February 18 2008

Swords of Cerebus #1 - Cover Prelim
eBay itemno. 260210862681
Seller: angelina-steven
Buyer: monsterscollectibles.com
Price: $760



Swords of Cerebus - The Logo
eBay item no. 260210864114
Seller: angelina-steven
Buyer: meowfisher
Price: $152.50

Nice catch, Margaret!

February 17 2008 Cerebus 8 p 19

February 17 2008
eBay item no. 280199610123
Seller: edcoyote
Buyer: jel444
Price: $760

I thought this was a nice page from this era. Nice to see some new names among the bidders.

February 16 2008 Cerebus 9 p 11

Cerebus #9 p 11
eBay item no. 260210446716
Seller: nightowl_zzz
Buyer: el_putzo
Price: $520

February 11 2008

Now... this is about as interesting as it gets.

In the last day or so, the Obama posters I talked about the other day have all but disappeared from eBay.

As you'll recall, the uber-cool Obama poster (edition of 350, $45 each) sold out in moments, and then, also within moments, the eBay sales began. I picked up a Buy-It-Now during the first hour or so.

A few days ago, the three posters I ended up bidding on were all withdrawn, two weeks later, by eBay. Earlier today, my payment was refunded.

A quick trip though the "completed auctions" and I came across this one: This is a real post by one of the obey people on Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:39 pm : 300196857753

To all the people who are bidding or have bid on any Obey Giant shepard fairey Obama prints, BEWARE! you are most likely Not going to recieve this print since Obey Giant forbids the selling of their prints before they are actually in the sellers hands. NONE of these prints have been shipped out and because obey giant is so upset about these "flippers" selling their print for a huge profit before they actually own it, they are seriously considering severely delaying the ship ment, or not shipping them at all, especially to the people who put them up for auction on ebay in the last several weeks or present auctions. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT BID on these auctions! If you already bid and havent paid, don't- you should not get any negative feedback since the seller shouldnt be selling it anyway. If you did pay, I would ask for your money back especially due to alot of the shady and possible "shill" bids that were made in order to get the prices up! As for the " Hope offset" poster, if it has folds in it it is the PAPER THIN paster edition that were sold 5 for $15.00 to supposed obama fans to paste up in their area. This edition is of 3000! If you want to pay $199.00 or more for these, that is your deal, but please dont rely on the seller's declaration that it is a "great investment". As for the black and white smaller obama progress posters, save yourself the money and download it for free on the obey giant site just like the seller did! You can even take it to a copy shop and have it made into any size you want for a few bucks!:) If you have any questions email me, I dont care. P.S. This IS an awesome print and im not saying dont ever buy one on ebay if you want, just wait untill everything is straightened out and are being sold (maybe) by legitimate seller's who actually own the print! - Thanks for reading and go Obama....


"I can assure you that we have the prints, signed, numbered and ready to go. Due to the fact that there were a LARGE number of ebay auctions, the shipping is on hold. This is a print that we stood to make no profit on. It funded the printing of the pasters. There are people out there, some of which may be reading this, looking to make their rent check or car payment and possibly then some off reselling this print. How would the bulk of you guys feel about OG if we stopped selling them through our site, distributed them amongst our friends and families, and then just took a handfull of each edition and sold them for 1000 on ebay to cover our costs and make profits? I doubt all of you college kids and young guys could afford to have one, let alone have a collection.

That being said, I'd much rather spend my time shipping out the prints, then to be dealing with tracking down these auctions. If you have put your print on ebay, and it is still up or the auction has closed, contact me directly and we can figure out a solution, and if you have any information to help us out so that we can begin shipping these prints out, it would be greatly appreciated. "

February 10 2008

Another vintage page popped up yesterday -

Cerebus #8 p 19
eBay item no. 280199610123
Seller: edcoyote

February 9 2008

Terrific to see the "The World Without Cerebus" commissions included at cerebusart.com and cerebustheaardvark.com.

I've dropped in on a couple of the boards where Dave has been doing his recent promotional tour for Glamourpuss, and a few of the questioners have mentioned "The World Without Cerebus," too. Nice.

The ME collection is up at Heritage and the clock is ticking toward leap day.

A page from issue 9 is up at eBay, not that the seller will be able to leave a comment any more if s/he gets screwed by a buyer.

eBay item no. 260210446716
Cerebus #9 p 11

February 4 2008

Another of these artists, Evan Hecox, captures some fairly haunting and poignant viewpoints.

See the Evan Hecox web site for more.

February 3 2008

Continuing my brief look at the modern urban art movement. I picked up these two, from the FAILE group.

February 2 2008

Well, that was a long run of those old Heritage Auctions. Not too many surprises there, except perhaps for the upcoming ME sell-off event. With a nearly 20% buyer's exploitation, I mean, premium, and the generally higher prices, it will be interesting to see who comes out for those. Heritage Auctions seem to attract some cross-over buyers, for sure.

Haha. Just as I was writing this, I received an email message from the helpful Client Services unit at Heritage:

It has come to our attention that the credit card(s) listed in your account has expired, or will soon. Since this
could affect your ability to bid, or slow down delivery of your purchases, please update your account today.

Service knows no bounds.

My latest obsession has been understanding the posters from some of the modern "urban art" movement.

Talking about this comes down to the usual "what is art?" debate that has been raised here before, particularly because Dave is so openly in the "it isn't art unless it takes time" camp (think: a Norman Rockwell painting versus a Banksy stencil).

Looking over the past decade, the relatively new kids on the block are the wheatpaste poster-plasterers who create low-cost limited edition versions on nice paper that speculators snap up and create a immediate and (somewhat) manufactured secondary market for.

The highest prices are associated with the Faile collective, which, if you don't know them, should have some interest to the comics crowd because many of their designs evoke a pulp-Lichtenstein motif. They release hand-made editions of 6 or 10 uniquely customized fine art posters based on their street designs.

The wikipedia entry for Faile is linked here.

If Faile is haute couture, then Wal-Mart and Target brands cannot be far away. Actually, I am not doing a service to some operations that I admire for their creativity... something that I think includes really good marketing campaigns because it means you understand something about human nature, and so you've recognized an open niche.

In other words, exactly what the glamourpuss campaign is about.

I'll feature some of these works here over the next few days, unless there is some burning bit of Aartvarkian news that surfaces.

I think the Shepard Fairey operation is genius: Obey. The wikipedia entry points to a severe criticism. In fact, the two warnings on the Wiki article are telling: "This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject." and "The neutrality of this article is disputed."

Last week, the Obey site announced the production of a 350-piece S/N run of the Obama "PROGRESS" poster for release on Wednesday. The original prices from Fairey tend to be in the $50 range (this one was $45), one to a customer. The release was opened and, as usual, sold out in minutes if not seconds (Gross income: $15,750).

By Thursday night, the first of these began appearing on eBay and they are running about $500.

It's a pretty awesome poster, and it was coupled with a wheatpaste paper campaign.

I'm not sure how one actually manages to snag one of the $45 ones. I do know how to get a $500 one.

February 1 2008

No, this is not the next stunning entry in the "World Without Cerebus" series... just a cold and snowy morning in Ann Arbor.