My favorite books, explained in a verbose manner: Volume 1

Most of the books I’ve described so far (specifically, the Codex Seraphinianus, Hollywood, and Voyage au bout de la nuit) are in my top 10 or so favorite books, with the Codex occupying the top spot. As such, look for a future installment of this soon-to-be-regular blog series dedicated solely to Serafini and my art-crush on him. For now, however, I want to dwell a little bit on my love for a pair of books I refer to as my “yearbooks.” They are both anthologies that I carry around with me to readings and gallery events in hopes of getting them signed by various contributors, just like a nerdy kid trying to get some of the cool kids in school to sign his yearbook (I’m so creative I could just melt, just like that).

The first is the art anthology Copro/Nason: A Catalog Raisonné . Copro/Nason is a famous gallery in LA that has been at the forefront of the lowbrow (not really my taste)/pop surrealism (much more my taste) movement pretty much from the beginning. I found out about the gallery through my interest in Joe Vaux, one of the artists they’ve published. In fact, it was at a Joe Vaux opening that I got the idea for the yearbook in the first place. I had planned to pick up the book while I was there, and the person behind the desk gave me the option of the shrinkwrapped book or the opened, signed-by-the-editor copy. Naturally, I chose the latter, and when I turned around, one of the artists in the book, whose show was opening in a different part of the gallery, offered to sign a page for me (his name is Dan Quintana- his stuff isn’t my favorite, but it’s damn good). Feeling emboldened, and now with two signatures to enrich my life, I approached Joe Vaux and humbly asked him for his signature as well. Vaux’s signature is cool in that it’s not a scrawl like most- rather, it’s a spiral with the letters V-A-U-X dispersed among the coils. AND, to top it off, he drew a small sketch of a Vaux-like character right next to the plate featuring his artwork. Since then, I’ve managed to have Luke Chueh and Greg Simkins sign it as well, although I missed opportunities to get Robert Williams and Amy Sol to add their names. The Simkins signature looks very graffiti-ish, like a tag, while Chueh’s is just his name in block letters (distinctively written nonetheless). Plus, he went to the trouble to draw over a photograph of himself in the book so that he looks like one of the teddy bears featured in his paintings.

Yearbook #2 is issue #13 of McSweeney’s. I bought it last summer on eBay for $30 with Dave Eggers’s signature in it (a good deal, in my opinion), which is ironic, given that Eggers has even less to do with this issue than most other ones. #13 is a fantastic collection of comics, edited by Chris Ware (whose signature I’m dying for), and it really rekindled my interest in non-superhero variety graphic novels and comics. This book has Joe Matt’s signature (I got it on “Joe Matt Day” – for a long, long, tediously long account of Joe Matt Day, click the link for my MySpace blog and scroll down a few entries), as well as a cool little drawing, and anything with Matt’s signature is pretty high up on my list of favorites. Also, I picked up Adrian Tomine’s signature at a reading he did to promote his new book Shortcomings (yes, I also got that one signed. I have no qualms about presenting an author 5 or 6 books at a signing. My only rule is that stuff I get for free doesn’t get sold at a profit. I don’t mind reselling something like a book or a print, where everyone involved was fairly paid for it at some point. But profiting off of a signature I got because an author is a nice guy just doesn’t seem right).

Because of the whole multiple-signature aspect, as well as the fact that these books are works in progress, they are really special to me. They aren’t in perfect condition, due to being lugged around in my backpack a bunch, but they’re still pretty nice, and they’re really unique. These aren’t books I could just buy on Abebooks or something, and I imagine I could probably get a pretty high price for both if I were willing to break the ethical standard I just enumerated a moment ago. It’s probably a rule I will break once or twice if a real rarity shows up on eBay that I just HAVE to have (and I’m positive that that will happen at some point), but for the most part, I don’t want to feel like a jerk when I ask authors for signatures. Plus, a lot of the books I’ve had signed in person are signed to me- this is on purpose. I know that flat-signed books are way more valuable (unless I become famous, which is, you know, pretty likely), but something about a stack books signed to me just adds sentimental value to my collection, and since I don’t plan to sell them anyway, that’s more important than dollar value.

Ryden off into the land of bad puns (Chueh on that!)

I’m now $375 deep into Mark Ryden merchandise I hope to unload soon. I’m nervous here, because I’ve committed a lot of money to it, and also because I didn’t really have time to study the Ryden market before I jumped in. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, and it’s a little different than most of my other endeavors… A lot of the other stuff I buy and resell is still available for the price I paid, and I’m essentially charging a premium for knowing where to find it so cheap. This stuff is different, since it isn’t readily available anymore.

A couple weeks ago, the lovely and talented Rubyred forwarded me an email from Ryden’s publishing arm, Porterhouse Fine Art Editions, saying they were clearing out some old stock from their archives- stuff that has been sold out for years. They sold through their backstock within a day, which means I wasn’t the only one with designs to resell items from it. I bought two of Ryden’s microportfolios that I’m going to try to sell at bookstores- one goes for $85-100 on Abebooks (I paid $35), and the other goes for $400 (I paid $100). The market for this stuff on eBay is pretty shitty, and it will probably get worse, with a bunch of sellers dumping recently acquired rarities on the market. However, I took the opportunity today to dig myself deeper into the hole by jumping on another item whose price is being rapidly deflated: the original microportfolio from Ryden’s “Meat” exhibition… limited to 300 copies. That’s an insanely low limitation for Ryden- Porterhouse often releases “limited editions” of 10,000 or even 20,000 numbered copies. That always strikes me as funny, given that I don’t think most Bukowski books ever had 20,000 copies printed in total, let alone in one edition. Still, they sell out, and the prices go up and up and up (at least at bookstores). I’m hoping I can sell some of this stuff at Moe’s, given that the buyer specifically asked me if I had any Ryden stuff I wanted to sell the last time I was in there. It’s a great example of Ryden being hot in the used book store market due to his huge exposure, while he’s cold in the eBay market, given that there are thousands upon thousands of his “sold out” items floating around.

What is confusing me is how I got the Meat microportfolio for $200… That’s a fair price for the standard edition (2000 copies), and it’s about what it will fetch on eBay. But this is one of the 300 “Artist Proofs,” and as such, it should be much more expensive… right? Here is where I’m worried; I decided to start buying and reselling books on the assumption that I spend so much time reading about this shit that I will know more about editions than the people I sell to. In this case, one of two things is true: the seller saw that this item goes for around $200 in general, and so he priced it to sell, not knowing how much more money the smaller edition should cost. Or, on the other hand, the smaller edition is shittier in some way that I don’t know about, and I’m going to be stuck with it… which wouldn’t be the end of the world, obviously (like I would complain about having to “keep” this in my collection… a signed Ryden microportfolio limited to 300 copies? Yes please). Also, with no copies up on Abebooks to guide me, I’m kind of lost. I’ll take it to Moe’s but again, I can only profit from them if I know more than they do, coupled with the fact that I paid a lot for this… so they’re going to have to price it at at least $500 retail for me to make any appreciable money at all (and that’s far from guaranteed). It’s a total wildcard, which is both exciting and a little unnerving. The other option, of course, if Moe’s fails, is to try to turn it around on eBay and at least get what I paid. Given that the seller told me he’s “swamped” with orders for this item, I’m not really that worried (he didn’t list it very well, either… Saying “Ryden AP MINT SEALED” is a lot less attractive than “Ryden – 1 of 300!” I don’t think most eBay buyers know what an AP is, or they do, and that’s why he’s swamped with orders). I just don’t like feeling like I’m at a competitive disadvantage knowledge-wise.

In another questionable decision, I bought two of Gallery 1988’s new Luke Chueh (that’s pronounced “Chew,” hence the amazing jenius contained in my title) mini print sets… one to send to the lovely and talented Rubyred, and one to try to make money on. We’ll see about that. I don’t think it will do too well on eBay right now… but that’s because there are a ton of them for sale. Most sellers split up the set of 4 and end up selling them for about $110 altogether. That would get me my money back after eBay fees, which basically convinced me to go for it. See, if I can be around 80% sure that I’ll get my money back when I try to sell it, I’ll take a gamble and try to make a profit on it. What I’m hoping is that these prints sell out (the edition is 500, which is large for Chueh- most are limited to 100 or less and go for $300 and up), and the two or three sellers who are dumping them on eBay eventually stop. Then I can put mine up and hopefully get inflated prices. I’ll have to be patient, though, since the price is really taking a hammering due to how common they are right now. I’ll keep you posted, which I’m sure makes you so excited you can barely sleep and have little beads of cold sweat forming around your brow.