In the end, a Jim Lee commission is worth what someone will pay for it. And I can guarantee someone will pay $20k for it. Maybe not most of you out there, but definitely someone.
Dude probably got a look what his pages were getting at art auctions and decided to match prices.
People were hashtaggin’ Jim Lee to the point I thought the dude passed, but it turns out he’s just charging 20k for commissions, which if you’ve been in the game since the early 80’s and was the head of two different publishers in that run, you’re fine charging that.
And if I can put it bluntly, if Jim were charging like $1000 a pop, he would be flooded with more work than he wanted to do. No doubt of my mind that part of that sticker price is a fuck-off tax.
I know an artist who is literally years behind on commissions because he bit off more than he can chew. A high price tag protects both parties of the equation.
I mean, if I needed to spend most of my day on Work, I would charge triple time for someone's Weird Demands too. Especially when your name has that much weight to it.
If I'm gonna attach my labor to your weird fantasy whatever, you're paying me out the fucking NOSE.
People get really offended that the solution to "there is too much demand to reasonably meet" is "price people out" but like. You can't increase supply, so what did they think was gonna happen?
Probably 20 years ago I watched some reality show about a tattoo shop and a drunk guy came in and wanted a bullseye on the end of his penis.
They talked about it a bit and then gave an astronomical price because there IS a price where they’ll do it. It just ain’t cheap.
Same principle.
"Fuck off tax" is a great way to describe my price point for a guaranteed A in Chemistry: $1M, cash. I figure I'll get fired, so gotta make sure I can do so in STYLE.
It may be a joke, but it takes all the silly requests RIGHT OFF THE TABLE.
This reminds me of how when Paramount wanted the Fleischers to make Superman cartoons, they tried to put them off by asking for $90,000/film (a huge budget for cartoon shorts then) and Paramount met their price, resulting in some of the best-looking cartoons anyone besides Disney was making in 1941.
There are innumerable young artists folks can hire at 500-1000 and in years they might be the next Jim Lee.
But of course folks don’t want to get commissions from them.
Cause they want the guy who everyone knows BECAUSE he’s worth at least 20k
It always amazes me how much those original pages will get sold for and how much more it is compared to what the artists it were actually paid to make it.
The wild thing to me is if you just want to look at Lee's artwork you may do so for cheap/free, so this really feels like people whining about not being granted control and/or ownership over another person's labor.
Which... Yeah. That tracks.
I honestly think that was it. And we’re not talking head sketches or quick on stuff, I think those are still relatively cheaper, but you want dude to pencil/ink a finished probably 11x17 for less than 20k? In this market?
