Selling Original Art
How a client bought me two complete issues
Hello from Castrum Lusitania, my fortress in northern Portugal. Welcome to another edition of our weekly newsletter.
In the last couple of months I’ve finalized a massive sale of original art with a client, selling him two complete issues of Journey Into Mystery: War Of Realms.
I favor selling complete issues because I don’t like the idea of selling random pages. It means I sell less of it, obviously, but it’s what feels right to me and so far I’m keeping with my gut feeling. Maybe in the future that will change, but for now this is how I’ve been doing things.
Journey Into Mystery
My work in Journey Into Mystery was as a tie-in to the Marvel event The War Of The Realms. It was written by The McElroys and colored by my pal Chris O’Halloran and was the last substantial piece of work - 5 issues collected in one trade paperback - I did at the House of Ideas so far (I still did a couple of smaller things before being all in on my creator owned stuff).
This work in particular is different from the others as it is the only one I drew with a brush and lots of black. At that time I wanted to try something new and I had done a bunch of experiments with different brushes and inks (an interesting story for another day), so I went with it. On this book, all the thick lines and everything in black were done with the same brush - a Raphael 8404. Then I completed the work with the usual pens and nibs.
I often get emails about buying individual pages, which like I said, doesn’t feel right to me. However, selling an entire issue feels different: after all, these pages belong together (I know, it’s weird, but I usually go with my instinct if it’s strong enough).
A client was interested in some pages from issues 4 and 5 and decided to go for the whole thing. I did a video for Instagram about the packaging:
But I’ll leave you here some photos of it all. First, some of the pages:
Then the package: all pages inside a portfolio, wrapped in brown paper, then plastic, then bubble wrap, then more plastic and finally, a sturdy cardboard box with yet more bubble wrap surrounding it all.
The client mentioned last week that it arrived safely, which is always a massive relief. It already is with single commissions, let alone with literally dozens of original pages.
On other news
With all pencils wrapped for what’s left of Phenomena Book 2 (44 pages), inking has officially begun. Now it’s time to relax, let things flow naturally and the final pages will start to pile on during the next few weeks. We’re already working on Book 3 as well, with Brian doing some of the writing and me doing some concept work on the side. To keep my head in place, I already lined up the first TV show I’ll be watching while inking: Twin Peaks. I never saw it and I’ve always been very curious about it. I’ll watch as much as possible on the TV (I know how dense Twin Peaks is), but these days to go through a full show, some of it inevitably ends up being inking company.
Next week will also see some time devoted to finishing the Doctor Strange commission I already showed you. Here’s the Doctor himself fully inked:
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That’s all for today! I’ll see you all lovely people next week, with loads of inking to show you.
André