Now You Can Buy Original Comic Art on Facebook with Sketch Maven

Online, May 5, 2011 (Newswire.com) - For the first time, Facebook fans can now buy original comic art online with free shipping in the USA from the new Sketch Maven store on Facebook. Without leaving Facebook, fans can go to facebook.com/sketchmaven to browse through thousands of pieces of one of a kind original comic art, sketches and color guides.

"Collecting original comic art is an exciting hobby, with proven collectible value, that is catching on in the United States and around the world," comments Mike Todasco, founder of Sketch Maven, the World's Greatest Original Comic Art Marketplace. "This hobby goes back to the 60s and 70s where collectors would buy their original pages from artists at conventions and through the mail. Now, for the first time, Sketch Maven is opening up collecting to an even greater audience, the 600 million plus Facebook users around the world."

The new Sketch Maven store on Facebook was launched using an app developed by Payvment, the leader in Facebook e-commerce. Facebook users can enjoy integrated product search discovery of items across Facebook. The Sketch Maven Facebook store accepts PayPal, VISA, Mastercard, AmEx, or Discover cards. Original comic art is suitable for framing, and comes in sizes starting at 8" x 10" for a smaller piece or 11" x 17'' for a standard page.

"It is a little known fact that comic books start as hand-drawn pages and those pages have great collectible value," adds Todasco. Original comic artwork are the oversized pages the artists drew to create comic books. Every page within a comic book starts out as an original, hand-drawn, black and white page of artwork which is provided to publishers who then use that artwork to produce the comic book. Publishers typically returned the pages to the artist after the comic book is published. Prior to the 1970s, many of the original pieces were discarded or destroyed, contributing to the scarcity and collect-ability of earlier pieces.

Next in the process, long before the days of Photoshop, colorists would meticulously hand color every panel of every page of art. The penciled and inked original would be photocopied and the colorist would color that page with special inks and dyes, adding depth and shadowing and making the page more vibrant. This form of original comic art is called a color guide because it does just that, it "guides" the engraver to what colors to use when creating the printing plate for the comic. Most of the color guide pages even have "color codes" written in the margins to depict the actual colors to be used for that part of the page. The time honored tradition of hand coloring has long since passed. For collectors, a color guide is the closest piece of art to what was finally published in the comic book.

Comic art collectors are a varied group - comic lovers, cartoon fans, movie aficionados, television mavens, and art lovers. The owner of a piece of comic art possesses a one-of-a-kind, original collectible. Some of the original comic art pages have been seen by millions of people in its final comic book form. Maybe you were a fan of DC or Marvel comics as a child, or the Transformers or Star Wars hold fond memories - or maybe you really enjoyed the Batman or Thor movies - original comic art captures your favorite characters in action.

Sketch Maven offers thousands of pages in their Facebook store and updates the inventory weekly. So collectors should frequently check the Sketch Maven store on Facebook for the new and exciting artwork that is available.

About Sketch Maven, Inc.
Sketch Maven, Inc. is the premier online marketplace for original comic artwork, color guides, cartoon art, and sketches. Sketch Maven, Inc. is the easiest place to buy and sell original comic art. The Sketch Maven team is committed to expand the hobby beyond the current core market to a broader audience. To find out the latest news about Sketch Maven, follow them on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/sketchmaven), Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/sketchmaven) and http://www.sketchmaven.com.