Original Comic Art Tips #70 – Buscema, Brooks, Ditko and More!!

Welcome to #70 of Original Comic Art Tips. Very long newsletter this time, let’s start with the usual auction results.

Ebay: the Wolverine original art by Sam Kieth went for $3,600, a Godzilla cover by Maguire and Art Adams for $1,000, the 2 Wildcats pages by Jim Lee went for market price at $1,500. This Batman comic art page by Don Newton sold for only $500 probably means that every interested collector already bought one… Norm Breyfogle Batman original art is getting scarce on the market, the trading card art went for $800 and $760. A cover sketch by Milton Caniff went for $1,000, the Adrian Tomine cover art for $1,300.

Happy collectors bought a Scion splash by Jim Cheung for $150, a Batman action page by Tom Lyle for $120 and a Vampirella splash by Butch Guice for $350.

Heritage Sunday: the Wayne Boring Superman strip made $2,400, the original art for the Batman Hostess ad by Curt Swan $2,300, the Wally Wood painting $2,600 and the George Herriman original cartoon $1,500.

A Wonder Woman head sketch by Phil Noto went for $1,100, I don’t know why. A very early Milo Manara splash for $2,000.

This week on eBay

Ed McGuinness – Incredible Hulk splash Original Art

Why don’t we start with Sal Buscema? Several ROM pages were put for sale this week (the splash from #2 already sold for $6,5k), this is the best from the lot. I really like this Hulk page, then a What If? page with Cap and a Spidergirl original with Ron Frenz. Great Spiderman splash by John Romita Jr., Web of Spiderman (one and two) by Alex Saviuk.

The classic cover art from Creatures on the Loose #16 by Kane/Everett, a Namor page by Dave Cockrum, a great Hulk splash by Ed McGuinness, an Hulkbuster color commission by Mark Brooks (I think he’s asking $1k for pieces like this one). A Stuart Immonen Thing Vs. Namor splash.

DC: Cheap Batman original art by Graham Nolan, one by Norm Breyfogle, one by Don Newton and a splash by Tony Daniel. Batman DPS by Gil Kane, Wonder Woman comic art by John Byrne, nice & cheap JLA page by Mark Bagley, very nice JLA animated style coloring book DPS by Joe Staton.

It’s not a Marvel page, but this cosmic title splash by Jim Starlin, at the moment, is at $7,5. A Silver Star page by Jack Kirby and some strips: very nice Wizard of ID daily, a Goosemeyer Sunday, B.C. Sunday one and two, B.C. daily, Hagar daily, Corrigan daily by Williamson.

Heritage Sunday Auction

Jim Aparo – Batman Original Art

Not a great week for comic art at Heritage, so I’ll start with Wayne Boring‘s Superman. Then Batman by Jim Aparo, nice World’s Finest page by Shaffenberger, Superman and Hawkman original art by Curt Swan. Very Early Black Canary sketch by Adam Hughes and a Kid Flash pin-up by Ryan Sook, a Sgt. Rock commission by Russ Heath.

Marvel: a Gil Kane/John Romita Nick Fury page and not much else.

Many strips: a 1969 Dan Barry Flash Gordon Sunday, Rip Kirby daily Original Art by Alex Raymond and a moody Corrigan by Al Williamson. Nice Casey Ruggles Sunday, Rudolph Dirks Cap & the Kids Sunday, an Orphan Annie Christmas card by Harold Gray, a George Herriman cartoon and a 1955 Pogo daily.

Heritage Platinum Night

Arthur Adams – X-Men Poster Original Art

“Platinum Night” means, I think, that 50 high-high-end pieces will be auctioned the night before the next Signature Auction (Feb. 21), I’ll start from here and then we’ll see the usual original comic art auction in the next two weeks. It’s impossible to make a selection, every piece is worth mentioning, so I’ll show a few and leave the rest to you.

There’s the original art to the classic X-Men poster by Arthur Adams, the cover to Avengers 105 by John Buscema, a COMPLETE Dr. Strange story by Steve Ditko (here’s the splash), the cover to Watchmen #1 by Dave Gibbons (it was sold for $155k in 2013), the cover to Fantastic Four #154 by Gil Kane, a Wolverine MCP cover by Sam Kieth and the cover to Invaders #3 by Kirby and Romita.

If you have money to invest please buy this complete 9 page Tank Girl story by Jamie Hewlett.

Little Nemo

Hal Foster – Prince Valiant original Art

A very interesting auction this time, with a beautiful Corto Maltese strip by Hugo Pratt, a Valentina pinup by Guido Crepax, some rare Sturmtruppen illustrations by Bonvi, a very nice Toppi illustration, a Prince Valiant Sunday by Hal Foster and also a Mike Deodato Avengers cover and a Prowler sketch by Alex Ross.

See you next week with the second part of Heritage’s Comic Art Auction and much more!!