Records were set in auctions over the weekend for original art by Frank Frazetta and Osamu Tezuka. The Frazetta painting, Death Dealer 6, sold for $1,792,500 at a Chicago auction by Heritage Auctions, according to the Chicago Tribune. That was a record price for a Frazetta painting, which have been escalating rapidly in recent years. Just six years ago in 2012, a Frazetta painting sold for $262,900 (see "Frazetta PB Cover Tops $262K"). The top comic in the auction, a CGC 4.0 Action Comics #1, sold for $573,600.
Meanwhile halfway around the planet at an auction in Paris, an Astro Boy manga page by the "godfather of manga" Osamu Tezuka sold for €269,400, according to the Japan Times. That’s over $320,000 at today’s exchange rate, and a record for the artist, whose works rarely come to market.
These are both reflections of the rapidly escalating prices on original art by key geek culture figures around the world, including American and European comic artists.

For Frazetta and Tezuka Pieces
Posted by Milton Griepp on May 14, 2018 @ 3:51 am CT

MORE COMICS
Showbiz Round-Up
May 19, 2025
Small-screen news dominated showbiz this week, and we round it up here.
Column by Scott Thorne
May 19, 2025
This week, columnist Scott Thorne comments on the closing of the Diamond Comic Distributors sale, on new developments in the Games Workshop lawsuit, and congratulates Mike Webb.
MORE NEWS
As Ad Populum Takes Control
May 19, 2025
Comic executives and others were laid off last Friday as Ad Populum took control of the comic-related businesses.
'Baldur's Gate 3 Character Boxed Set'
May 19, 2025
WizKids has offered refunds to purchasers of recent release D&D Icons of the Realms; Baldur's Gate 3 – Character Boxed Set.