Is Investing In Comic Book Original Art A Good Idea?
Episode number 25 of the informative “Felix Comic Art Podcast”, contains some discussion of original art as an investment, as in “a wise place to hold assets for appreciation.” Host and comic art collector and retailer, Felix Lu, shares his view that comic art is a poor investment, and shouldn’t be considered as such by reasonable people, but rather is a wonderful hobby which shouldn’t expect a profit and rarely a return on investment.
I have been buying original comic art since I was a teenager, with my earliest purchase coming in 1988 at the San Diego Comic Convention. I bought art from artists that I loved as a teenager, and was lucky to buy from artists who were well on their way to being some of the biggest in the industry. I bought a page by Todd McFarlane and one by Rob Liefeld for somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 each. This was probably the most I could convince my Dad to spend, otherwise I would have ended up with something other (maybe better) than panel pages from Detective Comics and Hawk and Dove¹. I don’t remember when I sold those pages, or for how much, but I’m confident I got a solid ROI and may have doubled my money.
Not coincidentally, that was also the year I began selling comics with my Dad, which I continued doing on a daily basis for the next fifteen years, and for another ten years less frequently. One of Felix’s guests, collector Andy Robbins, shares what I agree is a great bit of advice about collecting as a hobby: every collector should at some point spend time as a dealer.
Being a retailer for 25 of my 40 years of collecting has given me a perspective on buying and selling collectibles in a way that buying or selling them doesn’t seem to provide. I am not a good collector. Not only do I not obsessively document and organize my comics and art, but when you start selling your collectibles young, it is hard to see anything as not for sale². I am still in retail, but in a very different field, and now have the business acumen to identify why I was so bad at it before. So I thought I’d share how to think like a retailer when you are a collector.
I emotionally agree with Felix’s argument, and I want to illuminate some reasons why before I disagree with it. First, here are the reasons that comic book original art is not a good investment:
1. It is hard to buy retail and make a profit. I don’t know if this is an unspoken aspect of what moves Felix to speak about investing in this way, but it is reality. Any piece of art that is worth buying for investment is (a) very hard to find and (b) even harder to find at any price other than current fair market value. Which leaves one approach to buying retail: buy at retail in such a forward thinking manner that you don’t lose money if you have to sell. I have done this repeatedly over the years by accident and by having good taste.
When James Jean was painting covers for Fables, I felt there was something special about his artwork. It was baroque and detailed while being engaging and highly accomplished. If I had spent money on James Jean artwork when I first saw it in 2004 in San Francisco, I could have easily paid retail prices and made a profit. Instead I bought less expensive limited edition prints and books over the years and was able to sell them for a profit once I had absorbed their joys. You have to be patient. In terms of a traditional investment such as stocks, the average person can’t take advantage of high-frequency trading, which is how large investment firms pay retail and make a profit: pennies per transactions over hundreds of thousands of transactions per day.
2. The best stuff will always be in high competition. I have never owned an Adam Hughes commission, partly because his commission list was a magical beast captured only by the most hard-working and focused collectors. You had to be friendly but fast, patient but aggressive, nonchalant but cutthroat, to get there first. One of the smartest commission buyers I’ve ever met, John Higashi, is a master at all of these characteristics, and happens to also be generous in sharing his art online so you can benefit as well.
This commission process has been both amplified and simplified by smart dealer/brokers like Mr. Lu. Simplified because you don’t have to leave your house to get a Paul Pope or Daniel Warren Johnson commission, but amplified because the competition is now worldwide rather than in one room at one time. If you can beat the competition and get on the list and pay retail, you may be able to profit one day, but only if Paul Pope or Adam Hughes remain in demand in the future, and that’s never a given. I’d bet on one more than the other, but you decide.
3. Your taste isn’t as good as you think it is. This is the subtext of a reason that Felix Lu offers as the antidote for investment art buying. He says, and I paraphrase, buy what you love so it doesn’t matter if you lose money. I would say that the converse of this is true: if what you love doesn’t increase in value it’s because you overspent or have bad taste. I didn’t have great taste when I bought the McFarlane and Liefeld pages, I was just a dumb sixteen year-old³. My only advantage was being in Southern California and having a Dad who started selling comics while I was in high school. (By the way, this is what’s known as privilege. I know how lucky I am.)
Today I have better taste. In fact, I have better taste than most of you. This is not because I’m smarter or worked harder, this is because I had the luxury of reading and buying and selling comics and art without using exclusively my money. If you are reasonably intelligent and have decent self-awareness (most of you), you can develop taste. If you have nearly unlimited access to comic books and great access to original art (almost none of you), you can develop taste better and faster. From 1992 to 2005 I read 50–100 comics per week. That is a great way to learn what’s worth, and not worth, your time.
There are many fun and engaging and compelling and interesting and entertaining comics artists who are decent craftsmen. Then there are a handful of master craftsmen. Alex Ross, Brian Bolland, Frank Quitely, Dave Gibbons, and Art Adams, to use just mainstream examples, all produce work that is highly skilled. There is a name or two on that list that leave me completely disinterested, but their skill is undeniable. This is a big part of the reason they have seen increases in retail price. Their skill is what sets them apart from others who are at one time or another as popular.
As my taste moved closer to where it is today, mainstream comics became less important to me. For instance, I am always a little bit shocked when someone refers to Image as an “independent” comics company. I have never once thought they weren’t mainstream. They are smaller than DC or Marvel, but are just as mainstream, just more willing to take chances because of their system of ownership. Fantagraphics is an independent comics company, but they publish Charles Schulz and Carl Barks.
I point all this out to identify gaps in my taste that prevented me from buying comics art that would have been wise investments, but I didn’t love. I never had any interest in Gary Panter. Many smart people love Gary Panter, but his work has never connected with me. Even if I had the money and the access, I wouldn’t have spent money on Panter art in the ’80s or ’90s. I’ll bet that those who did would be able to find a nice return on their investment.
4. Your emotions will always work against you. I have some artwork that I truly love. For example, I recently moved, and six weeks after moving I realized that my Roger Langridge page from Fred The Clown hadn’t been hung on the wall. I don’t know what it cost me, but I know it was less than the frame it was in. I didn’t feel at home until I could see it every day. Am I ever going to be able to get a “return on investment” on this piece of art? No, because the offers will never match my love for it.
Mr. Lu again points out the catch-22 of investing in something you love: you won’t sell it to take profit. The way he puts it is, “Any other true investment, you get that kind of return, you’re selling it.” Having lived the life of a dealer/collector, every piece of art I own is “for sale,” but no one in their right mind would offer me enough to buy the Langridge from me.
You will always pay too much for the stuff you love and undervalue the stuff that leaves you dry. Daniel Warren Johnson talks about the art he would pay too much for; in comic art collecting, we even have a name for them so that we would feel better about overpaying, “grail pages.”
The other reason emotion works against you…
5. Removing emotion removes the passion which leads to increased value. I have bought artwork because I thought it was a “good deal.” Those McFarlane and Liefeld pages are a kind of example. I justified the mediocre pages because I couldn’t afford the best ones. (Access is also important, I probably found them after all the best art had been purchased.)
Anytime I bought artwork because retail profit was hoped for, my success rate went down. There is a psychological reason for this, but it boils down to this: we forgive our failures and value our successes disproportionately. I can’t remember all the mediocre buys I made, but I can tell you about the ridiculous successes. Large Adrian Tomine art purchased in 1994 and sold in 2007? That’s how to buy low ($100) and sell high ($1500). Tailspin Tommy strip purchased in 1999 and sold in 2017? Not so impressive to go from $50 to $75 over seventeen years. Guess which I was more excited to own? In prepping art for this story, I found many scans of art I’d completely forgotten that I owned.
Mr. Lu says something that I have said for years, Art is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I would have bet you a lot of money in 1990 that Todd McFarlane’s art would never sell for more than $100,000, much less $650k.⁴ I just couldn’t have imagined a world in which someone would be willing to pay for it. Oops.
6. The art market is very insular. This one point could easily be 10,000 words, if not 50,000. Suffice it to say that when it comes to buying art, there are big names and they have earned their status and reputations: Albert Moy, Mitch Itkowitz, Mike Burkey, Russ Cochran, John Halperin, Scott Eder, and many more. There are also those who are untrustworthy who have earned their reputations. It is nearly impossible to buy an investment grade piece of original art without being on the radar of one of these dealers or paying more than retail at auction. When dealing with one-of-a-kind items, this is simply unavoidable. The only thing that matters is Who owns it? and What they will sell it for? As a small time comics retailer and no-time art buyer, I simply wouldn’t have known that a piece of art even entered the doors at SDCC if one of the dealers didn’t put it up for sale. That means that I could never pay anything other than top dollar for it. This insularity is a problem if you intend to do any profit taking.
There is a small amount of overall profit to be had in comics art. Most people put money into the retail market and never take the money out. This is the obvious problem if you are investing.
It is not obvious at the large shows, but the actual money changing hands frequently just gets shifted around. This is not a high margin business for most. Convention retailers know that the very best items in any room sell before the doors open. They may sell again after, but that is one layer of profit stripped out of retail. It’s all about arbitrage.
I could also spend more time pointing out that the “real world” art market, the one with museums and record setting auctions, is even more insular, but I really don’t know enough to even pretend to be worth reading about.
Now that we’ve laid out all the reasons you won’t make money reselling comic art, let’s also talk about counter arguments…
How to not lose money on comics art:
1. You are not as dumb as you once were. Some people don’t like to make mistakes. I don’t mind at all. Every mistake is an opportunity to say, “I may be dumb, but I’m not as dumb as I was yesterday.” If you can maintain some self-awareness and learn from your mistakes, you will get better at whatever you do.
Convinced that limited edition prints of Jack Kirby art, numbered by the guy who printed them are the way to invest? You’re not that dumb anymore. Think that a Heritage auction purchase can be flipped? You’re not that dumb anymore. Figure that a panel page by Gil Kane that is 1/10th the price of the cover today will be 1/5th the price in 10 years? You’re not that dumb anymore. Think that no one will spend $15k on a Herb Trimpe knock-off of Steranko? I’m not that dumb anymore.
Investing in comic art is not a good replacement for traditional investments that have a proven return and high liquidity. However, if you want to be less dumb and maybe not lose money, and you are going to buy comic art anyway, here are my suggestions.
2. Sell as a retailer whenever you can. Thankfully, in the comic art market, there are some ways to do this. Ebay and comicartfans.com of course. And if you have expensive pieces, auction consignment is the way to go. The goal is to remove arbitrage from any sale after your own. Retailers add value to transactions, so you need to be the retailer to retain that value, and recognize when a retailer will maximize that value. You are going to be able to sell a piece of comic art for less than any respected retailer. The key is to recognize the difference in your sale prices and decide the best course of action.
3. Lose money on comics art. Wait…what the hell!? I thought this was all about doing the opposite? It is. If you have any art that is dragging you down for any reason, sell it. If it is taking up mental or physical real estate, relieve that weight. If you can take a minor loss today on what may be a major loss in the future, minimize that loss. Successful investing is all about focusing on profit, and if you can’t extract profit, don’t be afraid to minimize loss. I ran a comic shop full time for 10 years, but the line I remember was said by a buyer at another store, “A drop will drown us.” That means that each unwanted and unsold book was an albatross that could be the breaking point.
4. Forget the real estate rule. There is a saying in real estate: “buy the worst house on the best block you can afford.” That doesn’t work when passion and taste come in to play. You don’t want the worst page from the best artist unless you know that the market is undervaluing it. The last twenty years of comic art prices have accelerated like the last forty years of comics back issue prices⁵. The “best” pieces have accelerated their value faster than the “worst” pieces of art. McFarlane Amazing Spider-Man panel pages? You can buy one today for $10,000. As mentioned above, a cover sold for more than $600k. When they first hit the market, I estimate that they would have sold for $100 and $750 respectively, or a 1:7.5 ratio. The ballpark increases over thirty years are 1:100 (pages) and 1:800 (covers). Buy the very best you can find and afford.
Hold on, though, before you sell anything…
5. Be Patient. Time is money. This is true everywhere, and in comic art it is definitely true. If you want to make a profit, you have to give it time. There are a few reasons for this.
a. The people who pay the most for comic art, are doing so with less critical assessment. They are buying what they love and can afford. What do people tend to love? The art that impacted them the most during development, i.e. you love what you loved as a teenager. It is no coincidence that prices have spiked on John Byrne when purchased by people who were thirteen in 1978–1982. It is no coincidence that Todd McFarlane prices are being spiked by people who were thirteen in 1988–1992.
If the comic art market is still a thing in 2040, Walking Dead Charlie Adlard covers will spike because of people born in 1998–2002, and less because of those who were reading the comic from day one, but for those who were watching the currently-ubiquitous cable show, then picked up the books. These purchases are driven by nostalgia. This is something that gets communicated well in the interviews in the Felix Comic Art Podcast. Time and again the rose-colored-glasses come on when people reflect on their teenaged reading. Patience is key. You want to buy relatively new art, then sell it to professionals in their 40s⁶. They need to age into the purchase so their critical assessment is down and nostalgia is up. Then they can overpay for their art. A page purchased for $100 in 2000 only needs to be sold for $250 today to beat the Dow Jones for that time period. That is admittedly a strong profit for the average page, but not for a carefully selected purchase. This article is about improving your average
b. This is a very specific market with a very limited selection. Do you want a great page from a top tier Marvel artist from before 2000? It’s too late to get a deal. You can’t go back to buy that Adam Kubert or Mark Bagley art when it hit the market, much less McFarlane or Frank Miller or Kirby. You can buy art from the next great Marvel artist before he signs on to do a run on Spider-Man or X-Men. Maybe it’ll be James Harren, maybe Christian Ward, maybe Cory Walker. Now, before you run out and buy art as an investment, who knows if these are the ones? I don’t, so develop your taste and pick the one you love.
c. A profit from selling something is often found in waiting until the right time to sell, but that starts with the right time to buy. I considered buying bitcoin when it was $100. It is selling today (12/20/2017) at $17000, but I would have already taken my profit at $1000 or so and would now be kicking myself. Chances are you are not going to make money selling in volume unless you are a rep and that’s an entirely different business model. You are going to avoid losing money by being patient and following the market to find the right time to sell.
So how the hell do you buy low?
6. Build a relationship with artists. Go to comic shows, follow artists on Twitter, be a respectful fan of comics art. All of my highest profit margin sales of comics art have come because I bought art when an artist was just getting rolling on selling comic art. This is where taste comes in. You can find 50 artists at a decent sized regional comics show, some published, some not. If you find an artist whose work you like and shows promise, buy some art. Talk to them. Build a relationship. And, whenever possible…
7. Buy directly from artists. This is one key step to removing a layer of profit from someone else’s pocket and keeping it available to yours.
This is not a simple or easy equation. If I can buy a piece of art directly from someone who uses a rep like Mr. Lu, that doesn’t mean I can sell it for what he sells it for right now. A representative adds value, which increases the retail price. [Note: Felix Lu insists that he doesn’t charge a premium for art, but that his take comes from the artist’s end. You decide for yourself who is paying for that cut.] You can sell as a retailer in a lot of venues, but that doesn’t mean you can charge what a full-time, established, successful retailer charges. The service they provide is not nominal and they earn a premium for offering it.
However, whenever possible, build relationships with the artists you want to spend money with in a patient and polite manner. They can tell when someone wants something from them, so be honest about it if you only want to buy it as an investment. On the flip side, be honest about it if you love their work and are buying their art to frame and put it up on your wall. They can tell the difference anyway.
8. Maintain your passion, but be realistic. If your passion for comic art fades, stop buying it. If it is a good time to take a profit, take a profit. If it is a good time to pack the art away and revisit it later, do that. If you are not passionate about it, you will make poor buying decisions.
If you can’t be realistic about when it is time to sell something, you are going to miss those rare opportunities to capitalize on the market. If we are talking about Cory Walker or Ryan Ottley Invincible art, a good time to sell may be when a possible Invincible TV show or movie is released, even if you still love it. Other than that, you may plan to hold them until those teenaged Invincible readers are doctors or lawyers or, I don’t know, Youtube stars.
9. Your taste lining up with consensus is critical to not losing money. I’m going to pick on a few artists, but not because I don’t think they’re great or overvalued, but because I want to be specific about examples.
I like Erik Larsen’s comics and always enjoy looking at his art, and it’s fairly expensive. I don’t think he’ll ever catch up to Jim Lee in price. I think Larsen is more innovative, a more interesting cartoonist, and maybe a better visual storyteller. However, his innovation and curiosity also makes him a more idiosyncratic artist than Jim Lee. Also, plain and simple, Lee went back to more famous characters, which kept his readership higher than Larsen. I would rather read Larsen Savage Dragon than Jim Lee Superman, but it’s safe to say I am not in the majority. You have to know the difference between what you love and what resonates with others. This is taste.
I like Jack Davis a lot more than I like Jack Kirby. I would be foolish to think that at some magical point in the future there will be more demand for Davis than Kirby. This is purely my taste. There are a dozen reasons why Kirby will always demand more.
When in doubt about your own taste, judge it against the taste of others. Just as an example, the Eisner Award nominated artists each year. If you love an artist who has been nominated once in the last ten years of eligibility, they are probably not as solid as an investment as an artist nominated eight times in the last ten years. If you don’t have your own taste, trust others who do.
10. Plan your luck. Give yourself more chances to get lucky. Carry cash to shows. You will get a better deal on your next ten purchases if you make them in cash at a convention. Asking for a cash discount helps, and having it ready to use makes a difference. Find a nice piece of art at the table of a dealer who only sets up at local shows in Chicago? He is less likely to take a credit card, and if he does, he is getting hit harder with fees. Sure, you can PayPal him some money, but cash in hand speaks volumes.
Find an artist with art who has never sold art before and may have underpriced it? Buy a page or two. This is where personal taste can make a big difference. I believed in Adrian Tomine’s art in 1994, and buying three large pieces was a great investment. I was right, and when I bought more in 2000, my dollars didn’t get me as much art. Today there are great up and comers in comics like Nick Pitarra or Emma Rios, but it may already be too late. Who’s the next Emma Rios? Or the next John Cassady? They are probably sitting at convention tables all summer, waiting for someone to show interest.
A last few corollary recommendations before I wrap up:
Recognize when your favorite artist is actually a writer. Ed Brubaker, Brian Bendis, even Alan Moore, all produced comics pages. Some of them were even great comics, but not the best art in their publication history. They developed (or recognized) their true talent and moved on to writing for other artists. I own the best piece of art Ed Brubaker ever did⁷, but it can’t hold a candle to a nice Sean Phillips cover.
Be careful with art older than 50 years. I don’t think that the average page from pre-1960 is going to get much more expensive. More specifically, I think a smaller percentage of comics art from pre-1960 will increase dramatically in price in the next ten years than in it did in the last ten.
Mostly the lack of investment value is due to visibility, awareness and passion. My 10-year-old knows and loves the 50s Popeye art thanks to reprints from IDW. How many 10-year-olds do? Not many. My 11-year-old loves Runaways by Vaughn and Alphona. How many 11-year-olds do? Probably a lot more, thanks to streaming video. Both my kids love the Flash TV show. Would either of them care today or in thirty years about a beautiful Infantino or even Wieringo Flash cover? Emphatically, no.
If my kids want to hang a piece of comics art on their walls when they own some walls, chances are their choice will be Raina Telgemeier. Don’t know who that is? She is the most popular comics artist in the United States but it doesn’t matter to you because she doesn’t sell originals from her last four incredibly successful books.
Don’t be afraid to make an offer. I’m not suggesting that you insult someone with an offer, but it doesn’t hurt to ask or negotiate. And remember, make your luck, so carry and offer cash.
Be a fan. Artists recognize that tastes change. If you are a fan of an artist today and buy a piece of art, then sell it five years from now, no reasonable artist will begrudge profit-taking. If you convince a popular artist that you are a huge fan to get a convention sketch and then put it on Ebay a week later, you are not a fan, just a dick.
Having said all of this, my advice is the same as Felix Lu’s, don’t buy art for pure investment reasons. It sounds like a stupid platitude, but believe it: Buy what you love and you’ll never lose money.
Postscript: I look forward to people reading this and sharing their own advice and opinions, so please comment below. I do sell art occasionally, most commonly on eBay under the name 512ind, but this is not an ad. I do not own any of the copyrights of the art pictured, even those of my own collection, past and present. I used them as fair use for this article, and when lifted from the web, used smaller or incomplete versions.
Footnotes:
- I had read these books by McFarlane (Detective) and Liefeld (Hawk and Dove), and particularly loved the McFarlane Batman, but I would have chosen Spider-Man pages for sure if they were available. I may have still ended up with Hawk and Dove, because I like Liefeld better with the Karl Kesel inks.
- For example, writing this article, I reflected on some art I used to own and there are a few pieces that I wish I’d kept. When you can make a solid profit it can be hard to turn down the cash. I thought to include this above, but ultimately it was redundant to being patient. If you have to sell something because you need the money, sell the thing you love the least.
- I don’t know how much smarter I am now, but wisdom counts.
- Blind Item: In the late 1980s I overheard a legendary comics dealer say: With $20,000 you could be the biggest original comic art dealer in the world tomorrow. I think that was a slight exaggeration, but not by much.
- Numbers nerd footnote warning! In the 1970s when the Overstreet Guide to Comic Book Prices became ubiquitous to comic collectors, there were three grades listed, Good:Fine:Mint, and the values roughly followed a 1:3:5 value system. Today there are six grades listed, GD:VG:FN:VF:VF/NM:NM- and if you were to compare today’s GD:FN:NM- in the same book it would more commonly be 1:3:10, with wide variations on the top end depending on a variety of variables. I picked one 1970s key example, Incredible Hulk #181, and here are the numbers in the 2015 Overstreet Guide: 1:3:10. I picked one 1960s key, Amazing Spider-Man #1, and they are 1:3:33+. If you extend this to higher grades, this exponential increase continues. For example, Heritage lists sale of a 9.4 (NM) Spider-Man #1 at $83000 in 2009. This is 20% higher than the 2015 9.2 price guide price. This is also a classic illustration of the idea that collectibles are worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for them.
- Car companies wisely take advantage of growing earning potential in their customers. New lines of cars partly come and go because people age into and out of the market. The Honda Fit was introduced when people thought of the Civic as out of their price range as the Civic buyers aged up and the price and quality rose to keep up. If Honda owners become wealthier, Civic owners move on to Accords or Acuras. The Lincoln Town Car was discontinued because people who thought of it as a great example of what a high-end car could be aged and stopped driving. People younger than me think of this as an old person’s car. Ride-sharing would have hastened the Town Car’s demise eventually as taxi companies try to keep up by buying Priuses.
- Yes, I do say so myself.
