Vampirella - possible fake

Signature looks a little weird. I heard Jose did a few recreations of his Warren frontipieces in the mid to late 1990's up until 2000 or so. They were of varying quality--that is, many were not that good, especially compared to the masterpieces he did during the Warren days. Then I heard rumors that these "recreations" (or most of them), were fakes. I never heard a culprit was found---but with many of the frontipieces that I saw that were supposedly fake, they all had that weird signature and had many proportions that were off---stuff that Jose would never do. Some of his earlier pieces do seem a bit more rushed than others---but all were sound artistically. Tough call===did his work deteroriate to that level or were these light boxed and done by some fradulent source???

Hello Marc

Thank You for your feedback. The signature was the first thing that I looked at. I compared the signature to the signatures in the book published by Dynamite 'The Art of Jose Gonzalez' and there are some definite weird variation to his signature in the book especially pg 132 and 133 but overall the signature falls in the spectrum. But who knows, there is so much variation to Pepe works especially in his later years.

Exactly Lindsay. We definitely lost Pepe much too soon. I heard he suffered from depression late in life amongst other things--so who knows! Again, I was told there were a bunch of fakes out there--but I never heard of a culprit found. Could it be that his work suffered at times and someone started a "rumor"...who knows. But if I ever find out for sure, I'll let you know. If you check my gallery, Warren Vampi stuff is one of the major things I collect (but I don't have a single frontipiece---don't know how that happened!)

I'd say ask T Casey Brennan, but he'll probably just give you a story about how the government experimented on him.

Authentic or fake? Hard question, as unfortunately this is the typical case where one can only speculate and express personal opinions. As far as I am concerned, when I decide to acquire a piece that has not been published or whose provenance isn't certain, I mostly rely on my aesthetic sense: I like it, I buy it (and I accept the risk that it may be false); I don't like it, I don't buy it (and I don't care that it could even be authentic). And, for what it's worth, I don't think I would had bought this drawing, I'm sorry.

Hello David

Thank you for your comments - is the reason behind not buying because you simply don't like it or because it doesn't look right.