Artist unknowingly creates sculpture using rare and valueble comic books

[mego73]

Next time, use newspaper.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/07/artist-unknowingly-creates-sculpture-out-of-comics-worth-30000/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Mego MkIV]

What a loss,I stopped reading when I saw the words Avengers #1.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Typical "high art" hippie-sculptor types. I went to school with folks who would do the same thing and never bat an eye.

Chris

[sauce]

It will be done on purpose not on purpose by another artist and sell for a million at SDCC 2017.

[hedrap]

Dude.

Avengers # 1. In a dumpster.

...after the movie was released to a billion dollars.

How the hell does that happen?

[ctc]

AHAHAHAHAAA!!!!

Stuff like this makes me laugh!

Don C.

[Brazoo]

Kinda funny, but I'm a little skeptical this guy didn't do this for exposure, and I'm a little skeptical about the supposed value of the comics, since there's no way to verify condition or completeness of the books now.

In any case, if his story is real they were headed to the dump - so at least now they're being used in a really ugly amateurish looking sculpture.

[libby 1957dog]

ive known and sold to Steve Eyre the owner of the website mentioned in the write up and now mentioned here lol World of Superheroes ,for many years ,and one thing i know about Steve is he knows the value of publicity ,and he always has a ton of old valuable comics in all conditions lying around ,putting 2 and 2 together it wouldn't be out of the question that he gave the rare and news worthy comic books to the artist to throw in the trash lol ,and as they were trash bound ,i guess the story remains true ,and World of Superheroes gets yet another mention ,and thats two its had in my post lol

[MegoSteve]

It's interesting there aren't any better photos of the comics accompanying the article... the only comics I recognized were 1980s Captain Americas. Did someone just send CBR a press release? It just all seems a little fishy.

[Brazoo]

Last night I had a brief bout of insomnia and Googled the artist's name.

This story was picked up in TONS of other places, and some of those articles have way better pictures. I see some 80s Caps and X-Men, and a ¢12 Cap. I see the cover of an Avengers 4, but no way to know if that's one of them many times that cover was reprinted. There is a shot of the Avengers 1 front cover, but not too close.

The way all these other media outlets worded the article so similarly, I'd say MegoSteve is right - they all almost exactly printed the press release OR everybody got their story from the original BBC News article that's quoted in the CBR one.

Some of the articles change key details, for example some list the value at $20,000 and other's list the value at £50,000 (which is an insanely big difference.)

Some of the articles refer to the artist as "struggling", but here's his site and a link to a short documentary on him on YouTube:

http://www.stonefacesculpture.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0OkvjW9xpQ

Anyway - it doesn't seem that papier mâché is NOT his normal medium, he is know as Stoneface (which is left out of a lot of the articles) and his medium is carved stone.

According to the doc, Andrew "Stoneface" Vickers started as a mason, making stone walls, and added carved faces as part of his signature. Then started getting more commissions, and soon sculpture commissions. In the doc he mentions he bought his own woodland - which may not be a lot - but he didn't seem "struggling" as some of the articles seem to have added, he talks about receiving a lot of commissions.

The CBR article doesn't make this clear, but Steve Eyrn (the guy who discovered the books) is also the guy who helped organize this exhibit - which I find more than a little sketchy:

http://artsheffield.org/assets/heroes/

In any case, I think a sculpture this size, with this story and publicity behind it could easily sell for $10,000 - so if the comics were really headed for the dump - I don't think the artist was in error here.

[Brazoo]

Look, I'll say this - human interest stories like this may be fact checked a little, but mostly they're just rolled out without a lot of scrutiny. Writers want the story to be juicier to get it sold, editors just want it out there quick so they don't get scooped. I think journalists think of these stories as harmless little things - so they don't really research them well, question the facts much, or poke too deep. Even though that's what journalists are suppose to do.

[Cosmicman]

Sometimes I read stories about how this guy and that guy found this and that. They thought it was worth something and then some big shot came along and said it wasn't worth crap.

Let's face it, if the comic books were not from the Golden Age nobody really wants or gives a care about a comic book's value after 1985 unless it's the first appearance of Wolverine or some big mile stone. The reason for the Golden Age prices being up because a lot of those prints were rare because of the war. Some people were wiping their backsides with Action Comics or whatever the case donating the paper for recyling...etc. It was a hard time and that's why if you are lucky to find a comic book from the Golden Age in a nice condition you are lucky.

The media is famous for taking something and blowing it out of proportion and make non comic book collectors think that a artist found a bunch of priceless comic books in a dumpster and carelessly made a paper mache sculpture out of them.

Truth is, if they were in the dumpster there was probably a reason they were in the dumpster. We don't really know what the whole breakdown about why were they in the dumpster and what he did to make the paper mache figure. Paper mache isn't my cup of tea but I remember making one in art class using newspaper thinking how stupid it was but when we added acrylics over it when it dried it looked a little better.. eck.....I'll customize megos. They're more fun. Is it art? Probably not to you.

One man's garbage is another man's treasure someone once said.

In my area of location, we have alot of these antique or "junk stores" around here. Some are selling Marvel and DC comics for almost a buck a comic (or cheaper depending on the store owner). Some actually sell a bunch for like twenty bucks (a bundle of old comics from the 70s, 80s and 90s...usually because they are too lazy to sort them.)

I am near completing the entire run of the original Defenders from originally buying a large box filled with them for forty to fifty bucks. I may be missing a few but I'm sure I'll complete them with the new stores that have popping up. It seems like the thing to do around here, open a "junk store" and sell ****. Odd. Yes indeed.

Unless you are a collector, Joe Blow at the junkstore don't care. "Take these things off my hands for twenty bucks!" Some neat stuff I have walked out of there with like original runs of Captain America/Ironman, Hulk and Avengers.

I'm on the fence with the paper mache the guy made. At first I was a little ticked off and said a few angry words but as I thought about it and looked around at what I have been finding lately for nickels and dimes...was he really that stupid? To a comic collector fan we hate him. To the average guy, he's just made a paper mache sculpture because that's his thing.

My two cents.