I just received a very kind note from the seller who has removed the listing. She says the art belongs to her husband, who has no memory of how he obtained it. I appreciate the fact that the listing is now down. Two thumbs way up for honest dealers!
There is a listing on ebay which has the seller hawking a “collaboration” between me and an artist named Lee Moyer on a piece dated 1981. Here it is.
Without reservation, this is a forgery. Not only is that a blatantly obvious forged signature, but I never “collaborated” with this person on any original art in this fashion.
Briefly, in 1987-ish, my publisher pressured me to hire an assistant, and they hired Moyer for me, to help out with background inking. He did not actually do the work, but his friends at his studio did, primarily Skip Sonneson and Tracy Summerall. While I am sure they are all very nice people, I ended up redoing all the art, and have not tried to work with an assistant in this way since. The only art assistant I have trusted since is my mother, whose function is to cut and paste tone sheets. And she hasn’t done that in years, either.
This brief period in 1987-ish is my only association with Moyer. I haven’t spoken to him since then, and know nothing about him.
I heard rumors on the grapevine back in the late 1980′s-early 1990′s that someone was selling sketches on the convention circuit, purportedly by me. A Distant Soil was moving about 40,000 copies an issue, and I guess someone thought they could make a buck. I assume this is one of those pieces. This is not mine, and that is not my signature. I never authorized anything like this.
I do not know who is at fault here, but do not buy this sketch. It is a fake.
Another dead giveaway: whoever did this obviously thought plonking the date 1981 on it would give it an air of authenticity as an early work. Mistake, dude.
By 1981 I had only attended two comic-book themed conventions, both of them Creation Conventions. And with no comic book publishing credits, I certainly wasn’t selling sketches. Moreoever, early comic book conventions didn’t give table space to teenaged girl fan artists, certainly not conventions run by the Creation corporation.
Also by 1981, I’d attended several science fiction shows and had agents, Steve Miller and Sharon Lee, who sold my art at shows for me. Science Fiction art shows weren’t friendly to comic book fan art, and my agent would not have taken a piece like this, stuck a mat on it, and put it in a show. Recall also, there were no artists alleys at these shows: all SF con shows were set up like little galleries, with boards to hang art.
I have every single sales record from this early time in my career, and there is no listing for this piece. Every work I sold then was of a science fiction/fantasy theme, except one in 1982.
I suppose it was easy to get away with this sort of thing in pre-internet days.
I’m not sure who is at fault here, and I am sure the seller knew no better when they posted the listing. I’ve contacted them without success and filed a report with ebay.
Oh, and the “nice patina” the lister cites as a virtue of the charm of this piece: um…no. Yellowing is not a “nice patina”, it’s a sign the art is not on acid free paper. Someone on my fan page said they thought the art was drawn on vellum. I can say with 100% certainty, I never used vellum on work like this, and most of it was given to me by Frank Kelly Freas when he cleaned out his studio. No work from my schoolgirl days is on vellum.
The blotchiness you see on the art is damage from whatever adhesive – probably rubber cement – that whomever used to stick the art to the colored paper. Never in my life did I do anything like this for sale.
This is not a nice patina, but in every way is a sign that this drawing is on its last legs and is being eaten by poor production and lack of care. If you buy this piece, in addition to buying a forgery, you are buying art that is eating itself micron by micron, and will eventually be destroyed. You are buying smoke.
So, don’t.
PS: A friend reminded me that in the early 1990′s a tall woman with long blonde hair was impersonating me at conventions. She signed autographs, and even went to a show in England. I never found out who it was.
The dead giveaway in all dealings with The Real Colleen Doran: I am hobbit sized. Yeah, beeeyotch, fake the cute, I dare you.
UPDATE: The named artist on this piece claims he bought a sketch from me at a convention, and then years later, without my knowledge, inked it, cut it out, plastered it on a card, and signed my name.
This was not a “collaboration” as I said all along, and the signature and date are fake. This was a fan artist trying to make some cash. I understand that. But “collaborate” means to work together toward a shared goal. That is not what happened here.
