Wednesday, December 22, 2010

My personal favorite five illustrations from the Bill Mantlo art auction

I was just taking a look at the latest auction pieces posted to the online gallery Spacenite 2 http://romspacenite.blogspot.com/ . Seeing that I've got a blog that's titled "Blog for ROM fans who aren't dicks" it's questionable judgment on my part to have this particular posting but here goes anyways. To be honest, I'm not too crazy about most of the items in that gallery. A lot of it is weird abstract stuff that really is lost on me. Then there's others that have some good aspects to them but ultimately overall went into a direction artistically that wasn't working for me. Aside from the five that you see here which I thought were great, there are probably about 15 or so others in the gallery that I would say are fairly good. If you go to the gallery you can see who the artists are and the comments I left for them. Just a head's up there was a time where I used to go by the screen name of "The Dude" ( yes as in The Big Labowski) with a little ROM icon to go with it. I sure hope this posting doesn't make me a ROM fan who's being a dick. But either way, rather they are the illustrations I like or dislike I hope a lot of that stuff sells for lots o money and in return gives the Mantlo family some relief from those shitty medical bills.

The Spacenite 2 blog that acts as a gallery of all the auction pieces has a link under each one that will take you to the ebay page if your curious to know how the biding is going. The auction runs till December 28th.

13 comments:

  1. Hey! YOURS is up for auction too y'know.

    And, not to be outdone, mine is going up on the block tonight (Dec. 22, 2010) alongside a bunch of others.

    However, I know that voting for our OWN works is very "dicky" so I won't.

    My absolute fave of the pieces is also on your short-list as well.
    That would be MATT TIMSON's piece, vividly showing the cyborg process of melding Galadorian man to machine.

    That piece just kicks all kinds of ass.

    ~P~

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  2. yes that piece does kick ass. that's why when you look at the Spacenite 2 blog you'll see my comments of praise for it that i left several months ago when i first saw it. good to have you back on this blog Ptor.

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  3. OOOhhh... MORE are up on the auction block and I saw my OTHER favorite...

    A close-up, vector-art-looking image by YUTA ONODA.

    I'll be bidding on a few of these myself!

    And, thanks for the concern.
    I'll email you later to discuss.

    ~P~

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  4. There deffinitly is a wide range up there - it's interesting to see how so many folks tackle the same character.

    Personally Im not a fan of illustrated gore in posters, so to me those ones are out. That's not a comment on the skills of the artist, but just personal preference. Panels in a comic or scenes in a book/movie fine, but I'm not sure why you'd make a poster for hanging on a wall out of death, blood and the odd organ.

    My favourite (apart from yours and those you've listed) is the one by Toni Infante. It just has an 80's feel to it that reminds me of Star Wars movie posters and other things cool :D

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  5. yeah that one isn't one of my top picks but it is a good one which you can see from a comment i left some months back. have you noticed how almost all the early bids so far have been on pieces that werent in my top five? and for that many those bids largely aren't on pieces i liked at all. i heard when it comes to ebay auctions things don't really start heating up until the last couple of days so maybe there is some kind of strategy going on. either way you can bet i'll be watching closely over the nest few days. thanks for the comments so far i'm really enjoying this art chat. keep it coming!

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  6. For some time my brother told me about the disease and Bill Mantle on the auctions that were scheduled to raise money for medical expenses. I follow this process "by far" because my English is terrible! I agree with you that some images from that site are a bit bizarre ... but I like this image:

    http://romspacenite.blogspot.com/2009/09/kako.html

    =)

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  7. I agree with Dan, the Tony Infante one really caught my eye, but it more reminded me of the old fantasy/sci-fi drawings on the covers of those old magazines. I also really liked the Josh Siegel painting, where the armor is in a state of rest. Brings up images of Arthur lying in state on Avalon.

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  8. it's almost scary how much alike we think Randomnerd. the following is part of an email i wrote to Dan after he left his comment on this posting:
    "that one you pointed out would also have looked good on the cover of one of those comic magazines from the 80's. in particular Warren magazines which featured titles such as Vampirella, Eerie and The Rook.

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  9. Heh...the good old Dane family. Yes, that is a little freaky sir. That is precisely what I was talking about.

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  10. Hey Dudes,
    I'm sorry I'm just now commenting on the fine auction. There were some great pieces there. I loved the Cosmic Shot of Rom and Galactus, the mini-spaceknights, and the Mattson piece (which I won!!). I liked the watch-wraiths piece too.

    Just a thought...Has anyone thought of doing a Spaceknights/Transformer piece? Rom and Optimus Prime would be sweet!

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  11. there is such a piece Tony. you can see it in the very first posting i ever did for this blog. good to hear from you again.

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  12. Ok not to be mean to any of the artist, because I cant draw but some of the pieces that got the most money my 4 year old probably could have drawn.

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  13. i just received an email this morning that contained a among other things an explanation to what the hell was going on with the biding for this auction:

    I can't rightly state that I understand the levels of bidding, however.
    Some pieces, which, to me anyway, seemed slightly lesser than others, made off with large final bids, while other, artistic masterpieces of design, color and technique went by with only a scant (if any) bids.

    I have two theories:

    1. Pieces created by famous (or underground) professionals went for higher values - due to their fan-bases and potential high investment potential.
    2. Pieces with any nudity and/or sexual connotations went for even higher levels - well... because sex sells.

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