The Metamorphosis of the Hayfamzone

Today is a Red Letter Day in the hayfamzone. For twelve solid months, since August of 2005, I have been dismantling my original comic book artwork collection. Mainly I've been auctioning off the pages on ebay, and today I sold the last of the pages that I will be selling. For another look at some of the great pages that were in my collection, click here.

I started collecting artwork as a teenager in 1975 at the monthly Old Comic Book Club of Chicago meetings in the YMCA Hotel on South Wabash Avenue. I aspired to be a comic book artist, and having the original art in my hands was, I felt, a way to study directly with the masters of comics themselves; I did get pretty involved with drawing and I did get a bit of my own artwork published. I continued adding to my collection of professional artwork until 1987.

I constructed a nice box to house the artwork. I paged through and looked at the artwork once in a while, but mostly it sat in its box for 18 years. Then last year I came to the realization that I didn't need to own the majority of those pages anymore. I will always enjoy looking at good comic book artwork, but the only pages I now feel any need to own are ones drawn by Jack Kirby. To hold a page in my hand that Jack Kirby held in his hands, that's a cool feeling that makes me think heady thoughts.

One year ago I owned 80 or 90 pages of artwork, and now I own two. I cherish my two Jack Kirby pages that I bought long ago. One is a Jimmy Olsen splash page inked by Vince Colletta and Murphy Anderson, and the other is a Sandman page inked by Wally Wood.

Over the past twelve months it has been a pleasure meeting like-minded collectors all over the world via the long-reaching arm of ebay. I send special thanks out to Albert Moy (who purchased the first page I sold, a Frank Miller Captain America cover), and to the nice gentleman who today purchased my last non-Kirby piece, and to Nick Katridis and David Mandel and Keif Fromm, and to everyone else who purchased pages and placed bids and watched the auctions. The links in this paragraph will take you to Member Galleries on www.ComicArtFans.com so you can see the beautiful collections of some of the very nice collectors I have been lucky enough to get to know a little bit.

Please don't read me wrong! This does NOT mark the end of the hayfamzone! On the contrary, we are all perched on the cusp of a new beginning. I'm very much enjoying writing these little blog entries, so please check back here every once in a while to see what I've been blathering about. (Feel free to post a comment; I've changed the settings so that any reader who would like to is now able to comment.)

And, after a month of downtime, the hayfamzone will re-establish its presence on ebay selling some very interesting comic books and comics-related items; you can click right here to see if anything is up for auction right now.

The best is yet to come!