This page is a work in progress and incomplete. If you have any suggestions please pass them on. Some of the cover images on this website link to pages that display images of original Star Trek art, thus my interest in the topic.
I'm strictly an amateur when it comes to Star Trek comics original art. I've been buying Star Trek comics artwork for several years. I've never sold any art. My knowledge is mostly from observation of what I've found on the net and in local comic shops.
I've seen several types of original art for sale, from pencilled art all the way through the printing process to printer plates. I'm sure this isn't a complete list of what might be available.
Prices for pencilled and inked original page art on comic art board for Star Trek comics interior pages range from $50 to $1,500 and more. Most art pages are 12"x18", but some artists work in a larger format, about 20"x24". Interior original art pages are the most common item for sale. It's not unusual to see higher-priced items on eBay unsold for a long time.
Prices for cover art range from $400 to $15,000 and more. The highest prices are for the painted cover art from Gold Key Star Trek comics, which are typically acrylic paint on heavy art board. I've bid on a few covers, but prices for cover art increase beyond my budget pretty quickly.
Prices for color guides range from $50 to more than $100 per page. A color guide is usually created on a photocopy of the original inked comic art. The copy can be reduced to 8.5"x11" or it might be a bit larger, about 10"x12". One of the comic's artists or an artist hired to color the inked artwork will use color pencils, felt-tip pens, watercolors or any combination of the above to create a color guide which the printer will use for producing the finished comic. Today, most comics are colored digitally, so hand-colored guides are less common.
When a comic is finished, the artists may sell their original artwork. Some artists sell through dealers, on eBay or other auction sites, or from their own websites. Cover artists often have prints made for sale. Prices for prints start around $25 and go up, depending on the artist, the art, and the type of print.
In all cases, the price of an item may be skewed by someone collecting artwork by a specific artist, from a specific comic, or because the artwork features a favorite character. Pages or covers with large images of familiar Star Trek characters tend to sell for more. Cover art is almost always more expensive than interior art. Today, more original comic art is being sold at online auction sites, than ever before, so prices continue to rise.
Star Trek Comics Checklist by Mark Martinez is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
