Book II: 1. WTF am I doing here?!
Musings on whether anyone even cares if artists are fairly compensated in this particular space…
Contrary to how my first group of posts might have sounded, I do question myself and my strategies ALL the time. All the fucking time! So I figured since I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from my little corner of 42nd and Substack, I should kick off a new wave of posts with a slightly different vibe. I feel like maybe I’ve made a mistake here. Not a huge mistake, I don’t think… but a mistake nonetheless. I’m not even quite yet 100% sure that it IS a mistake. But either way, I need to reevaluate my selling criteria in this market. If you find my collection (this is blockchain… you can find my collection easily based on some of what I’ve said in previous posts… I’ll post a link to my collection someday for the people that don’t want to play detective… probably when I put my first item up for sale), you will see that I still have not sold one single solitary item. I originally wanted to wait until it was easier for me to share the wealth with the artists/writers who, let’s face it, are the only reason these items are worth buying and collecting, right? Or, at the very least, to know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the artists are getting some meaningful portion of the proceeds of this project (again 🤷♂️ who knows… no one’s ever verified to the community anything in regards to artist cuts… at least as far as I know).
Side note: I had the opportunity to submit a question on a call (a while back just before the move over to the Candy platform where certain collectors were invited to submit questions and listen to the higher ups explain the move from the Palm marketplace over to Candy and whatnot) about artist royalties and it was just brushed to the side by an answer like “oh, that’s on the DC side… we don’t know that”. Okay, I guess that’s it then? More recently, on the weekend before the release of the new Bat Cowls: Epic Artist Editions, I asked support the following:
“Hello, I would like to know how involved the artists are in this particular NFT Bat Cowl art drop. Did the artists all OK this particular use of their artwork? Are the artists getting paid a percentage of original sales? Are they getting a percentage of the take rate in secondary sales? Based on the drop price of these items, I think it only makes sense that us collectors can know how artists are being paid for this NFT collection before we buy. Thank you.”
I received a reply that said they are “looking into this now with the relevant team and will get back to you as soon as possible.”
The sale has come and gone now and all I have received since that reply is the sound of crickets ringing in my own head. I cannot participate in something that SPECIFICALLY says that these digital art pieces are “artists editions” with no transparency into the artists actually being involved. I just can’t. Sorry.
I still have no clue what artists are getting paid within this DC/Candy NFT collection. Maybe they’re getting a decent cut and my two questions just fell through the cracks (I know my sample size is low here… so I’m NOT treating it as a “known” that original artists are getting nothing or next to nothing… but I am treating it, based on past corporate actions towards creatives, that it is highly likely that original artists are not in the mix for sharing much of these digital profits. DYOR… if you can). So what is a collector like myself to do when the NFT market finally shakes itself out of its FUD doldrums and I might want to start selling some items? I’ll think about that for a bit…
First though, back to the mistake I alluded to at the beginning of this post: maybe no one else actually cares about this? Not collectors. Not artists. Not DC. Not Candy. Just me. I mean, I could end up waiting around forever to start selling for what ends up being no reason at all. I am very willing to share profits with original artists/writers (especially with low mint/edition numbers that have higher selling points), but if no one is asking for that, then what am I doing here fighting for this?
This leads me to try thinking about the possible reasons that maybe nobody cares (at least at this particular time). Personally, I think the biggest reason is that the people that understand what this is and are here to truly collect (not just flip… even though I realize that you can be both a true collector AND a flipper 😜) are a very select few visionaries. It’s a hodgepodge of people: crypto enthusiasts, digital art/NFT lovers, hard core comic guys/gals, general collectors of stuff that just happen to find this space, a select few artist super fans that get it… probably a few more groups I’m missing. But overall, it’s a small group of people made up of small subsets of other groups. I believe that once it is just common knowledge that digital bits are verifiably ownable due to this technology called blockchain (an immutable ledger that can be perused and verified by anyone with an internet connection), this space will expand very quickly. I don’t know when that will be. And actually I don’t even KNOW if it will happen. It’s just what I THINK will happen and like I always say, “I don’t KNOW shit.”
Within this small group of “true believer” collectors, there may very well be people that think like I do, that artists should be involved more heavily here (and more transparently). BUT, because the space is so new and fairly small… nobody cares about the money changing hands and how it’s distributed… YET. 🤨
One thing I am very confident about though is that this DC/Candy digital collection is the place where many of these artists have their first NFT(s) minted. Whether they have approved it or not. Whether they like it or not. Whether they understand this technology or not. Whether they contemplate what’s going on here and start their own digital collections later on or not. This is the place for MANY artist/writer digital collectible firsts. It’s why I’m so damn bullish on this space in general and, most specifically, the DC Digital Golden Age pieces migrated over from Palm (see pretty much any previous post… my apologies for dead links and the like… this space moves so quickly… I’m not gonna go back and fix ‘em). Of course, there are a few comic artists and writers that have dabbled in NFTs where maybe this collection doesn’t contain their first truly ownable digital pieces (DYOR on an artist by artist basis). There’s also one other official big IP digital comic book platform out there (so you may have to cross reference that platform). But, by my understanding and research, many of the Palm marketplace era releases are artist NFT firsts. Artist/writer/inker/colorist… so many different firsts from our comic book creator favorites. When more people realize this, we’re really gonna say bye-bye to any fairly cheap low mint/editions. But yeah, I don’t KNOW shit. 🤷♂️
The cynics might say I am just looking for a way out of some of my original thoughts from my first group of 6 posts. And they are at least partially correct 😬. I do need to start figuring out the “sell side” here. And I can’t start doing that without having some skin in the game on that side. So I’m not rescinding any offers I have made here in the past. Actually, I’m going to expand those offers. When these items start having supply shocks and the prices start skyrocketing and, all of the sudden, people besides me DO start questioning the artist involvement in profits here… contact me if I own any NFTs from this collection of your work. I will gladly partner with you to sell items from my collection and share profits with you. This is the type of digital comic shop I am opening in this space. Of course, since zero-trust verifiable digital identities are still a future thing, DC/Candy will have to verify that you are who you say you are 😎. But I would love to partner with some artists to auction off works that I own of theirs. I’m here to collect. I’m here to make some profits. I’m here to empower artists in this new use case of their art that I, personally, truly believe in. It’s one of the driving forces that made me the Demon I am in this space. 💪
So on that note, I wanna highlight a fairly eclectic group of 10 of my favorites available for purchase within the DC/Candy marketplace that I haven’t shared within other posts yet, along with the current floor prices they are available for and the mint/edition(s) that I think, personally, are the best values at the moment (all prices and available editions subject to change of course… new items are put up for sale or taken down/purchased all the time so it’s just a snapshot of how I feel today… but with this post and the built in blockchain visibility, it will be very easy to see in the future if my current value picks are/were any good 💎). Buyer beware: my “best value” picks below are meant for long term collectors, not flippers… if you are a flipper and take my “best value” recommendations below in the hopes of flipping them immediately for profit and you end up losing money because you couldn’t hold the item long enough for more value to accrue… that’s on you. Not me. No offense.
My shop isn’t even open yet, so none of these are for shilling my own items directly for sale. One of the criteria I’m using for this specific 10 is that I feel that many are underrated gems right now (some because of floor price, some because of the availability of low mints at great prices, but ALL because of the beautiful art 😎). Of course, I may have recently just purchased the best best value of some of these… so my thoughts here will be the NEXT best value 😜. TBH though, I really have to start figuring out the sell side of the market before I can continue buying like I have been in the past. The time will come to open up shop very very soon. So without further ado, and in no particular order, I’ll mostly just let the art speak for itself:
Title: All-Star Superman (2005-2008) #1 (Rare)
Cover Artist: Frank Quitely
Writer: Grant Morrison
Edition Size: 600
Floor Price: $6.95 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 29 ($19) and Mint/Edition 97 ($10)
Title: Batman (1940-2011) #655 (Epic)
Cover Artist: Andy Kubert
Writer: Grant Morrison
Edition Size: 228
Floor Price: $28 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 37 ($30)
Title: Batman: Vengeance of Bane (1992) #1 (Core)
Cover Artist: Glenn Fabry
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Edition Size: 820
Floor Price: $7 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 146 ($10) and Mint/Edition 4 ($219)
Title: Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 (2022) (Epic)
Cover Artist: Bruno Redondo
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Edition Size: 400
Floor Price: $13.99 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 34 ($35) and Mint/Edition 9 ($159)
Title: The Batman Adventures (1992-1995) #12 (Epic)
Cover Artist: Bruce Timm
Writer: Kelley Puckett
Edition Size: 400
Floor Price: $35 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 75 ($49)
Title: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (2021-2022) #1 (Rare)
Cover Artist: Gary Frank
Writer: Tom King
Edition Size: 281
Floor Price: $19 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 71 ($21) and Mint/Edition 74 ($26)
Title: Static (1993-1997) #1 (Rare)
Cover Artist: Denys Cowan
Writers: Dwayne McDuffie, Robert Washington
Edition Size: 484
Floor Price: $5 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 21 ($24.99) and Mint/Edition 7 ($100)
Title: Death: The High Cost of Living (1993) #1 (Epic)
Cover Artist: Chris Bachalo
Writer: Neil Gaiman
Edition Size: 304
Floor Price: $20 ($9.99 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 101 ($30) and Mint/Edition 8 ($80)
Title: Knight Terrors: First Blood (2023) #1 (Core)
Cover Artist: Howard Porter
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Edition Size: 8,693
Floor Price: $0.50 ($3.33 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 81 ($10)
Title: Superman For All Seasons (1998) #1 (Rare)
Cover Artist: Tim Sale
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Edition Size: 2,336
Floor Price: $1.50 ($3.33 original price)
Best Value(s) Currently (IMHO/DYOR): Mint/Edition 34 ($10)
There you have it! I’ll have more for you next post… whenever that may be. But for now, I want to leave you with a reiteration of something I’ve mentioned in previous posts. The MAIN thing that differentiates each edition within each rarity tier (Core, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary) within each digital comic release is their mint/edition number. So you tell me if there is really much difference between a mint/edition 10 of a Core rarity with an edition size of 10,000 of an artwork that you love and a mint/edition 10 of a Legendary rarity with an edition size of 100 of an artwork that you love? Low mints are scarce regardless of edition size. Some collectors don’t quite grasp the simple logical beauty of this line of thinking yet and maybe, by reading this early enough, it may give you an advantage in the market (at least until this line of thinking is the norm). This reasoning can be ESPECIALLY rewarding when you are collecting the items you truly love (and the market hasn’t quite caught up to your impeccable taste yet 💪). But also remember… I don’t KNOW shit. 😂
No matter what your tastes. If you dig art, I think you’re gonna find at least SOMETHING in this DC NFT collection for you. Comic book fan or not. You do you and go check some shit out:
https://www.candy.com/dc/marketplace
Be good to each other out there IRL. Please. ❤️ Much love and respect to all of the singular little beautiful universes in all of our singular little beautiful heads. Embrace the differences!
🐜🦏🐙
What I have seen is that the happiest people discover their own nature and match their life to it. - Ray Dalio