Last week, the father of Superman: Earth One and Batman artist Shane Davis, was selling a jeep that had belonged to Shane's late mother. Before doing so, his father had removed Davis's items that were still in the vehicle including two portfolios of his original artwork and had set them aside for safekeeping. But when the jeep was driven away, the driver appeared to have somehow acquired the portfolios as well.

Davis has been trying to track the portfolio down, and discovered that the jeep buyer had been trying to shop it around and had even attempted to sell it to Davis' own art dealer, Splash Page Art, the jeep buyer wrote (redactions mine);

Hey, my name is XXXXX. I just bought a Jeep and found a bunch of drawings in it for Batman and Superman and Axcend by Shane Davis. Do you know much abt them? Are they worth anything? I'd like to get them to someone who appreciates them. I've attached just a couple of the drawings for reference. My number is XXXXXXXX Any info would be helpful. Thank you.

These are the images he provided.

Splash Page Art alerted Davis him to the attempt. Giving the seller the benefit of the doubt, Davis contacted him to let him know that the portfolio was not to be sold, and to arrange its return. At which point, Davis tells us that the seller demanded money or said that he would burn it all. After stating that he would be reporting the pages as stolen, Davis arranged to meet the seller in a car park – but it did not go well.

Davis told Bleeding Cool that he met the seller, who told Shane that the art was worth thousands, and that the seller believed he now technically owned them, believing that the jeep he bought was owned by Davis and that the art was inside it. An altercation ensued and police were called.

However, while Davis had indeed filed a stolen property report, when the police arrived they discovered that the report had been filed in a different county to where the meeting took place, and so the police returned the artwork to the seller.

Naturally, this is a developing situation, but it appears that a number of other attempts to sell the pages have been made, so this is for anyone who is approached regarding the pages of artwork above, to bear this in mind.