Steve Rude posted a stolen painting alert on his Facebook page. One is a Harry Anderson original given to Rude by the artist's daughter and the other two are by Rude himself-- a Nexus cover and an interior page. Rude sent them to an art restorer for estimates and when he felt the quotes were too high, requested the work be returned. For whatever reason the restorer apparently kept them and may or may not still have the art in his possession. Obviously, Rude wants back what's rightfully his and-- because it's been a year since his initial complaint-- has decided to put out the word to his fans in hopes of speeding the process along.
"The case went before the [Arizona] Attorney General in August and it could be many more months before anything is done," Rude wrote.
It's not as if art theft was a rare or even new phenomenon, especially of comic book pages. Compared to fine art, comic book pages are relatively cheap but still valuable enough for key pages to go for handsome prices on the secondary market. Comic book pages also have the advantage of being numerous enough that it's difficult to keep track of ever single original floating around and to establish provenance. A page might change hands dozens of times. In this case, since two of the pieces are paintings, it's difficult to imagine what this person plans to do with them. Especially now that Steve Rude has the word out about them.
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