Sunday 26 February 2023

Thank You!

 A big heartfelt thank you to everyone who placed bids on my artwork over the past week and congratulations to the winners. As we all know, these are hard times for all of us, and things were looking dicey with a huge gas bill to pay tomorrow but the funds will now cover it. Phew! 

Someone asked me the other day if I'd miss the artwork I'm selling. There are some pages I'd have liked to have kept but rather than storing them here for more years I'd rather they go to collectors who'll appreciate them. I don't have any family who'll inherit my artwork when I'm gone so I'm happy to let the pages go.

I'm just glad the publishers returned my art after use years ago so I can make them available to you folks now. Back in the 1980s/90s my editor on Buster was happy to parcel up my used pages and post them back to me every few months. This opportunity was open to all the Buster artists but I was surprised when the editor told me that only a few of us wanted our art back. If memory serves me right, Tom Paterson and perhaps Mark Bennington had theirs returned too. The older artists saw no sentimental or resale value in them and didn't want them. I don't think that older generation realised that there'd be interest from collectors years later. 

I understand that much of the art was destroyed by the publishers in "decluttering" exercises. Some pages did remain though, and were either bought by collectors or are still safely stored by the current owners of the IPC/Fleetway archives, Rebellion.

In contrast, D.C. Thomson have always held onto their original art and have decades of pages stored away in a secret vault.

Viz were happy to return artwork too. 

In the case of Marvel UK, I used to visit the offices in London now and then to collect my old pages.  

Since 1999 I've sent my art to publishers via email, so the original pages never leave the room, - well, until I post them to eBay winners of course. I'll be putting some more pages up for auction soon. Keep an eye on this blog for more details!

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6 comments:

Kal said...

Brian Bolland recently did an interview with Cartoonist Kayfabe and said that when IPC first decided to return artwork, they tried getting the artists to pay for transparencies to be made. Also, that it was up to the artist to identify what pages they'd done and wanted back. I'd imagine that put off a fair few.

Would loved to have bid on your art this time, but am skint at the mo.

Lew Stringer said...

That's true, Kal. As I recall, the 2000AD artists had to pay £2 for each page they had back. That mounted up to a lot of money 40 years ago.

Each comic seemed to have its own policies on returning artwork. There was never any problem getting my art back from Buster, and Fleetway paid for the postage too!

McSCOTTY said...

Glad things worked out financially Lew. It seems every month we're hit with higher and higher bills so I feel your pain Hopefully things will ( surely) get better soon. Really interesting info on the return of artwork .

Lew Stringer said...

It's only a respite of course. Bills are relentless, so it's an ongoing thing of money leaving the account as soon as it's in these days isn't it? Meanwhile, utility companies continue to boast about their profits.

Graham said...

Hopefully you can afford to print Combat Colin 5 now you're in the money

Lew Stringer said...

I'm afraid not. As I've just said, the money has already gone, spent on bills.