Issue #12

This is the 12th issue of Comic Art Tips, the Newsletter about Original Comic Art collecting. 

Last Saturday was the day of two European auctions (as previewed on the last newsletter), Huberty & Breyne sold 100% of the masterworks offered with several pieces gaining way more than the estimated prices. As usual, Hergè got the lion’s share, the biggest surprise was these four panels from “Le temple du soleil”, sold for eur 125.000 (with an estimate of eur 25/28.000) while the other Tintin pieces all doubled the estimated price. On the other end, the Franquin Spirou page ended at 75k below the estimate. The Blueberrys such as this one went very well and the Major Fatal even better (the same happened for all the Moebius pieces). The other bid wars were on the Buck Danny cover (10k over the estimate), the Tuniques Bleues cover (doubled the estimate) and this page by Bruno Gazzotti which tripled the estimate at eur 7.000. We end with the Peyo Smurfs page who disappeared from the auction… I don’t know what happened, maybe it was retired like the Uderzo piece.

Little Nemo Auction went pretty well too with more than 50% of auctioned Items sold (a very good result for an Italian auction). The two top pieces, 2 daily Peanuts strips by Charles Schulz, were both sold for a slightly higher price than expected, strips from the 80’s without Snoopy or Charlie Brown usually go for less than eur 11.000 and eur 11.500 (not including a 15% buyer’s premium). The other big pieces were a Hugo Pratt page sold for eur 4.000 and a Ken Parker page by Ivo Milazzo sold for eur 2.200.

Let’s close this long introduction with eBay, the Dell Pogo cover by Walt Kelly from last week was sold for $17.000.

Heritage Sunday Auction

Another good Sunday Auction with many interesting lots like this signed Joe Kubert DC page and this Dale Keown Hulk page (a regular in the Sunday Auctions). Last week we had three rare early Johnny Hazard strips by Frank Robbins, all of them went for way less than they should, you have a second possibility with a very early daily Original art (1944) and a beautiful sunday strip from 1955. Last week we also had 2 great Warren pages by Alex Toth that went for $2.800, this week we have 2 pages again here. We can close for this week with a double signed Wizard of ID daily Original by Parker and Hart and a 1968 Beetle Bailey Sunday by Mort Walker.

Russ Cochran

A few nice piece on next week’s Russ Cochran Comic Art auction, a charity sketch by Disney animator Tom Bancroft with some characters, also for charity are this Zits daily by Borgman and this big Dennis sketch by Hank Ketcham. Look at this incredible Flash Gordon interior page by Al Williamson and this Johnny Craig Original EC Cover.

As you may have noticed, this week we skip the usual Ebay section for lack of material, we’ll probably resume the regular Tips next week!