A rare set of Tintin drawings took the highest bid among nearly 300 pieces in a Heritage Auctions sale dedicated to European comic art. Several pieces of Herge’s artwork were up for bid. The most valuable Tintin lot in the auction, an inked 12-panel page and pencil layout from Herge’s “The Red Sea Sharks” (originally published in Journal Tintin, 1958), sold for $425,000. The pre-auction estimate had anticipated the piece would go for as much as $720,000.
In total, the auction, which took place over the weekend in Dallas, Texas, took in nearly $1.3 million. Other notable pieces in the auction include artwork from Corto Maltese by Hugo Prattt, which sold for $62,500; Moebius pieces including a page from The Black Incal, $21,250, and artwork from Upon a Star, $13,750; and a Milo Manara illustration that sold for $11,875.
The auction also included a few pieces from American artists. An R. Crumb parody advertisement from Weirdo #15 sold for $20,000; a page of Jack Kamen’s art from Weird Science #9 brought in $18,750; and a Will Eisner splash page netted $16,250.
While certainly prized, the “Red Sea” piece isn’t the most valuable Herge artwork to come to market. In 2016, a page from the book Explorers on the Moon earned the equivalent of $1.64 million (see “Original Tintin Art Earns Record Sum at Auction”). The original Adventures of Tintin endpapers sold for $3.5 million in 2014 (see "Comic Art Sells for $3.5 Million"), and a Tintin cover sold for $1.6 million in 2012 (see "'Tintin' Cover Sold for $1.6 Million").
The high bid for the R. Crumb piece pales in comparison the record for his work: Crumb’s cover art for the Ballantine Fritz the Cat collection from 1969 sold for $717,000 just over one year ago (see “New Record Price For American Comic Art”).
Pratt, Moebius, Manara, Crumb, Eisner Also on the Block
Posted by Betsy Gomez on June 5, 2018 @ 6:17 pm CT
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