Tales From the Auction Block: The Cover-Up Caper

I wanted to continue my auction experiments of the hypothesis that "all the profits come from an outlier or two, in any group of similar offered lots." Turning to eBay, I found the cheap-o items for my next round of experimenting.

As is so often the case, an artist was creating inked sketches of popular female comic book characters. Only this time, they were TOTALLY naked, with all the anatomically-enhanced details -- and he only wanted $10 each. Still, they were a bit explicit for my taste. No mystery, no "je ne sais quoi." The problem with such explicit material is you really limit the size of the audience and narrow where the art might be displayed. As I studied the drawings, I decided that I could ink on some clothing to "tone down" the content. And that's what I did.

I inked on clothing for Lois Lane, the Huntress, and Sheena. No one would be the wiser, as I had some cartooning talent myself. As predicted, most of the profits came from the Black Cat illustration. In its original form, she was "buck naked," and riding her motorcycle. I added in her trunks and left her topless, but I added some humor by inking her now-removed top into the formerly waving hand. Now it looked like she was "free-wheeling -- born to be wild." I like to think that those changes helped sell the piece. All-In-all, I made a tiny profit. More importantly, this little experiment supported the basic hypothesis.

But then, as always, it got weird. A graduate of the Joe Kubert School wrote an outraged email about how his drawings had been "plagiarized" by this artist.  This, in an industry of "swipers" and copycats. Not only that, the characters in question were drawn in the style of the "Animated Batman" comics. This simplified style was perfected by Bruce Timm -- and he was not the artist who was complaining. In that style you are SUPPOSED to stay "on-model." I mean, these were purposely "low-end" items. My co-worker made a huge stink and dramatic scene about how "the auction house could be sued." He screamed to the high heavens, etc., etc., -- and on top of all that, he even sent out out an embarrassing  email string about it all. I was told to stop by the managers -- no more lots were to be offered by this artist. OK, you got it. The fun was only momentary.

No matter, the scientific results were in. On to the next trial.