Having not been actively involved with comic book collecting prior to the past year or so, I hadn’t heard of Stanley “Artgerm” Lau before last year. That’s a bad thing for folks like me who want to create a collection of books I can hand down to my daughter in the future. Why? Artgerm has created some of the most wonderful comic book covers to date; and to add to that, some have some very good long term resale value. For example, his Batgirl:
I’ve mentioned it before, but this is a classic cover that, had I been on it back in back in 2009, I could have picked up a few copies at $2.99 USD each. Not a bad return, given current prices on the secondary market - better than my Litecoins??
Granted, some of his covers are a bit “racy”, but I’m not going to call them the next Zombie Tramps, Vampirellas, or even the next *Unholy” issues. No offense to anyone who collects them; they have good turn around value and are pieces of art in their own context…it’s just that this collection is meant for my daughter!
With that said, a title I’ve been collecting over the past year are the Artgerm Catwoman variants. I’ve been able to purchase them at cover price, and have wanted to record and track any price appreciations since my purchase time. The methodology I’m using is similar to my analysis of the Middleton Batgirls I generated two weeks ago:
• List current resale values in USD*
• Use a weighted average of the past 5 sales on eBay (most weight on most recent sale)
• Use listings with VF/NM categorizations
** All comics are in “raw condition”
** No special variables (as in signed copies, etc.)
So without further ado, let’s review, shall we?
The Artgerm Catwoman Collection
I love the cover above; it’s dreamy, whimsically fantastic, and slightly extract…yet probably not what most think would think to be an Artgerm. It might be my favorite Catwoman to date (with a close exception). Here is a chart with the current Artgerm resale values, scaled from highest to lowest, in respect to Catwoman volume 5 currently in print.
Interestingly enough, the most recent release, Catwoman 13, is currently carrying the highest resale value:
Granted, its cover price was $4.99 USD vs $3.99 USD, but the resale value seems good (it might be one to grab if it still is on the shelves this coming Wednesday when you visit your shop).
Number two on the list is :
And finally number three is :
Did I mention how much I love this cover??
Moving from lowest to highest resale price in respect to the bottom three Catwomans we see :
I’m actually surprised issue number one is so low. I think it’s actually quite a cool cover. As is number six and number three. The spreads between issues are very low, so this collection will be fun to watch and track over time.
Adding Two More Variants to Mix for Volume 5
I then added both the Oliver and Daniel variants, issues 7 and 8 of the current volume to the chart, and found this result:
Ben Oliver’s Catwoman 7 variant (above) is currently in first place in terms of resale value on eBay. Did I mention earlier that there was a close exception to Artgerm’s number 5? This would be it - I love this art form! Buy this one if you can still get it on the cheap.
Other Thoughts
My goal is to attempt to get 1-2 of these out each month going forward for us like minded collectors. If you have any recommendations for me to search out, please let me know! Thanks again for reading, and drop any comments below. And please don’t forget to keep an eye out for Catwoman 13 this Wednesday; it might be a solid buy moving forward.