Issue #81
Welcome to Original Comic Art Tips #81! Very long update this week!
Original Comic Art Auction Results
eBay: the Alex Ross Shazam page went up to $14k but it still wasn’t enough to reach the reserve. The Fantastic Four cover by Paul Ryan was sold for $3,3k, one of the Daredevil pages by John Romita Jr. went for $3,200, the other was sold outside of eBay so we don’t know the details.
The animation art by Jack Kirby went for $1,6k, the George Perez Superman art for $850, the Lizard sketches by J. Scott Campbell sold for $850 with a lowered reserve and the Smilin’ Jack Sunday page for $1,500 and 61 bids, 5 times the typical price for this kind of art. I can’t say what happened.
Heritage: A Luke McDonnell Iron-Man page was the winner last week with more than $2k, the Paul Smith X-Men page went for a little less, the Alan Davis Excalibur page was sold for $1,7k, Superman by Pablo Marcos for $1,6k, Iron-Man by Bob Budiansky for $1k and Adam Hughes’ JLA page for $900.
Catawiki Manara Comic Art Auction: CW still has a lot of work to do to promote their auctions, as none of the 12 pieces by Milo Manara reached the reserve price..!
This week on eBay
Jim Starlin – Hulk Original Comic Art
Some great Marvel pieces: an Incredible Hulk illustration by Jim Starlin, a Gamora painting by Gabriele Dell’Otto, a beautiful Marvels page by Alex Ross, a Hulk page by John Byrne and a ROM half splash by Steve Ditko.
Spider-Mans: a 2099 title splash and an action page by Rick Leonardi, pages by Mooney, Saviuk, and Mike Deodato, a classic Spiderman/Venom page and an Ultimate by Mark Bagley.
Thor/Thing Two in One page by Trimpe, Avengers by Jim Cheung, Defenders by Giffen, Logan by Leinil Yu and Hulk Vs Thing by Leonardi.
DC: another Steve Bissette Swamp Thing page, a Rich Buckler World’s Finest action page, Green Lantern original art by Joe Staton and Darryl Banks, Lobo by Val Semeiks, Batman sketch by Bill Sienkiewicz.
Superman page by Carlos Pacheco, Batman 1/3 splash by Doug Mahnke, very nice and cheap Batman pinup by JH Williams, Batman by Shawn McManus, Flash by Scott Kolins and a Silk Spectre color bust by Darwin Cooke.
A Buy It Now Hellboy painted bust by Adi Granov (remember last time?), an affordable Grifter page by Travis Charest, a very early Todd Mc Farlane splash, 2 sketched books by Moebius, very nice sketch by Jaime Hernandez and a beautiful Russell Patterson panel.
Heritage Sunday Auction
Ross Andru – Spider-Man Original Comic Art
Not much to see again, this week, but look at some of these Marvel pages.
Another great Thing title splash by Ron Wilson and Bob Layton, a Spider-Man page by Ross Andru with Nightcrawler in all panels, a full-team Avengers page by George Perez, Excalibur by Alan Davis, very nice Conan page by Kane/Sutton, one by Buscema, Spider-Man by Ed Hannigan, a Dracula page by Gene Colan and Gene Day‘s Shang-Chi doing Kung-Fu with an Alien.
Only two from DC: Batman original art by Jim Aparo, Aquaman by Jim Calafiore.
The usual Neat stuff page and a Junior cover by Peter Bagge, two book illustrations by Wally Wood and some strips: Dick Tracy daily, very nice Robin Malone Sunday, a hand colored Brenda Starr daily and a funny Wizard of ID daily.
Heritage Signature Auction 1 of 3
Barry Windsor Smith – Opus Original Cover Art
Here we are again with the Spring Original Comic Art Auction. As usual the plate is too full for a quick overview so I divided the lots in 3 parts.
We start with Alex Ross, some great pieces, I chose this Kingdom Come DPS.
The notorious Superman DPS by Alex Toth and Terry Austin, no less. I used to own this Romance page by Alex and Mike Peppe, somebody on CAF offered me more than what it was worth… I’ll tell you after the auction if I did the right thing.
Several early Excalibur pages by Alan Davis, I like this one from #1. The cover to Betty & Veronica #1 by Adam Hughes, a Luke Cage splash by Billy Graham, Rare: an early Batman page partially drawn by Bob Kane.
Bills: A Bill Everett Namor splash and a Bill Sienkiewicz New Mutants page. We’re used to great Barry Windsor Smith art on Heritage, this time it’s hard to do better, with the cover to Conan #10 and the cover to Opus #1.
A Brian Bolland Wonder Woman cover and a Superman cover by Carmine Infantino to close the superhero section. A Williamson/Frazetta Weird Science page, a Building Stories page by Chris Ware, one of the few published covers still between us by Carl Barks and a few strips: Frazetta again drawing Li’l Abner, Tarzan by Hogarth, an X-9 daily and one of many top Rip Kirby strips by Alex Raymond. Many nice Peanuts strips, here’s one.
Artcurial Comic Art Auction
Tanino Liberatore – Ranxerox Original Comic Art
Artcurial has a tradition of top quality in their auctions, but I actually don’t remember the last time I browsed such high end pieces of comic art in their website. Probably it is, at least, their best auction I presented since I started Comic Art Tips in 2017.
Multiple pieces by Bilal, pen and ink pages, painted pages and illustrations. Many Hergé illustrations, like this Tintin Christmas card. A Blueberry page by Giraud and several Moebius colour pieces, it’s been awhile since sequential pages by Franquin were put for sale, we have a Gaston page and a Spirou.
A colour Lucky Luke illustration by Morris, original art from Valerian tome 3, then Franq, Schuiten, Vance, and if you like Munoz and Alack Sinner this is probably a perfect page.
Some classic pieces from Italian comic artists, like this Corto Maltese cover by Hugo Pratt, 2 beautiful Ranxerox pages by Liberatore, Manara: an Indian Summer page, one of the most famous pages from El Gaucho and a mithological illustration.
See you next week with part 2 of Heritage’s auction and much more great art!!
