The Flash, or Showcase #4, is off to a fast start – No surprise there…

April 30, 2009
Posted by Noah

I think I’ve made it abundantly clear in these pages before that I am, and have ever been, an unabashed aficionado of The Scarlet Speedster. Barry Allen first, Wally West second and Jay Garrick coming along in third. Give me a little Barry Allen, throw in the time travel treadmill and some Prof. Zoom and it’s about all I can do to stay conscious. Like a good scotch, these stories just get better with age.

I’ve also written here before about the upcoming copy of Showcase #4, the most valuable Silver Age Comic of all – which, by the way, is the first appearance of The Flash, as embodied by Barry Allen – that’s featured in the upcoming May Comics Auction here in the hallowed halls of Heritage. That issue, part of the Motor City Collection, is already up to $100,000 and the auction is still three weeks away. Any way you cut it up, that’s still an impressive matzo ball. I’ve asked Barry Sandoval for comment and he is his typical sanguine self about getting excited over such things.

“I don’t really think the early bidding is that significant one way or another,” he wrote.

I can see his point, of course, as the bottom line is ultimately what it brings at auction – at least from a business perspective – and if it raises the bar higher than it already is. That’s saying something about such pricey comics. Barry veneer of comic expert cool did slip a bit in his comments regarding the Fair/Good 1.5 Detective Comics #27 – If I have to tell you why it’s a famous book then stop reading this post right now! – that’s a featured lot in this auction. It’s an unrestored, original owner copy of this second overall most popular Golden Age book, right behind Action #1.

“Look at the Detective Comics #27 at $47,801,” he wrote. “Already higher than the Overstreet value with three weeks of bidding left to go.”

That’s a great price, especially considering the relatively low grade, even for The Batman’s first appearance. Evidently Heritage Grader/Consignment Director Jerry Stephan (whose license plate is TEC 27 by the way) was ribbing him a bit after seeing Barry do the auction highlights video, because he was raving about how nice it looks and yet the grade on it is that Fair/Good 1.5.

“I don’t dispute the grade,” he wrote, “the book does have a split spine. But all 1.5 copies are not created equal.”

The run of the different Motor City Showcase comics in the May auction are quite amazing, even besides the #4. There are definitely some great titles and some choice books in the bunch that will probably go for good prices and probably won’t show up on the market again for quite some time.

“To me it’s all about the Flash issues,” Barry wrote (and with which I agree. “Maybe because he’s also named Barry, but if you ask (Chief Comic Cataloger) Jim Steele, whose nickname is Flash, I think he’s most excited about the Challengers of the Unknown. And I got an email from a bidder who thinks the Showcase #11 – Challengers again - is the cream of the crop.”

I am not one to disagree with any assessment any of these men make regarding comics – does a bug question the blowing wind? – but there’s no chance any of them will come close in price to that Superhero among Superheroes, the one – the only – The Flash.

Have I mentioned yet in this post that no one – no one – is faster than The Flash? No? Well, I’ll see about getting around to that. As an aside, I have an old and dear friend named Dechen who once gave me an old beat up comic in which Superman and Flash race, and the cover has Flash saying, “I give up, Superman. You win. You really are the fastest,” or something to that extent. The truth is, inside, the two tie, which proves nothing to me. See, Superman isn’t even a man – you know it’s true! So The Flash is, truly, the fastest man alive. I am resolute in my conviction, so don’t even bother trying to change my mind, and never speak to me of Quicksilver.

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– Noah Fleisher

One amazing ‘Spill’: an indisputable masterpiece by William Herbert “Buck” Dunton comes this July

April 24, 2009
Posted by Noah

Just look at that painting. Unbelievable movement, seamless blending of colors and a moment of impossible kinetic energy expertly captured. If the cowboy in “The Spill” – arguably the greatest work of art by one W.H. Dunton, as good and important an American illustrator as there’s ever been – survives this spectacular calamity, then it’s surely not going to be a pleasant recovery and certainly not ever a complete one. This painting, acquired as part of The Charles Martignette Estate – written about in this blog a few weeks ago – is going to highlight, in a big way, the July auction of Western and Texas art here at Heritage. I personally can’t wait just to go and stand in front of the thing.

What I love about this painting is myriad. I mentioned a few things above, but there’s so much more to read into it. Why exactly are the cowboy and his horse flipping end over end? Is he a greenhorn rider trying to ride a spirited horse? A Horse Whisperer whose luck has run out? Maybe he got drunk at the saloon in town and was careless going home, or maybe he’s running for his life from Indians or brigands. Whatever the case, when that horse comes over on him, unless he manages to extricate his legs in quick fashion, his back is going to be snapped like a twig. What will his poor Ma and Pa think when their little boy, from a good home on the East Coast who had all the best schooling and abandoned it all to pursue his dream of being a real cowboy, dies alone in the American desert with only rattlesnakes and scorpions as witnesses?

Dunton was more than an illustrator. At the risk of offending any art snobs out there, I’d go as far as to say that he was one of America’s great 20th Century painters. The fact that he made his name initially as an illustrator – and a very good one at that – during America’s Golden Age of Illustration in the early 20th Century did not stop his progress as an artist or his desire to paint authentic subject matter. This is more than evidenced by his bold move in 1914 to Taos, New Mexico. Think about it: He had a successful career drawing for the top magazines of the day, plenty of money to support his family, but he chucked it all to move out West and start painting native landscapes. As a result he lived in near-poverty for the remainder of his days and became a truly transcendent painter. He was a founding member of the famed Taos Society of Art, saw his paintings exhibited all over the nation and garnered wide acclaim – if not fortune – for his important work. Still, though, in his own words, he would have rather lived in a time where no means of “making a living” was necessary at all:

"There is one thing positive, had I lived in Merriweather Lewis's, Audubon's or even as late as Catlin or Francis Parkman's day, no life of mine would be thrown away painting pictures, when I could live the greater part of a year alone with my rifle and a few pack animals among the host of buffalo – the antelope, the great bands of elk…"

Fortunately for us, Dunton did paint, and he did leave behind a sizable body of work, foremost among which is “The Spill.” It’s classic American art at its best, relaying a scene of the great, rustic American West that was a direct slice of life, though certainly – ultimately – much larger.

This painting, rightly so, should command a couple hundred thousand dollars. Lord knows that it will bring much more than that 100 years from now. Personally, I wish I could afford it, and am glad I’m not the subject matter. Wiping out on a horse is bad enough – I was thrown by a horse and then bitten by it when I was a kid learning to ride, no kidding – let alone getting snapped like a pencil by its amazingly articulated and artfully presented full body weight.

Here’s a link to the entire Western and Texas art auction. Check out the Olin Travis in particular for a tasty modern perspective on Texas landscape painting. Once you start staring at this thing it’s hard to stop.

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General Washington, I presume? A cache of our founding father readies for June

April 23, 2009
Posted by Noah

With the June Historical Manuscripts auction rapidly approaching – one of my most favorite categories here at the Heritage Juggernaut – I went catalog surfing, as I am wont to do during late hours of the night, for some of the hidden gems in the auction and (Surprise, Surprise!) there a more than a few and plenty of which are affordable to the extent that even your humble blogger will be placing a couple bids. Which ones exactly I won’t say, because, you know…

In particular there’s a great trove of George Washington lots, especially a few lots that contain his signature, or reference the great man himself. The one I like the best is a 1772 Christmas beer receipt with Washington’s monogram on it and a capital “W” very likely written by the man himself. It’s a cool thing, for sure, to imagine the father of our country kicking back with friends and family at Mount Vernon with some micro brews on Christmas Eve. Washington, and Mrs. Washington, were very protective of any material relating to their private lives. Almost none of it survives today so even a receipt like this that hints at something so casual – a relaxed brew between the Washington clan and friends? What could be more informal? – is an exceptional find.

I have spent the last few months reading about the founding fathers of this nation, Washington in particular, and have come to the conclusion that we are an exceedingly lucky nation to have had a man like Washington for our first President, and lucky bordering on divine for having the first four presidents that we did, regardless of the ideological differences between them.

As far as Washington goes, all I can say is that some men are born for greatness, are simply people of destiny whose every action led them to immortality. Just read a little bit about Washington’s life and career and you learn quickly just how many bullets he dodged – literally – and how many prescient decisions he made in his eight years as president. Time and time again, under pressure from the rival Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson, Washington stuck to his Federalist principles and refused to engage our nascent nation in more war with Britain when to do so would surely have been folly. It cost him some measure of popularity at the time, but it insured the survival of this amazing country at a time when more war would have been death. I re-iterate, time and time again Washington somehow managed to steer the clunky ship of state straight down the middle path and keep it afloat at the same time as he attended to almost every other matter.

After Washington, it was Adams who kept the momentum going forward, even if it meant some serious unpopularity – see the Alien and Sedition Act – and just a single term in The White House. Jefferson followed, finding that he had to temper some of his more radical ideas, and added a further philosophical dimension to the idea of America. I wish I had all day to sit and write about this stuff, because I love it deeply and it makes me appreciate just how amazing the very existence of this country actually is. There was no one, literally, no one, who could have held America together in its first eight years other than Washington. No one.

I’m not a particularly jingoistic kind of person – I tend to shun dogma of any kind – but it’s hard not to look at the events of the late 1700s and early 1800s in North America and not be simply amazed by the sequence of events that unfolded, and by the true greatness of the men and women who not only bore witness to those days, but who made them actively happen.

Besides the June auction linked to above, I’ve also looked back in the Heritage archives for the best Washington stuff that’s come through. There’s almost 300 lots, all of them a tangible link to the American who is first among equals, “His Excellency,” George Washington.

It’s easy to get cynical in this day and age, what with the 24 hour news cycle, biased punditry and lifetime politicians – something never intended by Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration – but it’s even better to remember the amazing foresight and passion of those who came before us, and to remember they suffered the slings and arrows of an unrelenting media, in their own way, in their own day.

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