By Jimmy Palmiotti

I know, you may hate the name I picked, but honestly, Jacob Becher made a good point in his response last week. His comment:

“I dunno, why not keep it just “Jimmy Palmiotti’s Blog @ Newsarama”?
Your name. Your blog’s web host. Brand recognition.. Nuff said. You’re a household name now. I mean, look at you, I knew the day would come when you’d be picking and choosing what projects to ink. Now you don’t have to ink anything. You always seemed the busiest guy in comics. Why take the focus and attention off yourself and/or Newsarama?”

So it made sense, but I got to say that there were some really fun ones mentioned so I also am going to award a second and third price for my other favorites. Lou Pereira came up with “ Jimmy’s junk” and Stephen Brock came up with “ jimmy’s random crap” an instant classic as well. The post by “BRUCE” came up with the winner though. Simple, has the full name and its easy to translate into several languages. That all said, Bruce, Stephen Brock, Lou Pereira and Jacob Becher, send your mailing address to PALMIO@AOL.COM and I will make sure each of you gets some cool stuff lying around my house that I don’t think anyone will recycle. Thanks for everyone’s posts, even the evil-as-shit ones that called me gay and fruitcake and all that. Hey, I’m the first guy that appreciates funny.

PARTY: A local artist and friend of mine Jim Fern invited me to a gathering of comic and cartoon artists at his friend Vince’s house the other day. There was a nice group of about 15 people all showing off art, sculpture and telling stories about past work, people in the business and overall it was a wonderful time and a pleasure to meet such a diverse group of people that all have something to share about our wonderful medium. You may know Jim’s work from the CROSSING MIDNIGHT series from Vertigo and I even worked over Jim on a few issues of fables a few years ago. Really beautiful line and his work leans more towards the illustration side of comic illustrating. I am going to try my best to get him on an issue of Jonah Hex as soon as possible.

THE STOCK MARKET MADE ME DO IT: Like everyone else that thought saving for retirement and doing it in the stock market was a smart idea, I got screwed big time. At one point I was losing a hell of a lot of my savings daily, so I called my broker and told her to sell off a few accounts, which I was going to invest in something I could enjoy. I got the check a week later and visited an friend online site graphiccollectables.com, run by my friend Mitch for years. He specializes in selling comic art and illustration by some of the greats of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and so on. Before he became the famous editor, I used to buy most my artwork that I didn’t get from friends in the business from Scott Dunbier when I would see him set up at comic shows. This was before the wonderful Internet was in play. I think I might have spent, over the years, at least 50 grand with Scott before he retired that business and started editing over at Wildstorm and then now at IDW. Anyway, after Scott, I mostly bought from Albert Moy and Mitch. These are two guys I would recommend to anyone and that doesn’t come easy in my world. You can find Albert’s site at Albertmoy.com… tell them both I sent you and I’m sure you will be taken care of. Anyway, I have been collecting comic art since I realized that there was something called comic art and it wasn’t drawn in color on tiny pages in a factory and such.  Some of the first pages of art I have bought were actually from the artists in small shows around New York, but like anything in life and collecting, you crave more.
Back to the stock market… I took all the cash I got over to Mitch and bought Robert McGinnis paintings. For anyone that doesn’t know who Robert is, I recommend taking a few minutes and watching this YouTube clip where Stephen King talks about him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_66YEbVtaA&feature=related

So I picked up a few paintings, got them insured and am in the process of framing them. Maybe they will be worth more money one day, but I could care less. They are beautiful and I get to look at them daily and that’s better than tossing my hard earned cash out there and watching these scumbags split it up. My agent might not agree with my move, but really, at the end of the day, no matter what happens out there in the real world, the art I bought now makes me happy on a daily basis. Simple, right?

ART BOUGHT MY HOUSE. I’m not kidding. Amanda and I were shopping for a home… we have been living in a two-bedroom apartment in the Marine Park area of Brooklyn for a long time and we needed a change of scenery after my mom’s long battle with health problems. We were shopping all over; mostly Key West Florida but found that it was impossible for people like us to actually afford something down there. Long story short, she found a place that she fell in love with in the Tampa area and I had to raise a load of cash fast to put as a down payment on the place. Well, as I said before, I have been collecting comic art for years and I decided it was time to sell some of the pieces that I could live to part with… and maybe one or two that I never thought I would sell as well. This was, after all, a house and not a bicycle or a new computer.

I went through my art cabinet and took a good long look at the stuff that I never bothered framing and the art I bought from dealers mostly and decided on selling around 30 prime pieces… stuff like a Hellboy cover, Dark Knight pages, a Watchmen page and a few others of my own work. This wasn’t an easy thing for me, but not one of these pieces was a gift to me. Each and every one of them was bought from an art dealer at one time or another and really had no big attachment to them other than they were… fantastic! Let me correct myself for a second. I did sell a few Kevin Nowlan covers I got from Kevin over the years, but I spoke to Kevin about it in advance and he thought it was going to a good cause. As well, I have a huge Kevin collection and those few pieces were only the tip of the Kevin iceberg, so to speak. Anyway… I had my good friend Zena put them on eBay, at least the ones that a few close friends didn’t buy right away, and managed to sell each and every single piece for about 80 times what I had bought them for years ago and… we got our house.

Looking back on what I sold I really have no regrets because I realized a couple of things. First, it was only pen on paper by a bunch of guys I know personally and its real value is only with a handful of collectors and honestly, my day-to-day life and actually using money to LIVE and enjoy life far outweighs anything I can physically buy. Second, Amanda and I love the house and consider it a piece of art as well. It’s a one of a kind place that an architect and his best friend a builder put together. Every day we work/play and enjoy the place and that’s far better than having art in a drawer and last… don’t worry, everyone that won the art on eBay, I hope or would like to think, is enjoying it far more than I was and that alone is pretty darn cool.

And last, I still collect art, just not the big tag stuff… just art from my personal favorites, the current paintings I bought from the stock sell off and art from some of the books that I write. This smaller collection is made up of pieces I will never sell. What collecting comic art has helped me with is to stop collecting other things like records, statues, comic books [I switched to trades only] and other junk and has cleared a lot of clutter out of my life.

WHERE DO I GET SNOWGLOBES MADE?
I am looking to get some custom-made around an idea I have and all I can find is Chinese companies. Anyone have a clue?

SAW A FEW MOVIES: One is called District 13, fun French action film by the director of TAKEN, out in a month. I already spoke about how much I enjoyed TAKEN, so please check it out. Saw THE CHANGELING, and boy am I glad I caught it in the theatre. Just an awesome script by our very own J. Michael Straczynski and beautifully directed by one of my heroes Clint Eastwood. This is by far one of the best films of the season and I strongly suggest you check it out. Also saw Jim Carrey’s YES MAN, and it’s what you expect it to be which is a good thing. Its funny, cute and lovable… could have been wilder for my tastes, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Really enjoyed Zooey Deschanel… adorable as hell here. Also saw THE SPIRIT. It was Frank Miller’s Spirit, not Will Eisner’s. ‘Nuff said.

YEARS AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY: OK. Rome to be exact. Joe Quesada and I did a tour of Europe to promote the Event comics line and specifically the ASH books. We stayed with a bunch of lovable Italian guys and their ringleader Giovanni Tarquini in Rome for a few days and had the time of our lives. They were the perfect hosts and we got to sign in Rome and Naples…one of the many perks of this job. Honestly, what a bunch of Beautiful people, wonderful stores and just a fantastic time was had by all. Look how friggin’ young we both were. Wow…not a care in the world back then.

LAST WORD: Jonah Hex and Back to Brooklyn are out this week. Give them a shot and especially, leave a comment here. This is, as always, an open conversation.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Creators, Listen to Jimmy Palmiotti, Marvel, Movies, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.