THE DRAWING BOARD - Daily updates
May 13th , 2009
Wolverine In-Progress 3
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I love podcasts. I search the web for good podcasts and listen to them while I’m drawing. The Adam Hughes interview from Sidebar Nation (I’ll put the links up again just in case you missed it - Part 1, Part 2) was awesome!
One thing he said that really surprised me is, how he gets irritated at EBay flipping (Basically guys buying a sketch or a piece of art and then turning around and reselling it on EBay.) I see where he’s coming from with convention sketches, since fans have came out and waited in line, so they really shouldn’t have to wait behind a guy that’s just there just to resell something. Conventions are all about the fans and they should be the ones getting first dibs on the sketches.
When it comes to selling original art like pages or covers, my feelings are little different. In the interview Adam said, in reference to selling original art, quote: “Every once in a while we’ll sell a big piece of artwork to somebody and we’ll tell them, look here’s the deal. This is our price, if you ever want to sell this piece, you have to offer it to us first, at the price you paid for it.”
Now that, I don’t understand? Once I sell something and its out the door, I don’t want to see it a again. If I wanted to keep it, I’d have never sold it in the first place. I have already seen cards I painted being resold on EBay, and a lot of them were going for more than I'd originally sold them for. Personally, I look at it like as a good thing. A collector buys a card from me, thinking that it will either hold it’s value or increase in value. When it plays out like that and the collector makes a few bucks, I’m happy for the guy. There’s nothing wrong with it and ultimately the piece ends up in the hands of someone that really, really wants it.
I believe the only chance for survival of any of my work is that its out there, somewhere, in the hands of someone who appreciates it and takes care of it. When I die, my guess is my relatives (with the exception of my wife) are just going to rent a giant dumpster and a bulldozer and just push my entire studio in to it. Nobody’s going to erect a Frank Frazetta like museum onsite, and populate it with all the incredible works that I hid away in my closet. It’s just not going to happen.
So the collectors, the people that buy and sell originals are a huge part of making the whole thing work. Why would you ever want to stop them or make it harder for them to do what they do. In fact that’s actually a motivation for me to eventually get to the point where Adam Hughes is now, or Alex Ross is right now. Where my originals are selling for really big money, just so everybody who’s buying my stuff now and believing in me now, can eventually cash in later.
See you tommorrow
Jeff
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