Linky Winks

by Robert Boyd

Art Haterz! Marshall's wants your business! I wish I had video for this one. Apparently there is a commercial for Marshall's that is currently running that disses art. Edward Winkelman describes it:

Three women are in an art gallery, looking at dubious concoctions on the walls and questioning their meaning, when the Marshalls spokeswoman whisks them out of there and into an environment that one supposes is meant to represent the shopping experience you'll find at an actual Marshalls (only they left out the piles and piles of useless junk crammed high in aisles you can barely fit through and the poorly trained and grumpy staff).

One of the three women picks up a purse in this fantasy version of the store and says, "This is art." The Marshall's spokeswoman agrees, noting "Yeah, who needs 'real' art. Such a snooze."

From now on Billy Bob's Big & Tall is getting all my business and Marshall's can suck it! [Edward_Winkleman,  Savvy Shopper]


Yoko Ono, Imagine Peace, billboard, 2001, 2011 (Image from Colton & Farb pres release)

We have always been at war with Eurasia. If you've driven south to downtown on I-45 recently, you've seen this billboard by Yoko Ono. Apparently it was sponsored by Colton & Farb for the 10th anniversary of its initial erection in New York after the September 11 attacks. In some ways, it is more provocative now--after all, we have been continuously at war for 10 years. There are millions of American children growing up who have never experienced their country at peace. Still, the press release manages to amuse: "Deceptively simple with its basic black and white palette the billboard engages the thoughts of the viewer on an almost subliminal level, inevitably provoking discussion of current events." Hmm... I don't think its simplicity is "deceptive", and stark black type on an enormous billboard is hardly subliminal. But hey, it's a good thing to do, even if it is as likely to have as much impact on America's wars as a large pancake dropped from a height of 10 feet (to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut).


Miranda July, Pedestal for Strangers, cast fiberglass, steel, paint, 2009


Miranda July is very clever. This is one of 11 sculptures ("Eleven Heavy Things")by Miranda July currently on view at MOCA Pacific Design Center in LA. [Design Milk]



Bob Montana

Something Rotten in Riverdale. Bob Montana, in addition to sporting a killer beatnik look and having an awesome name, created Archie Andrews, the famously wholesome teenage comic book character. He drew Archie for MLJ Comics until his death in 1975. It was "work for hire" (even though he created the character), but at least he got to keep all his original artwork, which wasn't the norm back then. Later his heirs made a deal to sell his original artwork to comic book distribution king Steve Geppi. Montana's family hired hired Jerry Weist to appraise the collection. Weist thought it was worth $2 million, and Geppi bought it for $1 million, to be paid in four quarterly installments. He paid the first two but then claimed that he was out of money (his businesses were suffering serious reverses). This purchase was an investment for Geppi--he planned to sell the Montana pages off piecemeal. Unfortunately, the individual pages sold for much less than Weist's estimate. Weist, who recently died, might have been basing his valuation on previous auction results. If so, one can speculate that the appearance of so many Bob Montana pages on the market (or even the knowledge that they would eventually be on the market) depressed the prices. Geppi offered to return the unsold pages and let the Montanas keep the $500,000. They sued Geppi for damages, saying he had misrepresented his ability to buy the pages. The suit is ongoing (as far as I know). There don't seem to be any obvious bad guys here. The story about how an art deal can go bad, though, is fascinating. Daniel Best has written an exhaustive account of it on his blog, 20th Century Danny Boy.

Jerry Weist, Founder of Million Year Picnic and former Sotheby's Consultant

I am shocked to find out that Jerry Weist died today. Jerry Weist was behind one of the seminal comics fanzines, Squa Tront, which ran from 1967 to 1983. As many of you can guess from the title, it was an EC fanzine, and one of extremely high quality. Weist also founded one of the first comic shops, The Million Year Picnic, in Cambridge, MA. By the time I move to Massachusetts and started shopping there, Jerry had sold it and was working for Sotheby's. But it was always a very progressive shop and in the mid-90s, it was one of the few places in North America where one could get copies of the new wave of European art comics (L'Association, Amok, etc.)



I first got to know him when he was working on his price guide for original comic art. I think the deal was that Kitchen Sink Press was going to publish it, but when KSP went under, he just self-published. But he came up to Northampton a couple of times to visit, and I persuaded him to include some more modern alternative comics artists like Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine in the book. The book was itself a bit of a sham--the prices were based on real prices (Weist had lots of Sotheby's data to go by, plus he knew most of the dealers of original art in the country), but as I demonstrated in my analysis of Jaime Hernandez art prices, art from a single artist can vary wildly in price.

But on reflection, I don't think Jerry was trying to impose a price on the art he was listing. The thing was, the market for original comic art was very undeveloped then. (It's still hardly a mature market, in my mind.) The natural market for this artwork--comics fans--were still obsessed with collecting comic books. The market for collectible comic books had been carefully nurtured by Robert Overstreet for over 20 years by the time Jerry wrote his original art price guide, and Wizard Magazine pushed comics collecting even further. I think Jerry wanted to reach all those people who were buying collectible comics and say--here's something truly unique, the actual artwork. A price guide was a familiar way for those people to think about collecting, so I imagine Jerry thought it would be a good way to make them feel comfortable about a whole different level of collecting.

That said, I don't think it completely worked. Sotheby's discontinued its comics auctions (that business has largely moved online to Heritage Auction  and eBay). But it worked well enough that Jerry published two editions. And things like this are needed--collecting original art can be very intimidating.

Jerry was an extremely likable guy who loved comics, comics artwork, and science fiction. He also introduced me to my favorite Italian dish, pasta puttanesca. So long, Jerry.