Indie Artists and Major Players Alike Seeing Potential in NFTs

It’s important to understand the uniqueness that storing a digital file on the blockchain brings to its value. Perceived value? Yes. But that is how all value is judged, by the perception of the people who want it, and the people who don’t.

The phrase, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is a truism in every aspect of the material world, and even in some cases, the immaterial world.

To make it easier to understand, consider music. Prince’s “Purple Rain” is a song that has been reproduced thousands of times, if not more. Each copy is functionally identical to the other (sound quality notwithstanding).

Left and right movements on a record. Magnetic code on a tape. Digital code on a CD or an MP3.

It’s all digitally encoded information that produces the same music. Each has the same audible value. The song.

Some of these have collectible value, based on the rarity of the medium upon which they were produced, but, one has unique value above them all, because it was the original audio recording.

The genesis digital asset.

This one particular recording, although it is functionally identical to every other recording on earth, can have a perceived value far beyond that of any other recording.

Such is the uniqueness of the NFT once recorded permanently on the blockchain. It becomes a provenance, a certificate of authenticity and a trail of ownership from its genesis to the current day that can never be corrupted, hacked, forged or deleted.

Its usefulness in business and finance, this blockchain thing, could revolutionize the world. Right now, it’s revolutionizing how some artists make a living.

Frank Miller has been a comic book creator since the ’70s, creating groundbreaking storylines and artwork in series such as Daredevil, storylines used in the popular Netflix adaptation, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the essence of which was used in the Justice League movie, The first Wolverine miniseries, parts of which were used in ‘The Wolverine’ starring Hugh Jackman.

He’s also known for his “Sin City” and “300” movie franchises.

You could say he laid the very groundwork for much of the comic book movie universes we’ve been watching the past decade or so. But you know what has probably made him more money than all the royalties from all those movies?

The current trading volume on his collection of Sin City NFTs is over 300 Ethereum. Market value as of this writing? $1.14 million dollars. For, you know, JPEGs.

Actual auction proceeds aren’t counted in the trading volume, but some auctions went for extraordinary prices, one alone breaking all records for NFT comic book art at $840,000.

I Love You, Nancy Callahan is a one-of-one piece animated with sound using original comic book panels that depict the death of Det. Hartigan, the character played by Bruce Willis in the 2005 film adaptation. The auction took place over 24 hours and culminated in a three-way bidding war that saw the price leap from $435,000 to $591,000, and then from $800,000 to the final price of $840,986.16. The auction, held in partnership with OpenSea, was completed with Gala Coin.

Likewise, albeit to a slightly lesser extent, I found a way into the NFT avatar world with my Funky Monkey Frat House art collection.

Then… after four-plus years of Suppoman, Chico Crypto, Crypto Lark, Ivan on Tech… I discovered BITBOY. ‘This dude is a comic nerd!’ I thought. He’s just like me! So I reached out and told him if he ever wanted to do any NFTs together, I’m game.

I knew he had the audience that I coveted. 

One month after I launched my community of Animal House-influenced monkeys, complete with a Toga Party-themed collection of Monkeys, my first official collection sold 1000 NFTs for .1 Ethereum, or roughly $380,000.

Another overnight success story in the NFT world who seems to have left comic books in the rearview mirror is “Earthworm Jim” creator Doug TenNapel [“Doug TenNapel’s Eternal Klay”].

His NFTs, “from the creator of Earthworm Jim and the Neverhood,” curated small batches of hand-edited avatars each day, keeping pace with the floor price of his collection. He’s found a new way to skin the NFT cat that seems to be resonating with not only his fans of old but with new NFT collectors as well.

And then there’s DC comics, which not long after berating comic book artist José Delbo, long time professional and Wonder Woman artist of the ’70s, for daring to make NFTs of Warner Brothers premier super-heroine, and making $1.85 million in the process.

Then threatening to go after any other of their work-for-hire artists who built their empire with their talent and time if they dared use their intellectual property to make more than minimum wage by selling NFTs… They then got into the NFT business themselves.

DC recently offered anyone who would sign up for their online event DC FanDome a free NFT (or two if they tweeted it out) of old comic book covers in the hopes that it would bolster their digital marketing event.

These NFT success stories snagged their comic book peers’ attention. So expect to see more comic book artists following these pioneers into the NFT space.

Learn even more here.

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