This past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing a gallery opening at Nucleus Gallery (http://www.gallerynucleus.com/) in the town of Alhambra. Among the featured artists were Michael Zulli (http://www.michaelzulli.com), Juao Ruas (the current Fables cover artist for DC Comics), Shelly Wan, Rodrigo Luff and Baron Storey. Click here to see all of the exhibited artwork. Zulli had created some amazingly detailed pieces for the exhibition that featured ethereal images of ancient Persian envoys, Morpheus, Judas Iscariot, and a magician among other characters. His lovingly exact pencils were even more enhanced by a background wash that toned the images blue and sepia and leaf green. It was this showing that lured me to LA among other things that I will save for another dispatch. To see a photo of Zulli click here to got to my friend Kyle Cassidy's Live Journal post. Kyle had the enviable job of making photos for Zulli's website and future projects.
Having talked with Micheal Zulli the night before the opening, I found him to be both demoralized by the comics industry and ever hopeful for the future. He is now embarking on self-publishing his first graphic novel, 'The Fracture of the Universal Boy'; away from the publishing industry. He was able to use the amazing website Kickstarter.com which helps creatives ask the public to fund their artistic efforts. In return the contributors get a reward from the artists for their funding contribution. Whoever came up with this idea deserves a medal. Zulli was not only able to get 100% of the funds he needed to start publishing, $17,000 USD, but a whopping $32,794 USD from 523 people including yours truly. The 200+ page graphic novel is due out in June of 2011.
I must tell you that Michael Zulli is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. He answered my questions with an unexpected enthusiasm. He loves creating art and has been doing so since he was a child. Of the past 20 years in the comics industry he says that he has been an artist who happens to draw comics, not a comic book artist. His recent break away from companies like DC Comics and Marvel Comics is a step toward a more comfortable place where he is working on the art he wants to create rather than drawing someone else's creations for dirt pay. His liberation from the industry seems long overdue considering the poor treatment he's received from certain editors over the years.
Zulli even hinted that there might for a future Puma Blues project with writer Stephen Murphy after 'The Fracture of the Universal Boy' comes out. I wait on baited breathe.What's happening with Michael Zulli has been happening with many comic book and graphic novel creators who want to create and own their own work. With internet crowd-source funding sites like Kickstarter that dream is now becoming a reality. It's a democratic liberation of the tools of publishing and marketing for writers and artists. If artists like Zulli can find their own backers, it's a new day for writers and artists who would never have thought they didn't need the instrumentality of a publishing company.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
ComicArtFans.com: A Virtual Comic Art Museum
In my previous post, I discussed how the world of original comic art sales have moved to the web. While this move seemed immanent when looking at the economic opportunity and global access created by the world wide web, it lacked a method of search and indexing. That is to say, there's been no master catalogue of original comic art... until now. This void has been filled by the website ComicArtFans.com (or CAF to those in the know). While many people have started initially searching on eBay for comic art, they eventually make their way to CAF to start beginning their search in earnest. Since CAF tracks all of the eBay, Heritage and Comic Link auctions, you can begin your search on CAF and also find comparative prices in its classified section.
If you are new to the world of original comic art, this is the first website you need to see. CAF has become the world's great archive of original comic art. Where eBay.com has become the major marketplace for comic art, CAF become comic art's great online museum. Collectors join the site and create virtual galleries in which they place the scanned an uploaded images of their original art collections. Many artists create accounts to showcase their work. You can join for free today and share your collection with others. If you really love collecting and trading comic art, you can upgrade to a premium account for $50.00 USD per year and use their classified section, get email alerts when pieces by your favorite artists come to auction and several other perks. No longer does the average comic book reader have to wait to go to a convention to see original art, they can browse CAF for hours and never get bored. That's because the good folks have incentivized everyone, including yours truly, to help build this great modern hagia sofia of comic art threw crowdsourcing.
The website takes advantage of the desire of collectors and artists to show off their stuff. In return we get an impressive art index and search tool for finding comic art and other collectors with whom we can connect. Under each piece of artwork is the opportunity for fans browsing the site to post comments about the art. CAF has become an indispensable tool for tracking the authenticity of the artwork as well as keeping track of its recent owners/sellers for the sake of posterity. In the website's item management form, CAF allows you to track the date of purchases and the price paid. It also allows collectors to add the names of the artist(s) that created the piece and a brief description. This type of authenticating information is commonplace in the world of fine art, but is just starting to become the habit with comic art; thanks in no small part to CAF.
If you are new to the world of original comic art, this is the first website you need to see. CAF has become the world's great archive of original comic art. Where eBay.com has become the major marketplace for comic art, CAF become comic art's great online museum. Collectors join the site and create virtual galleries in which they place the scanned an uploaded images of their original art collections. Many artists create accounts to showcase their work. You can join for free today and share your collection with others. If you really love collecting and trading comic art, you can upgrade to a premium account for $50.00 USD per year and use their classified section, get email alerts when pieces by your favorite artists come to auction and several other perks. No longer does the average comic book reader have to wait to go to a convention to see original art, they can browse CAF for hours and never get bored. That's because the good folks have incentivized everyone, including yours truly, to help build this great modern hagia sofia of comic art threw crowdsourcing.
The website takes advantage of the desire of collectors and artists to show off their stuff. In return we get an impressive art index and search tool for finding comic art and other collectors with whom we can connect. Under each piece of artwork is the opportunity for fans browsing the site to post comments about the art. CAF has become an indispensable tool for tracking the authenticity of the artwork as well as keeping track of its recent owners/sellers for the sake of posterity. In the website's item management form, CAF allows you to track the date of purchases and the price paid. It also allows collectors to add the names of the artist(s) that created the piece and a brief description. This type of authenticating information is commonplace in the world of fine art, but is just starting to become the habit with comic art; thanks in no small part to CAF.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
When Comic Art Met eBay
For a little over a decade now the world of original comic art has becoming heavily supercharged, thanks in no small part to the creation of eBay.com. Before the internet and the world wide web ushered in the era of online sales and marketing in the mid 1990s, most things we bought were from at brick-and-mortar stores or mail order catalogs (i.e. Sears & Roebuck). Specialty items and collectibles like original comic art were particularly hard to find, because you had to find the very few people who sold them. Before the advent of internet and online stores and auctions people usually bought comic art at conventions from the artists themselves. Eventually some people who were comic fans began collecting the artwork and went to conventions selling their collection of original comic art to the fanboy market. Now the internet has seen the sales of comic art balloon since the late 1990s. Ebay.com is now arguably the world's largest original comic art marketplace followed in a distant second by Heritage Auctions (ha.com) and Comic Link Auctions (comiclink.com).
Some artists still come to comic cons with artwork for sale, but many have made arrangements with resellers/agents to sell the artwork for them online. Many artists themselves sell their own artwork online and skip the comic cons altogether. This is at long last a form of liberation for comic artists and fans. Back during the 1960s and 1970s artists had to fight legally to get to keep their original art and when they finally did there was a fanbase who were more than happy to purchase their artwork. The prices weren't what they are today, however. Most artists made a very small return on investment selling their artwork at conventions. But, happily, it supplemented the usually meager pay they received from the publishers. Unfortunately, back then the only people who even knew that original comic art existed were the artists, the publishers and the super-devoted fans who went to comic cons. Fast-forward to the late 1990s and you'll find everyone who sold or collected original comic art started getting the same wise idea. We can now buy and sell this artwork to anyone on Earth with very little time, trouble or expense.
It seemed that people who had never even seen a piece of original comic art before started becoming curious. Often these were comic book fans such as myself who almost never got to go to cons. The revelation of several pieces of comic art suddenly being available to us was almost too good to be true. The amount of comic art sold online has grown monstrously since the late 1990s. On any given day somewhere between 200-800 pieces of original comic art put up for sale or auction on eBay. Sunday night tends to be the busiest time for items beginning and ending.
Original comic art has now started to become conflated with other types of commercial or illustration art sold at auctions. These different types of commercial illustration have been fetching prices that you would normally see for fine art hanging in posh Manhattan art galleries. This growing love and respect for original comic art is, in my mind, long overdue. It has come about largely, though not completely, because of the new relationship between the comic book community and the online auctions, a relationship that I believe has only just begun.
Some artists still come to comic cons with artwork for sale, but many have made arrangements with resellers/agents to sell the artwork for them online. Many artists themselves sell their own artwork online and skip the comic cons altogether. This is at long last a form of liberation for comic artists and fans. Back during the 1960s and 1970s artists had to fight legally to get to keep their original art and when they finally did there was a fanbase who were more than happy to purchase their artwork. The prices weren't what they are today, however. Most artists made a very small return on investment selling their artwork at conventions. But, happily, it supplemented the usually meager pay they received from the publishers. Unfortunately, back then the only people who even knew that original comic art existed were the artists, the publishers and the super-devoted fans who went to comic cons. Fast-forward to the late 1990s and you'll find everyone who sold or collected original comic art started getting the same wise idea. We can now buy and sell this artwork to anyone on Earth with very little time, trouble or expense.
It seemed that people who had never even seen a piece of original comic art before started becoming curious. Often these were comic book fans such as myself who almost never got to go to cons. The revelation of several pieces of comic art suddenly being available to us was almost too good to be true. The amount of comic art sold online has grown monstrously since the late 1990s. On any given day somewhere between 200-800 pieces of original comic art put up for sale or auction on eBay. Sunday night tends to be the busiest time for items beginning and ending.
Original comic art has now started to become conflated with other types of commercial or illustration art sold at auctions. These different types of commercial illustration have been fetching prices that you would normally see for fine art hanging in posh Manhattan art galleries. This growing love and respect for original comic art is, in my mind, long overdue. It has come about largely, though not completely, because of the new relationship between the comic book community and the online auctions, a relationship that I believe has only just begun.
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