) How much does it detract from value/desirability that there are now TWO originals rather than just one?

 

3.) If an original pencilled/inked page is worth $100, for example...how much would the OA be worth as pencils only...or as finished (lightboxed) inks?

 

Considering how much more common this whole process is becoming, it'd be great to get some opinions on this...

 

Thanks!

[Nexus]

This is exactly why (along with the absence of word balloons) most modern art has little appeal to me...it's damn confusing! It's getting stripped more and more from what OA is supposed to look like (to me, anyway).

 

To answer your questions, though:

 

1. Ideally, I'd like to have both. If I had to choose one, I'd go with the inks (assuming the same artist did the inking as the pencilling). Value-wise, I'd guess that the pencils would be worth more, but the inks are more appealing to me.

 

2. It does detract from the value/desirability for me if I can't have both. Exactly how much is hard to quantify. But I'm thinking in many cases I would just pass if I can't have both.

 

3. No idea...$50 each? $60 for the pencils, $40 for the inks?

 

As this process is becoming more common, it will be interesting to see what sort of standards evolve from the collecting community.

[SignatureSelect]

Personally I like mine to be on the same page. I recently purchased a spiderman page from tyler kirkham. The piece is pencilled by kirkham and Inked by the other guy. Now it it would have been seperated. The page would have been Kirkham pencils which while still desirable to me would not been as desirable to me. and the Inked page would have been of no desire to me. I feel that seperate inks has a money hungry/ distrusting feel to it. One example the artist does the pencils and the inks but they are seperate maybe he can sell two of the same piece and make more money. Another example the artist and inker are a team but the penciller doesn't trust the inker to return the pages or split them equally.

 

Either way I am upset. Now there are certain examples where the split is OK. A couple of years back Alex Ross and Jim Lee did one or two jam pieces I believe the pieces should be seperated. The reason is an alex ross painting is very sought after and the jim lee pencils to that painting would be equally sought after. Same thing with the Lee Dell-otto jams.

Edited December 1, 2006 by thecollector

[Solar]

This may not be a popular opinion, but I believe that separate inks are no better than color guides. They're an enhanced photocopy/lightbox. Ink only pieces would add value to the original pencils if included in a purchase, but on their own, I'll pass on every one I come across.

[SignatureSelect]

Well It is my opinion aswell brett. Like I said the only time it is acceptible is when it is penciled then painted piece and both creators are of equal status.

[lmiller]

i have to say i would take the pencils over the inks. if i had to. to me the pencils are the real art. also when the pencils and inks are done on diffrent boards. how does the split work out ? do the penciller keep his pages and the inker keep his work . they both sell the same pages ? sounds like a greedy scam. if thats the case. larry

[Pirate]

I would take the pencils. To add even more confusion these days alot of pencilers draw in blue or green pencil which can lead you to believe they are blue lines when in reality they are the original pencils. I will ask the artist and hopefully the answer I get is the truthful one. Really hard to distinguish, which is why I ask up front.

[Mighty Hal]

For me, the problem is that most pencilled works don't have the visual power of an inked page. There are exceptions to the rule, to be sure, but I just don't like 'em for the most part.

 

On the other hand, I don't want the inked page if it's a lightboxed creation. I want my pencils and inks on the same page.

 

Unfortunately, with the increasing use of Photoshop and lightboxing, this may be a dinosaur's way of thinking....

[Thomas]

I don't even collect pages that don't have lettering on them and this pencils on one page and inks on the other are making it even worse. There's so many good pages out there that are pencilled/inked/lettered that I couldn't be bothered with any of the new pages that are missing all of these elements.

 

The tough thing with this is getting art by new guys. I'd love to have an Humberto Ramos page but I don't think I've seen any that are pencilled/inked and lettered so I'll never have a page. Same thing with Chris Bachalo although he has some older stuff that hopefully will have lettering on the page other than Shade and Steampunk (I hope).

 

-Tom

[pkveronese]

This may not be a popular opinion, but I believe that separate inks are no better than color guides. They're an enhanced photocopy/lightbox. Ink only pieces would add value to the original pencils if included in a purchase, but on their own, I'll pass on every one I come across.

 

Agreed - the separate inks are of little worth to me on their own. I don't buy them.

 

Honestly, I'd probably buy a color guide before buying a page of separated inks.

[lmiller]

while this is a cool topic. i like to know how can you tell if a inked page has been lighboxed. ? is there code of honesty that the seller or artist have to tell you that the page has been lightboxed. or will you just have to ask prior to buying the page ?

larry

[bluechip]

while this is a cool topic. i like to know how can you tell if a inked page has been lighboxed. ? is there code of honesty that the seller or artist have to tell you that the page has been lightboxed. or will you just have to ask prior to buying the page ?

larry

 

 

The best indicator would be that there is a separate pencilled page. Some would say that a lightboxed page would be lacking in pencils underneath, but so are some pages that once had pencils that were simply erased very well. I think if the original pencils are completely gone it may not matter that much if there once were pencils on the page. So in that case it would be interchangeable with a lightboxed page because essentially the inker did the same thing in both cases.

 

BUT -- if you have an inked published page that was lightboxed and you know the original pencils are out there, it would have to give you pause about whether your inked page is worth as much it would be if that were not the case. I have a page that someone suggested might have been lightboxed and it made me wonder if the original pencils were going to show up someday and outclass my inked page.

 

While on topic, I am going to upload an example I posted in another thread because it illustrates the question here. I have seen the inked published page of Spider-man 201 sell for a decent price even though it was clearly lightboxed. I know because I later saw the original pencils on a separate sheet. The original pencils by Romita failed to sell at auction even though thre reserve was less than the cover which was lightboxed by someone else of lesser stature.

 

Proving, I suppose there will always be some cachet attached to the fact something was the actual art used in the printing process. Makes me wonder if more value might accrue to production art pieces a/o to covers that are made largely or even entirely of production stats.

 

Anyway, here for your perusal is a pair of pics from a spider-man cover, one the original pencils by Romita and the other the published cover, which was injked by someone else and undoutedly is out there in the OA market somewhere. I don't have a picture of the inked art itself, so you'll have to imagine it from the published cover.

 

Which iwould be greater value to you?

 

 

Edited December 3, 2006 by bluechip

[lmiller]

bluechip. thanks for the informative answer. that pencil cover is a problem that i know in the future is going to have to be addressed. iam sure if i was a dealer and i had the light boxed production cover.

 

and later found out about your pencil cover. would i be wrong to call your pencil cover a pre- lim peice. to warrant my production cover as the final product. i mean lots of dollars could be at stake here. . i would think if you got a letter or statement from romita him self that the pencil cover you have was the finished version. i would think you would a leg up on the light boxed cover. as well as putting a few more bucks on the value of your piece.

 

this was my point about my question about the artist keeping the pencil pages. while scanning the pencil pages over to the inker. who turns may or may or not sell his inked pages as the finished product.

 

thank goodness there are an ample supply of finished page,s already on the market. for me. ;] iam very leery about the new stuff / art that being done out there at this time . and i know this issue will be a big problem in the near future let the buyer beware.

 

larry ;]

[aardvark88]

bluechip,

For myself, I prefer to buy the finished pencil drawing as it shows the creative juices that flowed from the artist's pencil onto the white paper. Also because I am on a budget, the asking price for the finished pencil is usually about 1/2 of the inked cover drawing as the fact that the finished cover was lightboxed is usually left out of any auction listing or online art catalog description.

[bluechip]

bluechip. thanks for the informative answer. that pencil cover is a problem that i know in the future is going to have to be addressed. iam sure if i was a dealer and i had the light boxed production cover.

 

and later found out about your pencil cover. would i be wrong to call your pencil cover a pre- lim peice. to warrant my production cover as the final product. i mean lots of dollars could be at stake here. . i would think if you got a letter or statement from romita him self that the pencil cover you have was the finished version. i would think you would a leg up on the light boxed cover. as well as putting a few more bucks on the value of your piece.

 

this was my point about my question about the artist keeping the pencil pages. while scanning the pencil pages over to the inker. who turns may or may or not sell his inked pages as the finished product.

 

thank goodness there are an ample supply of finished page,s already on the market. for me. ;] iam very leery about the new stuff / art that being done out there at this time . and i know this issue will be a big problem in the near future let the buyer beware.

 

larry ;]

 

 

Intesting thoughts. Myself I would say a cover is a prelim when it's a rough version that is not meant to be the final. In the case of the one I've listed (and others I've seen, like the ASM 201, it's clearly the pencils that were used to make the final cover. The lines are precisely the same , as much as if -- if not more so -- than it would be if the inker had gone over the actual pencils on the same paper.

 

Prelims are where you test out ideas and rough the images. And a prelim supposes that an additional finished version will be created. That is different from a finished pencil piece that was clearly lightboxed for the final.

[lmiller]

well like aardvark88 sez. if that inked cover was in an online auction. i would bet my last dollar. that it would not mention anything about that cover being a light boxed version from the original pencils. if i had bought the production cover say it was signed by romita and inked by collecta. and i found out about your pencil cover. i would not be a happy camper. i can only think of the hundreds i lost out on

 

knowing my cover was not penclled at all by romita and just inked by collecta. and iam pretty sure the dealer i bought the peice from would admit they had no knowledge of an pencilled version to save there own skin.. i guess if i were you i would seek out the inked cover version and keep the pair together.

 

larry.]

[bluechip]

well like aardvark88 sez. if that inked cover was in an online auction. i would bet my last dollar. that it would not mention anything about that cover being a light boxed version from the original pencils. if i had bought the production cover say it was signed by romita and inked by collecta. and i found out about your pencil cover. i would not be a happy camper. i can only think of the hundreds i lost out on

 

knowing my cover was not penclled at all by romita and just inked by collecta. and iam pretty sure the dealer i bought the peice from would admit they had no knowledge of an pencilled version to save there own skin.. i guess if i were you i would seek out the inked cover version and keep the pair together.

 

larry.]

 

 

I think this is only one of numerous pencilled covers out there which have inked punlished counterparts. I wish I'd bought to ASM 201 when the pencilled version came available. Only later, when I saw the finished cover, did I realize it was not a a prelim but romita's finished pencils that were lightboxed. I would not be surprised if such covers end up rising in value as people become more aware.

 

And, hey, while I may have some pencilled covers, I also have some inked pages that may also have been lightboxed, so it cuts both ways.

 

FYI, if the prelims are the first stage and the published version is the ifnal stage, there are apparently several stages in-between that may need to be classified as production techniques evolve.

 

Those stages include additional prelims, rough unfinished covers, and completely finished but unused covers that were abandoned for another take, Some of those can be very interesting, esxpecially if you're interested in seeing a peek into the creative process.

 

Here is an example of a prelim -- or perhaps it is a "concept" piece -- and the final of a classic Superman cover by Curt Swan. While it seems very similar at a glance, if you look closer there are subtle style changes indicating the two may have been done years apart from one another. In notes on the page (which are hard to read in the scan) Swan writes to the editor that in this "original version" he did things differently (different from what is not not clear, since the differences he refers to are all reflected in the final version), and there is a little picture at the bottom indicating in the "original" version superman was holding a globe of the world with the Americas front and center.

 

 

[Thomas]

My brother actually ended up buying some Spidey pages by Glapioninks on ebay and the auctions were very vague about whether they were inks only lightboxed pages. My brother found out and went back to Glapion and asked about it and he tried to pawn it off since the auction never stated there were any original pencils in there and pretty much said too bad.

 

I think he let his daughter colour one of the pages actually. hehe

 

-Tom

[lmiller]

well that the great thing about this thread to let the collector.s out there know about these kind of thing,s the more info we share the better this hobby will be.

 

larry

[micmack]

My brother actually ended up buying some Spidey pages by Glapioninks on ebay and the auctions were very vague about whether they were inks only lightboxed pages. My brother found out and went back to Glapion and asked about it and he tried to pawn it off since the auction never stated there were any original pencils in there and pretty much said too bad.

-Tom

 

Here's a quandary...Glapion did some blue line inks on a couple of pages for Moon Knight #5 Glapion moon knight 5

 

He claims this was the page actually published.

 

Now the original Finch pencils were actually bluelined inked by Danny Miki but according to Glapion, were not used by marvel. Which would you prefer?