Aspen Print Thread

[renketsu]

Unpacked so I could check them... all intact, but going away as they are presents.

I've been waiting to be able to get these for many years

Regular


Platinum


Head sculpt the statues were made from

[iceprince_x]

Congratulations....i have two of these beauty and they are truly true to Michael Turner's art and the character.

[DRL]

So cool you got the original head sculpt! Congrats!

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by Viper2005

It is on Aspens product page for the variant cover that's it is limited to 500

http://www.aspenstore.com/SUPERMAN-B...on_p_2281.html

But it's out of stock apparently, same with the normal edition..

Looks like its back in stock and selling for $169 on Aspen's website. This is one of my biggest issues with Aspen, besides all the reprinting and Marvel/DC BS that went down. They are just greedy and their pricing is terrible on most products. Same book is selling for $125 from Graphitti Designs and many dealers are selling it for roughly $100-110.

[frankm]

Originally Posted by OrangeCrush

Looks like its back in stock and selling for $169 on Aspen's website. This is one of my biggest issues with Aspen, besides all the reprinting and Marvel/DC BS that went down. They are just greedy and their pricing is terrible on most products. Same book is selling for $125 from Graphitti Designs and many dealers are selling it for roughly $100-110.

Ah Michael,

Appreciate you posting your concerns and the kind public words as always. This incredible book isn't ours. We didn't make it or produce it. We ordered copies from Graphitti in order to have it available on our site. Even though they were very gracious and provided us a discount, it's not very much, and after shipping, our costs come out to about the asking price of the book. Obviously, we cannot sell them for what we pay for them, hence the higher price. We just wanted to offer them on our site too since we worked hard on that series and it deserves to be available from us as well.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by frankm

Ah Michael,

Appreciate you posting your concerns and the kind public words as always. This incredible book isn't ours. We didn't make it or produce it. We ordered copies from Graphitti in order to have it available on our site. Even though they were very gracious and provided us a discount, it's not very much, and after shipping, our costs come out to about the asking price of the book. Obviously, we cannot sell them for what we pay for them, hence the higher price. We just wanted to offer them on our site too since we worked hard on that series and it deserves to be available from us as well.

Yeah, I have been tough on you guys publicly over the last couple of years, but we both know that my reasons for doing so are more than justified. As I have stated to you personally, you guys basically pioneered the comic print market (at least when it comes to regular print releases) and you had a set standard for how you sold prints that lasted roughly 9 years. You issued a regular print release and if there was enough demand, maybe an OP print somewhere down the line. That was your business model and it was HIGHLY successful. And I have openly stated, both to you personally and on his forum, that it was one of the most successful limited edition print business runs I have ever witnessed. Everything from the design of the prints to the edition sizes were absolutely perfect, which is why values for those prints continued to rise over those years, right up to the $250-$350 range.

Then on the drop of a dime, you changed everything, and I do mean everything. Its like you became a completely different company and forgot everything that had gotten you to that point. You raised the price by 50% in a very short period of time, you issued reprint after reprint, which wound up doing exactly what I told you it was going to do. I warned you in that email way back in early 2012 exactly what would happen if you continued to go down the reprint path. Not only would you lose customers (some being some of your best long term customers), but the value on the original prints would drop dramatically. Not to mention you had a ton of collectors protesting those reprints, yet you ignored all of it and just continued reprinting. You produced over 80 reprints in 2013 alone (or was that 2012?).

Have you even seen what prints are selling for now? I just saw 2 older signed Turner prints that would have easily sold for $150-$200+ a few years back sell for $30 and $52 just last week. And many of your non Turner prints can be found on eBay for as little as $15-$20, by collectors just dumping them and trying to get a little something back. So yeah, the fact that my collection has lost upwards of $12,000 to $15,000 in value is a bit upsetting.

And then you have the whole DC/Marvel fiasco. You sold those prints as limited editions for over 9 years. I still have all my eBay emails as proof. I was told by multiple people in your company that the edition size for those prints was 50 or less, which is why I was willing to pay $125-$150 for most of them. And it took me well over 12 months to actually get an official answer from Aspen. 12 months to get a company to answer a basic question concerning the products they are selling. I have never experienced anything like it. Normally, I can get an answer out of a CS rep in less than 2-3 days. And you offered absolutely nothing to collectors to try and make up for that whole issue. I would have never spent more than $50-$60 on those prints had I known they were open edition prints. The least you could have done is offered some free prints to people, to help make up for the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars people spent above and beyond what they normally would have spent had they known the truth about them being open editions. Given how much it costs to produce those prints, it would have cost you very little money overall to offer up some free prints. Me personally, I spent over $5,000 on DC/Marvel prints during 2011 and 2012 (most ranging from $125-$150). So basically the difference for me personally would have been in the $2,000-$3,000 range had I known they were open editions and again, you couldn't even offer up a few free prints to try and make some sort of amends to collectors. After you finally came forward and spilled the truth about them being open edition prints, you just blew the whole thing off like it never happened.

But thats all water under the bridge now. I have accepted that I lost $12,000 to $15,000 on buying Aspen's prints and wrongly thinking that you would continue to run Aspen and the print section of your business the same way you had been the 9 years prior. In the end, you lost just as much as I did. There were no winners from the events of the last couple of years and I have moved on from all of that. Sure, you may have made a bunch of money on a lot of those reprints, but the end result was losing a lot of your best customers and your prints are now selling for a fraction of what they used too with your eBay sales. The only reason I even bring this all up again is to explain why I have been so harsh publicly in regards to Aspen. That you would call me out for doing so, in light of all these issues, is a bit shocking.

And I am well aware that Graphitti designs is the company that ultimately created that book and it is stunning in every regard. I would not have made that post if that was the only example of the point I was making, but it isn't. The last couple of years you have produced soft cover Turner sketchbooks that cost twice as much as hard cover offerings by other artists. Back in 2013, I purchased all 4 of J. Scott campbell's hard cover sketchbooks for $30 less than your 2 soft cover Turner Sketchbooks.

The bottom line - Aspen used to be about value and getting your moneys worth. During the first 9 years Aspen was in business, I always felt I was getting my money's worth and was never disappointed by my purchases. I'm sorry to say but that has just not been the case the last couple of years, when this whole decline really began. Your prices are too high, the quality of your products is sub par compared to your competitors, etc. The pricing on the Graphitti Design book is just the latest example. Look, I get it. I can absolutely understand why you wanted to sell them on Aspen's website, but that only makes sense if your able to sell them at the same price. If that wasn't possible than you should have just passed on the whole idea, regardless of how badly you wanted them on Aspen's site as in the end, any collector that buys them from Aspen is getting a raw deal as they are ultimately spending more for the book then they should be. Thats ultimately a disservice to uninformed collectors that don't know that they can get the book cheaper elsewhere.

And as rough as I have been on Aspen publicly, I honestly truly hope you guys find your footing again and go back to the kind of sound business strategies that got you successful in the first place. Unfortunately, I have yet to see that happen. In fact, all I have seen is more of the same business practices that started this whole decline in the first place. You just released new reprints at this years SDCC and this years sketchbook had the same issue as prior versions. It was soft cover and twice the price of competitors books that were hard covers. I'm sorry if you find my posts offensive or annoying, but I'm just being honest and I can guarantee you this much, if the roles were reversed and you were sitting in my shoes over the last few years, I have absolutely zero doubt that you would have been just as disappointed as I have been and ultimately written some pretty harsh posts yourself.

[budman2814]

Hey OC

Awesome post. It pretty well sums up everything I feel whenever I look at my Aspen/Turner collection too. So much money and time spent tracking down prints to try to complete the collection, only to see this happen. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't buying them to try to make money, but like you say, it's terrible to see the value plummet. And like you say, if the shoes were reversed....

These days, just can't bring myself to spend any more money at Aspen, so really, it's been a lose:lose for everyone.

[Bobfrog]

Ditto, good post Michael.

All sadly very true. I haven't lost anywhere near as much as you but mine is in the few thousand dollars range. In a collectible hobby where people sometimes switch things out and replace old for new what Aspen did basically killed the value of most of our collections to the point of it not being worth even listing stuff for sale if you wanna move onto other stuff. In a nut shell they oversold to a lot of us (by making out it was the 'last one' etc etc) and then killed the overpriced value we paid by reprinting. Double Whammy!!

The fact that they (I guess this is directed at Frank) thought it was ok to reissue limited edition prints because a handful of people suggested it would be ok sums up the thinking of this company and that they are no longer in touch with their original fan base, fans who would have stayed with them indefinitely no doubt.

You might as well never bother putting a number on your prints ever again cos the cold hard facts are you'll probably just reprint them again one day and that number is, as we've seen with most of the older stuff, absolutely worthless.

And yeah, calling OC out over it is a bit of a poor show imho. He of all people probably deserved some recompense.

[rottencat]

OC, honestly you should really create your own limited edition print business. The time and energy you put into teaching and preaching others businesses in good faith is unprecedented and at the end of the day all you get back is close to nothing if not worse. Businesses love social media, Facebook etc as long there is loads of thumbs ups as they think it supports their business and money will then magically pour in from doors and windows. They rarely care what people are really thinking (instead they are often willing to finance ad campaigns to pretend they care) and they absolutely hate painful topics as they seem to believe its bad for business.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by rottencat

OC, honestly you should really create your own limited edition print business. The time and energy you put into teaching and preaching others businesses in good faith is unprecedented and at the end of the day all you get back is close to nothing if not worse. Businesses love social media, Facebook etc as long there is loads of thumbs ups as they think it supports their business and money will then magically pour in from doors and windows. They rarely care what people are really thinking (instead they are often willing to finance ad campaigns to pretend they care) and they absolutely hate painful topics as they seem to believe its bad for business.

Well, I certainly appreciate the sentiment and I actually do create my own limited edition prints and have been for roughly 10 years now. I have just never sold them online or through websites that sell limited edition prints and have never really viewed that aspect of my photography as a business. It was always more part of my personal work that I did on the side. That being said, over the last couple of years I have though long and hard about going the business route. Becoming more serious about selling prints and actually creating a website or starting to sell my prints through various websites that sell limited editions. I just haven't gotten around to doing so yet. Most of the prints I did sell were sold via my photography rep to local collectors or through word of mouth or local art shows.

I had around 60 limited edition prints that were available back in 2008 (mostly landscapes and architecture). They were all either 16x20 or 20x24 silver gelatin prints and the prices were $200 for the 16x20 and $300 for the 20x24. Unfortunately we had the house fire in 2008 and I lost everything, including the negatives for all of those editions. The edition sizes all ranged from 25 to 50 and I always printed in batches of 5. Printing the entire edition at one time just didn't make sense for me as my prints didn't sell really fast anyways. It was easier, cheaper and required less space to print them up in small batches as I needed them.

I did have a couple prints that sold out. I remember how excited I was when I had my very first sell out. It was only an edition size of 25 and it took roughy 3 years, but I was still really excited that I had an edition that sold out, lol. By the time I had the fire, most of my limited editions were in the area of 25-40% sold out, which was perfectly acceptable to me since I really wasn't pushing that aspect of my business at all. Again, I really didn't even view it as part of my photography business. It was really more something I did on the side with my personal work. It really had nothing to do with my business or commercial work at all.

I am currently back up to around 15 limited editions that I currently have available, but I have at least 50-60 negatives that I am looking to make limited editions from. Ever since we had that fire, I just haven't been as serious about the whole limited edition print side of my personal work. The fact that I have 50-60 negatives just sitting here that are more than worthy quality wise to be made into limited editions and I havent done so is really telling in regards to just how hard that fire hit me. Its basically been a slow process getting back on the horse, but I am getting there slowly but surely. And again, I have really been considering getting serious about my prints and starting to sell them online or through various sites that sell limited editions. I just need to motivate, do the research, decide how I want to go about doing it and get it done!!

Originally Posted by Bobfrog

Ditto, good post Michael.

All sadly very true. I haven't lost anywhere near as much as you but mine is in the few thousand dollars range. In a collectible hobby where people sometimes switch things out and replace old for new what Aspen did basically killed the value of most of our collections to the point of it not being worth even listing stuff for sale if you wanna move onto other stuff. In a nut shell they oversold to a lot of us (by making out it was the 'last one' etc etc) and then killed the overpriced value we paid by reprinting. Double Whammy!!

The fact that they (I guess this is directed at Frank) thought it was ok to reissue limited edition prints because a handful of people suggested it would be ok sums up the thinking of this company and that they are no longer in touch with their original fan base, fans who would have stayed with them indefinitely no doubt.

You might as well never bother putting a number on your prints ever again cos the cold hard facts are you'll probably just reprint them again one day and that number is, as we've seen with most of the older stuff, absolutely worthless.

And yeah, calling OC out over it is a bit of a poor show imho. He of all people probably deserved some recompense.

Yeah it really was a double whammy and unfortunately, I was one of the people that wound up buying a lot of those "last one" prints only to see another copy go up for sale a few months later. And I gotta say, the one thing that absolutely blew my mind was the whole "table copy" crap that wound up showing up later on.

I'm sorry Frank, but there is no such thing as a "table copy" in the world of limited edition prints. This really shows that you either have no understanding of the basic rules and tenants of the limited edition print market, which I find hard to believe given that your company was active in the market for over a decade, or you just have no respect for those rules and tenants and as such, you just make up your own rules as you go along.

When you create a limited edition print, your allowed to make artist proofs and the limited edition prints, THATS IT!! Any additional prints created above and beyond those prints is a violation of that limited edition. That is 100% fact and is actually protected by law in a lot of states, including California and Ohio, which are the states Aspen works out of. For California, just look up CIVIL CODE SECTION 1740-1741. I was actually under the impression that with most of the states that have laws protecting limited edition print buyers, that the print had to have a value of at least $500 to be able to bring suit against the artist/company, but I was dead wrong on that one. Its actually only $100 in most states.

So I hate to be the one to say this, but anyone that purchased a print that cost more than $100 and you later sold a "table copy" for that print...well, those people could legitimately bring suit against Aspen and I can tell you with 100% certainty that they would absolutely win. Not only would you be liable for the cost of the print but also all legal fee's as well. Again, there is no such thing as a "table copy" in the world of limited edition prints. And the same can be said for the whole DC/Marvel fiasco. You sold prints for 9 years as limited edition prints that were in fact open edition prints. Again, I still have all of my eBay emails that prove this unequivocally. People who purchased DC/Marvel prints could very easily bring suit against Aspen and I don't think they would even have to be over a certain value as this is a case of just plain fraud. And to be perfectly honest, I was tempted to do it myself, but the time and effort it would have required just wasn't worth it to me and I really just wanted to put all of that as far behind me as possible. Had Aspen been based out of Michigan as opposed to California/Ohio, I very likely would have simply because you did nothing on your end to try and make up for that entire situation. Basically, some of the actions Aspen has taken over the last 2-3 years weren't just in poor taste, they were downright illegal.

Honestly, when I saw "table copies" being sold, which were basically described as prints Aspen used for display purposes during the comic cons....well, I honestly just couldn't believe it. After everything Aspen had done, to then violate thier limited editions on top of everything.....well, it was nothing short of mind blowing, even for Aspen. Again, this really showed me above all else the lack of respect that Aspen has for the limited edition print market these days and that ultimately, its just all about making as much money as humanely possible from each individual print.

Your sales policies themselves only further prove this fact. Instead of creating a single buy it now auction that had like 20-30 copies available for a particular DC/Marvel print, which would have allowed collectors to buy the prints right away and for the same exact price, you instead used a sales method I refer to as trickle releasing. You released Marvel/DC prints one at a time and you never sold them in successive auction listings. You would list one one week, then wait 2-3 weeks to release another copy. What this did was SEVERELY limit the supply side of the whole supply and demand equation, which in turn caused prices to absolutely skyrocket, especially with new DC/Marvel print releases. You would usually wind up selling the first few copies for $300+, the next few copies for $250+, the next few copies for $200+ and so on and so forth until the price finally settled in the $125-$150 range. It was a methodical business strategy aimed at milking every last penny possible from collectors and in my 20+ years of collecting limited edition prints, Aspen is still the only print company I have ever seen use this sales model.

You had once told me that due to the contract with DC/Marvel, that you weren't allowed to sell Marvel/DC print's via the Aspen website. That was why you sold them on eBay as opposed to the Aspen storefront, but that doesn't mean you couldn't create the kind of buy it now auction I just mentioned up above, which again would have allowed everyone to buy a copy right away and at the same exact price level, as opposed to having to spend a ridiculous amount of money if you actually wanted a copy within the first 6 months of its release. I even brought this whole buy it now auction idea up to you in one of my emails. I'm sorry, but there is just something very wrong with the fact that you see absolutely nothing wrong with this sales policy, where one collector winds up spending $300+ and another collectors winds up spending $100, for the exact same print.

The bottom line, you wound up making a LOT more money selling Marvel/DC prints in that manner and that is what mattered to you, FAR more than fair pricing or having a business model where people actually paid the same prices, which is how the other 99.99% of the limited edition print market is run. Again, in my 20+ years collecting limited edition prints, I have never seen another company use the sales tactics that Aspen uses and that in itself should tell you something. Basically you wanted the best of both worlds. You wanted to be a company/manufacturer and at the same time you wanted to sell things on eBay like a 2nd hand seller or an eBay flipper. Basically no matter where you look, be it the reprints, the lesser quality sketchbooks with prices double that of hard cover offerings by other artists, the DC/Marvel fiasco, the sales methods for DC/Marvel prints, the table copies, the "last one" eBay tactics, the pulling of prints off the Aspen Store to sell on eBay, etc. They all point to one thing....Aspen changing thier business model from the smart business strategies that made Aspen successful in the first place to a business model that was all about making as much money as humanly possible. And the results of that change in business policy/strategy is as clear as day to see as its been all downhill for Aspen, and the value of Aspen's products, since then.