Avenger 58 Cover on ebay

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So you think the cover with the original art would be worth $100k? I don't care if it was used to produce the printed comic it's still mostly stats. A stat cover is worth 1/10 what the original art is worth.

 

 

 

100k is a bit, how so u say...rich

imho

Looks like the art for the Vision is all original with stats of the others?

Very little of the Vision is original art. The original art is on the slightly yellowed art board: his lower jaw, shoulders and cape, as well as the part of his eye that touches Iron Man's arm. The rest of the Vision - the parts on the lighter/whiter paper - is stats.

That's a whole lot of money for some simple line work to redraw the jaw and shoulders, plus 1/3rd of one eye, and Thor's cape.

I think this is similar to today's digital artists who sell digital prints that are 1/1 in that it's not a piece for everyone and the nature of the format turns many collectors off in terms of valuation.

But if this piece is indeed legitimate, not some home made counterfeit recreation posing as something used in production, and was the actual production piece used to publish the comic book, then it's fairly significant and I can see where some collectors may drool over it and pay a premium for its historical significance regardless of original pencil and ink vs stats.

I'm always a bit weary on artwork with stats, or color guides or anything that looks like it could have been created / re-created outside of the realm of legitimacy that looks outside the standard or conventional norm.

I wonder if the stats used are simply a montage of previously used/published figure artwork? Or are the originals simple separate (and if so, are they now non-existent or can be sourced and credited to being part of other publication covers or pages)?

I think this is similar to today's digital artists who sell digital prints that are 1/1 in that it's not a piece for everyone and the nature of the format turns many collectors off in terms of valuation.

 

But if this piece is indeed legitimate, not some home made counterfeit recreation posing as something used in production, and was the actual production piece used to publish the comic book, then it's fairly significant and I can see where some collectors may drool over it and pay a premium for its historical significance regardless of original pencil and ink vs stats.

 

I'm always a bit weary on artwork with stats, or color guides or anything that looks like it could have been created / re-created outside of the realm of legitimacy that looks outside the standard or conventional norm.

 

I wonder if the stats used are simply a montage of previously used/published figure artwork? Or are the originals simple separate (and if so, are they now non-existent or can be sourced and credited to being part of other publication covers or pages)?

Interesting question, though I am not sure how it would affect the value. If the images were taken from earlier published art, I think some people would desire it more, while some would prefer they be new images (which would then beg the question as to whether the originals are available somewhere).

The biggest problem with production pieces is that people are taking advantage of it by calling modern repros production art and/or failing to note when pieces are genuine production items but were used in a very modern reprint.

Oddly, the value of genuine "production art" pieces might be increased if the word "art" was removed from the description but, at the same time, the term "production piece" could only be applied to something created by the publisher specifically for the original production. Then, original production pieces could be valued for what they are -- a production piece that predates the publication of the actual book, which is neither the original art or the published pieces but something in between and still reasonably cool.

Then, the purist art collectors would feel less need to cry "worthless" whenever one comes up for sale, and scammers would have a harder time passing off a kinkos copy made on acetate as something more than it is.

Seems pretty clear that Buscema drew a cover very close to this, but with the Vision's face a bit more obscured by the other figures. This was statted, and the small figures separated from Vision's face and lowered about an inch. The seller's claim that Buscema drew the new jawline and other minimal fixes is pure wishful supposition.

I wonder if the stats used are simply a montage of previously used/published figure artwork? Or are the originals simple separate (and if so, are they now non-existent or can be sourced and credited to being part of other publication covers or pages)?

I think the likelihood is that that Stan Lee requested alterations on the all-original cover art (as initially illustrated by Buscema). The stats may well be slightly reduced in size from the original drawings as part of Stan's instructions for a re-do.

It's something that happened with the Gene Colan cover for Tales of Suspense # 85 (the one where Iron Man is suspended in chains in front of the Mandarin). For that particular cover, both the original cover illustration (unpublished as such) and the altered stat cover (image reduced slightly, with new art extensions) both existed and were sold separately.

There's also an early Colan Daredevil cover where Stan had the cover image reversed (Daredevil # 25, Leap Frog). For this particular original, the reversed stat was glued directly over the original artwork.

Seems pretty clear that Buscema drew a cover very close to this, but with the Vision's face a bit more obscured by the other figures. This was statted, and the small figures separated from Vision's face and lowered about an inch. The seller's claim that Buscema drew the new jawline and other minimal fixes is pure wishful supposition.

Yes, there's no guarantee that Buscema was involved with the new bits added to the statted cover - which may well be the work of a production staffer.

Oh, wait, all the clues are present in the cover image to indicate what's happened here.

Looking at the cuts in the stat (and subsequent art extentions), as originally illustrated, Thor and Iron Man were further up and obscured most of the Vision's face and (I guess to preserve Buscema's original drawing) were cut out of the stat and lowered slightly.

Cap and the other Avengers (at bottom of the cover) were likely to have been lowered too.

Wouldn't surprise me if Buscema's original (intact) drawing exists separately (as was the case with the Tales of Suspense # 85 cover).

Based upon all of the questionable qualities of the piece, personally, I'd be at peace not owning a piece like this at any price over what I'd be comfortable paying, and unfortunately, my comfort zone would be sub-par to what others would probably risk paying.

I'm one of those finicky collectors who don't like "inks over bluelines" nor "stats" and even am not a huge fan of today's modern art with weak pencils only (embellished by digitial inks or post-production coloring). So, its just more my opinion to what it's worth to me.

There's so much great artwork available for Avengers and by John Buscema, that I'd personally just look at this, admire it from afar and save my money for another piece.

Not something I'd place a great deal of value on, but it's what the published cover was printed from and, as such, has historical interest and would make a nice display piece (if you can live with the fact it's mostly stat).

The asking price is absurd, so I doubt this will sell any time soon.

Any ideas what this might be worth?

8 hours ago, Flambit said:

Any ideas what this might be worth?

If that's the actual original art, ask David Mandel. It's part of his collection

I'm pretty certain this is the production/seperation board used to produce printing plates. This isn't the OA from David Mandel's collection.

Assuming this is a period production cover, and bears a CCA stamp with sign-off on the back, previous discussions on ranges for production (i.e. mostly stat) covers would likely not apply here, and this could very well be one of the top production covers.

Marvel sent overseas an image that shows an early stage of the Vision (left), I don't know if this helps since I can't see the image of the cover auctioned.