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PRESS RELEASE SOURCE: HERITAGE AUCTIONS
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DALLAS, Texas (Sept. 13, 2022) — It has become one of the most challenging tasks at Heritage Auctions: picking a favorite or two or 10 or 100 to highlight in each comic-art auction. The list of beloved, iconic images by revered, influential creators grows seemingly more significant with each auction. Records, too, fall with each event, as evidenced by Sept. 8’s sale of Steve Ditko’s original art for Amazing Spider-Man No. 18, which realized $432,000 — a new high for the man who co-created the Web-Slinger. It was one among numerous records set in that sale.
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Heritage’s Sept. 30-Oct. 2 International Comic Art and Anime Signature®Auction likewise offers no shortage of centerpieces from American and international creators whose names often share top billing with the characters. Among their estimable ranks included in this international event: Frank Miller, Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius), Jack Kirby, Jim Lee, Winsor McCay, Dave Gibbons, Frank Frazetta, Krazy Kat creator George Herrimann, Juan Giménez and countless others whose works transcend the printed page and belong on the gallery wall.
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“This is the first International Comic Art and Anime Signature® Auction to offer an exceptional floor session featuring the greatest masters of American and international art,” says Olivier Delflas, director of International Comic Art. “That alone is an exciting development for a category that’s only three years old. But this is also the largest auction we’ve ever held, with nearly 1,000 works of original art and comics.
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“And the anime offerings are no less exceptional. There’s an exceptional work of original movie-poster art from Akira creator Otomo Katsuhiro, a rare GeGeGe no Kitaro original by Shigeru Mitzuki, a special focus on the Dragon Ball universe and many other surprises. The timing couldn’t be better for all of these offerings, given the increased interest in and passion for these one-of-a-kind works.”
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Indeed, this event counts among its centerpieces Jim Lee and Scott Williams’ original cover for Batman No. 617, which contains Chapter 10 of writer Jeph Loeb’s landmark yearlong “Hush” story arc. This was the story that changed everything for the Dark Knight — the one in which the Riddler reveals himself among Batman’s most vicious foes, Batman and Catwoman spark a romance, Two-Face is healed, and a slain Robin (Jason Todd, the second Boy Wonder) goes missing from his grave.
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Artist Lee and inker Williams’ cover for Batman No. 617 features the Dark Knight, shovel in hand, crouched over Todd’s empty, rain-soaked grave, a grim masterwork from the artist who would go on to become DC’s publisher and chief creative officer. The work is signed, too, by both Lee and Williams, whose triple-gatefold cover for Batman No. 619 sold earlier this year for a breathtaking $504,000.
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This auction also features a work from one of Batman’s most significant (re)interpreter’s, Frank Miller, represented by pages from his Sin City titles and an original piece featuring Batman and Catwoman. But the highlight here comes from Elektra Lives Again, the 1990 oversized hardcover published by Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint. The book, in which Miller returns to his high-wire work on Daredevil, is often overlooked by mainstream audiences. Yet it ranks high on his acolytes’ list of favorite titles as “a fascinating experiment in storytelling within a closed universe where grief is symbolized by punching the heavy bag and murdering ninjas in self-defense,” as Comic Book Resources once noted. This book linked Miller’s past to his future, giving Daredevil the Dark Knight treatment.
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Like the Hush offering, Miller’s work, too, features its hero Matt Murdock in his civilian attire kneeling in front of a tombstone — that of his slain love, the assassin Elektra Natchios. Murdock is haunted by visions of Elektra risen from the dead and goes to lay orchids at her grave because “she hates roses” — and note the present tense as Elektra, or merely a vision of her, stands in front of the haunted man without fear called Daredevil.
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From another landmark title, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchman, come two extraordinary pages (and their matching color guides!) from issue No. 8 set in those dangerous, horrific moments before Silk Spectre and Nite Owl liberate an unmasked Rorschach from his prison cell. Rorschach, of course, can handle himself without his former Crimebusters colleague; here, he’s seen attacking his would-be attackers through jail-cell bars, with only the shirt off his back. Here, too, is a glimpse of the Owlship descending on the violence below.
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One of the most Marvel-ous offerings here comes from Jack “King” Kirby — a page from 1964’s Fantastic Four No. 28 that finds the FF tangling with the X-Men under the sway of the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master. The story by Stan Lee would become among the most reprinted Fantastic Four tales — but there’s only one King Kirby-Chic Stone original Page 12.
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Just as fantastic is this work by Moebius: the original cover art from Moebius’ Airtight Garage No. 3, published in 1993 by Marvel’s Epic offshoot. As the catalog notes, “The sense of composition, the balance between blacks and whites blend wonderfully in this energetic image that sparkles with the artist’s genius.” A major piece featuring Major Grubert, who made his way from France to the pages of Heavy Metal.
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Here, too, is the beginning of Moebius’ collaboration with Metabarons‘ artist Juan Giménez, the original cover art to 1993’s apocalyptic masterwork Gangrene. As our catalog notes, “This cover, which is in the purest Heavy Metal spirit, is one of the very few major pieces of Giménez’s work” to come available at auction.
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Another international superstar featured here is Enki Bilal, represented by a page from issue No. 3 of Nikopol, Froid Équateur, published in 1992. This stunning colorful piece hails from the final installment of the Nikopol trilogy and features icons of the 9th Art: Niko, Jill Bioskop and Yéléna.
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“This is an original from one of his most beautiful periods,” Delflas says, “to this day is among the most sought-after work by Bilal.”
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And no international comic-art auction would be complete without a work by one of the great Tintin artists Jacques Martin, represented here by a thrilling page from the very first adventure of his beloved hero Alix. Indeed, this offering comes from 1956’s Alix l’intrépide No. 1, in which the young Roman slave appeared eight years after making his bow in Le Journal Tintin.
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“A legendary piece like this is what makes our international comic-art events so special,” Delflas says. “An event like this allows us to present this classic work of popular culture to an enormous global audience. Like almost every creator represented here, Martin is a titan in any language.”
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Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the United States, and the world’s largest collectibles auctioneer. Heritage maintains offices in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam and Hong Kong.
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