I’d Add a Zero
December 4th, 2009
Jen Wang put some originals up at Etsy for ridiculously cheap prices (some recently sold pieces here). Looking for that one-of-a-kind gift? Better act fast. Fellow Pants Pressers Erika Moen and Dylan Meconis also have Etsy stores up with some great original pieces at insanely low prices (Dylan is even using it to support her favorite charity this year).
The direct selling of originals (especially during the holidays) is a trend I could see growing, but I really hope that talented artists like Wang, Moen, and Meconis can start adding zeroes as soon as possible. If they don’t, I’m sure the comics collector market eventually will.
Posted in Cartoonists, Community
March 3, 2021
Scott, you’ve lost touch with reality. These are not cheap. I’m not saying they couldn’t be worth more, but $40 is a lot of money to some people.
Oh, no, you misunderstand, Shepard.
These aren’t prints, these are original paintings.
So, $40 isn’t really that much at all.
I would agree that $40 is a lot for, say, a meal, a DVD, a pair of sneakers… but not for an original watercolor.
Also please note that the pieces I was looking at when I wrote this post a few hours ago have since sold.
I’m not saying $50~100 is a bad price, I’m not that into art but I know it is indeed a very good price for an original, but “cheap” is a different thing. The tentacle sculptures Erika Moen was selling for $10 THAT’S cheap. There is also a psychological element to it. If these artists wanted to sell for more $, all they have to do is sell cheaper prints next to the originals. Giving mental stepping stones for the buyer.
Actually, that last point about prints as “stepping stones” is an especially good one. Don’t know how well it would work with Etsy’s interface, but the principle is solid.
I accept the semantic distinction you’re making with the word “cheap.” These things will always be relative.
I get this from everyone all the time.
Why is everything I sell so cheap?
Well, because!
I charge what feels right to ME at the moment I draw it.
Yeah, that’s what I do.
When I am obsessively drawing at cons….I flip over the drawing and stick a price on it.
And that price never changes.
I look at it this way.
I can 10 good drawings in the time it takes the superhero art star next to me to render a good Wolverine or Catwoman.
And in the end, we get about the same amount of money for the same amount of labor.
But my work ends up in so many more walls and mantelpieces, there are more stories being passed along about what it is and how it got there.
The fact that someone might be able to sell it later at some point in the far flung future and make out like a bandit…well…good.
That’s really the ultimate covenant between the artist and the buyer isn’t it?
For your support of my art now…someday my art might pay you back the favor.
It stopped having anything to do with ME at the moment I signed it. From that point it’s all about Beanworld itself and the Beanworld residing in the mind of the viewer.
Or something like that.
I do, in fact, sell prints of most of my work! In this case, I’m waiting to produce prints because I want to encourage people to snap up the originals first and contribute to a charitable cause.
Folks will be able to buy prints after I raise my goal (at which point the prints will already have orders lying in wait – the originals functioned as advertising for them, like a movie release advertises the forthcoming DVD.)
I’m sensitive to folks who don’t have much money – because I’m one of them. So I try to keep little originals like this, which don’t depict any of my story characters or have deep emotional meaning to me, relatively affordable for middle-income folks.
I work next to Erika Moen and can testify that she puts FAR more than $10 worth of her time and money into each of those little tentacles. But she enjoys it as a break from her normal work, so selling them is, in her mind, a kind of secondary bonus and a way to keep her shelves tidy.
And I would argue that any amount of money can seem like a lot, depending on your situation.
I’m not sure about everyone’s situation in this case but I suspect many artists probably wouldn’t be able to afford their own originals at higher prices and that might contribute to the psychology of more inexpensive pricing.
Not sure if you’ve seen this but there’s a sequel to that Doug Tennapel video you linked to a couple weeks ago about using a cintique
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAUi7Nn3LM&feature=channel
You know what?
I think Pat Race nailed it!.
Okay, so I’m a week late on the comment, but I really enjoy seeing you mention three of my favorite artists!