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Welcome to the nineteenth Fourth 0' July issue of The Neon BoneYard, the comic art comedy club. In this issue, I will be focusing on one of the biggest changes in the original comic art world over the last few years, namely Ebay. The featured cover is one of my latest Ebay aquistions. As I have stated before, I normally do not like "magna" style art, but this one just had something irresitable about it (like a guy trapped bewteen a girl's breasts). Whenever I am searching for new art on Ebay, I have a standard list of "ghoting" terms I use when searching on the "original comic art" section of Ebay. This is the list (which has remained relatively stable over the last few years, although I use some more than others): "Perez, Byrne, Femforce, Question, Watchmen, Doomsday, Swamp Thing, Godzilla, Buffy, Tick, Concrete, Phoenix, Galactus, Wolverine, Crisis, Thanos, Fate, JLA, Superman, Swan, Cho, Lee, Adams, CFA-APA" The first thing you may have noticed, or at least I did when I started writing this issue, is "How the H*ll did I get the featured page from this?" None of these words have anything to do with the Adam Warren cover above (the search word I have is ADAMS, as in Neal or Art, not ADAM as in Warren or Eve's main man). Racking my brain, I finally remember how it happened. I had seen the following cover at Marvel's website, and wondered if it was available for sale on Ebay: 
It says the cover is by Adam Warren, but frankly, it looks nothing like his other work. It has no "magna" quality about it. I think it was actually done by the illustrator Brian Denhan, although it has a distinct Brian Bolland look about it. It turns out I probably found this Adam Warren cover by a big mistake (hey, genius has it limits, but stupidity knows no bounds!!!) Of course, after locating the perfect piece of art on Ebay, it's time to start bidding. My pieces of advice on Ebay bidding: 1) If you locate a page you like with no bids, place a bid, BUT NOT THE HIGHEST PRICE YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY. You may luck out and win at a bargain price if no one else bids. However, if you slam down some big bid, some auction psycho may come along and start bidding the price up to the sky. At the very least, if you get outbid, you will be notified and be ready for the next step. 2) Bid in oddball increments. I usually enter bids in something like "$52.56". Depending on the price, Ebay will automatically require new bids to be in at least $1.00, $2.50, $5.00, etc increments. if someone else bid "52.50" on the above auction, I would still win by 6 cents. They would then be forced to bid at least "$55.06", which may give them some food for thought. 3) Most of the auction action will take place in the last two minutes, when the price can start to sky rocket. I like to try and wait (with a high speed internet connection), and start placing multiple bids up to the very maximum I am willing to pay WITH A WIDE SPREAD (ie for a three figure a $100.00 spread for each new bid). A lot of bidders will try and be cheap, and only increment bid by $1.00 to $5.00. These people will run the price up slowly, and will be wasting time in the last few seconds. 4) Finally, I try and wait for the last 10-15 seconds for an auction, and THEN slam down the highest price I'm willing to pay for a page. When I am doing steps 3) and 4), I usually don't waste time checking whether I am the high bidder or not. This just takes time away from my bid processing. And if I'm not the high bidder, I will know after each bid.
Below is the bidding process I followed for the Adam Warren cover:
Looking at the above, it looks like I may not have found this cover until late in the bid process, so I did not start an intial "test bid" a few days earlier. It also looks like I may have got a little "auction fever", cuz I really had wanted to go no higher that somewhere in the $575.00 range for this cover. Speaking of auction fever, this next page by George Perez gives an example of that. This was another page I always wanted (nice picture of the Scarlet Witch before she "freaked out" and "No More Mutant'ed" the Marvel Universe), and had located with my "ghoti" search terms. I was in the last few seconds of this auction, and the bids just kept getting higher and higher. I kept on slammin' down more bids, with Ebay responding "You have been overbid". This continued until the auction got past $350.00 bucks. AFter the auction closed, it turned out I had won this page with my initial bid of $150.00. Some "glitch" in Ebay kept adding my new bids to the final total, instead of raising my maximum bid, so I was only bidding against myself (I hate when that happens)!!! 
Next are three more recent auctions I particpated in. These will show a little bit more of the "psychology of Ebay". Besides having a fast internet connection and bidding during the last few seconds, the number of items available for auction, and the time an auction end are also important. If more than one of the same item are listed (hopefully a few minutes a part), the most recently listed items will usually go cheaper (and the latter ones more expensive as people get desparate). Here are the results of three auctions for some material I was collecting for my next web adventure in progress, Page 23 (you'll have to wait until 2008 for this. Think, "Twilight Zone for Comic Art...You've reached the end of your comic. Yet, you turn to the next page after the last...dare you read...PAGE 23!!!...DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH!!!) This is the first auction. Some interesting things to note from this one is that I had already discovered my arch-nemisi for these auctions. I had been trading round robin bids with both xo69 and eiswrestling on these three item few days before the auctions closed. I was hoping the three of us would be the final bidders, and thus each win one item (and keep the prices down), but it was not to be. Also, I happend to ne bidding on these auctions from my cellphone. I had actually just discovered how to do this on my new phone about an hour before the auctions closed. Cellphone bidding can be pretty quick, since you don't have to worry wait on all the Ebay webpages and graphics to load. However, it is a little harder to bid precisely on the last few seconds of an auctions, which is why you don't see my final "slam" bid.
Bidder Bid Amount Date of bid
This is the second auction. I knew I had to win this one, because the first auctions winning price of $104.21 had not set the ceiling for the next two. It had set the floor!! On this one, I didn't fool around. I just slammed down a really high, oddball bid in the best I could calculate it, few seconds of the auction.
Bidder Bid Amount Date of bid
And the final auction. I knew this one would probably go to the sky. Since I had already won one, I was only bidding on this item for two reasons. 1) To possibly sell, and 2) revenge (hey, It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school).
Bidder Bid Amount Date of bid
Finally, the time and date an auction closes can affect your final price. Recently, I was bidding on several Ipod Minis listed about 20 minutes apart. Most were selling for $125.00 to $150.00 bucks each. However, I entered a bid on one for $105.52 whose auction closed at 03:00AM in the morning local time. That particular one finally sold for $106.52 (I had to go to beddy bye, so I didn't wait for the auction to close). You'll usually have fewer people to bid against on auctions that closes at an odd hours (3:00AM in the morning, 12:00 noon when everyone should be at work) or on mid-weekdays (Monday thru Thursday). Auctions that close on Saturdays or Sundays after 07:00PM are usually the worst ones to bid on, which of course, leds to an obvious thought. If Sundays at 07:00PM are the worst time to bid on an item, THEN Sundays at 07:00PM must be the best time to SELL an item. Selling art on Ebay will the topic for the next issue of the Neon Boneyard. Before ending this issue of the Neon Boneyard (man, this issue has more endings than Lord of the Rings - Return of the King), this is one of the pages I bought at this year's San Diego Comic Con. It's from the indie comic "The Lost Books of Eve #1:2": exactly sure which page number it is. 
The main reason I purchased it (besides the price and partial nudity), was it reminded me of the art by that guy who does "Dead @ 17". Turns out, the reason it reminded me of the art by that guy who does "Dead @ 17" is, it was by that guy who does "Dead @ 17", Josh Howard. And despite the fact I said I would never go to another San Diego Comic Con after last year, the "call of the nerd" was too strong this year. If you're interested in more of my art and adventures from San Diego Comic Con 2007, click on the above page for a little side trip. It looks like this issue of the Neon Boneyard quickly turned into my "chicks rule!" issue. Before I get drawn too far down the path of soft core porn, I better end it up (FRODO, GET IN THE @#$%! BOAT!!!). I'll be winding down this two year project o' mine over the next five issues by featuring my top five "grail pages", including for all those who have been waiting, THE BEST DAMN COMIC PAGE EVER!!! First up though, will be one of the best original comic art pages I ever purchased on Ebay. Here's a clue... KRAANG! ... KRAANG! ... KRAANG! ... (and no, it's not Mr. Roger's magic trolley to the land of make believe, Chinatown area...re-write already in progress).  Grail Page Original Comic Art Store
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