Funny you should mention the subject, Twobyfour showed me this just the other day, the original art for Prison Break 02 up for auction at Heritage:
http://comics.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=7002&Lot_No=92127
To be honest I'm a real cheapie and have never collected original art. That's a beauty though! One of these days I'll branch out into a little art ownership but it might have to wait for the next house...
I'm with you there, Darwin,
Over 40+ years of collecting, I think I've accumulated less than a dozen pieces of original art. We have a Doug Wildey original from his book,
The Movie Cowboy, but it's not really mine. When he tried to give it to me, I wouldn't take it, but Karen jumped up and said she WOULD. I learned better when I finished the Kinstler book and gratefully accepted the two originals he gave me.
I have a
Rip Hunter Toth page that I bought back in 1972 or so - about the same time I picked up a couple of Gray Morrow romance pages and, my prize, a Joe Maneely
Mrs. Lyon's Cubs Sunday page at my one and only New York Con. Karen also has a nice Bill Stout original painting and a Charles Vess page from
Stardust, and I've got a
Stardust original, too. Charles "depicted" me as a bookseller in Faery in the back of the book and sold me the page at a price I couldn't refuse. Oh, yeah, and Kinstler sent me a portrait he did of me from a jpeg I sent his wife while we were working on his book and Manual Auad got Alfred Alcala to paint a picture of me back in about 1974. Got a few sketches from customers when I was running Bud Plant Illustrated Books, including ones from Ken Steacy and Carolyn Kelly. And that's about it. So, yeah, that's about 12 for me and three or four for Karen.
For old time art, together Karen and I purchased two Harry Rountree originals and I bought one Rountree original from
The Lost World from his illustrations in
The Strand in 1912. Don't ask how THAT happened...
I'm too cheap to buy art. Simply put, I'd rather have the comics, and my standards there are becoming all too well known to the guys who are scanning them for GAC.
My book on Kinstler has about 30 of his Avon inside front covers reproduced (including the one for sale at Heritage), most full page and about half of them from the original art. Still available at 20% off the cover price. $36 plus postage. End of commercial.
Peace, Jim (|:{>