Brit Comics Art announced a sale of some Frank Quitely art, including the original pencil art for the cover to the All-Star Superman collected edition. The price is $50,000 and as noted in the listing,
The cover comes from Quitely’s personal collection and is the last All Star Superman cover he owns. It has never been offered for sale before.
All-Star Superman, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Quitely, is considered the greatest modern take on Superman, and greatly influenced the upcoming James Gunn Superman movie. It’s also Superman Day on Friday, so it seems a propitious time to sell this seminal and much loved piece of art.
But it is also a deceptively simple piece of work, a bare pencil sketch that was digitally illuminated for the finished cover. And some people thought $50,000 was a lot of money for such a thing. (Other Quitely covers are going for in the $15,000 range.)
And to my surprise, things kicked off! Jimmy Palmiotti started the kicking, asking,
They are asking for $50,000 for this pencil piece used as the cover and trade of ALL STAR SUPERMAN – art by Frank Quietly. Would love to hear your opinion.
And then he gave his own answer:
I think it’s a future ICON image. So the cost is justified.
Tl;dr: of course it is worth the money. But many commenters on Twitter did not think so. I won’t bother quoting them because they are WRONG. A sampling of other comments by professionals.
Mark Brooks: My opinion- The value of art is what it means to the buyer and what it means to the greater story. A 4 line doodle on a napkin by Picasso could fetch similar or more. I don’t charge by the line or brush stroke, I charge by the value.
An artist has a value based on their work and reputation. Same can be said for the character or subject matter. I can spend 80 hours exhaustingly painting a new character for an indie book but, when selling it, it will pale in comparison to a Spider-man cover I spend 15 hours on. Both will be purchased based on my name and reputation but those will only go so far. At the end of the day, WHAT I’m drawing will decide the value. My name and reputation are simply the floor of my value, not the ceiling.
Concerning this piece, it’s Frank Quitely which means his floor is already high. Combine it with the ceiling of it being the main image for the collective All-star Superman run and you get your answer. At the end of the day it’s what people are willing to pay. That’s its value.
Scott Snyder threw in his 2¢: I understand approaching comic art as an investment, there’s nothing wrong with that at all, but the value of this piece, for fans of the book, isn’t linked to the movie. For a lot of fans All-Star Superman is a masterpiece and seminal moment in comics. Its value is personal
White prompted Aditya Bidikar to respond: Imagine thinking that a Frank Quitely cover to All-Star Superman, of all things, is only valuable in how it relates to a movie.
But Nick Pitarra, artist on The Manhattan Projects among many other things, put it all to rest with this:
Let’s end this debate.
Full disclosure, I’m one of the many art collectors scrambling to work directly with Joe (Quitely’s rep, yes, this is coming directly from Quitely) to try and acquire this piece of comic’s history.
I think this All-Star Superman trade cover not only says it all, it ends the conversation. When Grant and Vin wrapped their acclaimed run, Vin drew one final image—crystallizing their story and Superman forever. This image.
I’ll start this rant by saying I’m endlessly fascinated by how stories re-manifest across time and cultures—the same structures wearing different skins. It’s as if they are these invisible, eternal monoliths that exist outside of space and time, just waiting to be uncovered and repainted. That brings me to this little essay about All-Star Superman—aka 2D Jesus.
Thousands of creators have worked on both Batman and Superman over the decades—sculpting them, refining them, nudging them closer and closer to what I’d argue are their final forms.
Batman, in The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller: the most grounded man of grounded men. Untrusting of everything. Prepared to take down his own friends if needed. Hopeless in a bleak world. Literally operating in the dark. A completely material existence as Bruce Wayne. Entirely mortal. The godless man.
Superman, in All-Star Superman: the pure symbol of hope. Powered by the sun (the light). Coming from above. Essentially a god living humbly as a man—who knows his time on Earth is limited. Who doesn’t leave until even the man who schemed to kill him is saved. He leaves behind not just strength, but his example of goodness. His message of hope. His way.
This All-Star Superman cover—especially when placed next to DKR #2—makes the contrast clear. It’s like 70+ years of mythology were funneled through two Franks: inky grit from Frank Miller, graphite grace from Frank Quitely. Bookending these icons. Elevating them to their ultimate forms.
What blows my mind is this: how do we instinctively—and sometimes unconsciously—just know when Batman is acting like Batman? Or when Superman is being Superman? We all feel it. We all know it. Separately, and somehow collectively. And that’s wild to me.
And it’s not just the thousands of creators—it’s the millions of fans, too. Readers supported the versions and runs they loved most, telling editors and publishers what resonated through their buying power. They helped turn story arcs into evergreen myth. Together, fans and creators co-sculpted these characters into what they are now.
Miller deconstructed Batman into his gritty, inky essence. Morrison and Quitely crystallized Superman into his final, divine form—and Frank Quitely actually had the balls to just draw it with this definitive final cover. This image reminds me of those Jesus-on-a-plate pictures hanging in your grandma’s kitchen. And I love that.
Lastly, I’m calling The Dark Knight Returns and All-Star Superman the bookends of these characters. Not because they’re everyone’s favorite versions—though for many, they are. My claim is this: whatever your favorite version of Batman or Superman is… it probably lives somewhere between these two books, and these two images. These are the myths—actualized, fully formed.
Batman’s bookend by Frank Miller sold for almost 500k at auction 11-12 years back, and the comic art market has only went into the stratosphere since then.
Superman’s bookend by Frank Quitely is being offered directly from the artist for 50k today. Tell me again how this is a rip off.
PItarra added a few examples of the art in question being shown in museums, and writer/producer Sha Nazir added:
Totally agree it’s iconic. And Vins worth every penny. Here’s a page from the publication we made regarding this piece.
Adding: Other than its symbolism, it’s one of the most recognisable covers in the past 30 years. Defines an era of comics
I should note, we’ve been here before: people complained about Jim Lee’s $20,000 commission fee, although resale values showed it’s a reasonable price. The bottom line is art is worth what people will pay for it, but great art also has infinite value.
My reference to the painter Caspar David Friedrich the other day was because I had just seen a show of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There is nothing like the feeling of standing in front of a great work of art and letting its power communicate directly to you. Friedrich was a popular artist in his day and his paintings of crosses in mountains were trendy for a while. Can you imagine what it would be like to own such a thing and walk by it in your living room every day?
I’m not going to comparatively rank Friedrich (who had great technique but painted in a fairly narrow genre) to Quitely, but Quitely is also a great artist. There is a quality to his work that goes beyond mere lines to impart some of the deepest emotions we can experience. It’s supernal. It’s silent yet thunderous, still yet shattering. I just….Nick Pitarra put it better than I could. Very few artists could draw Superman as Jesus and not make it mawkish, but Quitely’s image resonates with what our ideas of Jesus could be, and puts Superman in that context.
So if you ask me, $50,000 is a bargain. This is a classic image that will always be one of the great Superman drawings. May it fall into worthy hands!
Brit Comics Art is run by Joseph Melchior and also offers art by Dave Gibbons, Brian Bolland, Frank Quitely, Mark Buckingham and Duncan Fegredo. There’s some good pieces there, some relatively affordable. And as I wrote when covering the Jim Lee Matter:
I advise you to go to artist alley at your local con, and see who is a future super star and get in on a commission while they are reasonable. Seriously, there are so many talented artists out there, and they are readily available at shows. You can buy something beautiful and priceless for under $100 at any comic con or indie comics show. Being able to get affordable original art is one of the great things about this industry. GET IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR. Daniel Warren Johnson was just a guy at a con once, and now his art goes for thousands, if you can even FIND any.
Buy art and support artists. Put it on your wall and look at it so you can experience joy every day. We need the joy.
Source link
