DALLAS, TX.- History flew off the spinner racks at a dizzying pace over the last few days. And by the time the sun set Sunday night,
Heritage Auctions wrapped one of the most thrilling and successful Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auctions in the company's 47-year history.
The four-day event — capped by Frank Frazetta's Dark Kingdom, which sold for $6 million to become the world's most valuable comic or fantasy art — realized $21,056,657, with 5,715 bidders worldwide helping make it a near-complete sellout. The June 22-25 event was Heritage's most successful Comics & Comic Art auction since last June's, which topped $24 million.
Frazetta's painting, which graced the covers of Karl Edward Wagner's 1976 novel Dark Crusade and Molly Hatchet's 1979 Flirtin' With Disaster, cemented it as one of the late artist's most treasured works. But numerous other record-breakers joined Frazetta's wing-capped warrior in this event, including one beloved Poor Little Rich Boy and a 6-year-old adventurer accompanied by his talking (stuffed) tiger. Indeed, this auction was a watershed moment for Bill Watterson and his beloved creations, Calvin and Hobbes.
Watterson's strips are extraordinary rarities, and Heritage already holds all the records for his hand-painted originals, including a May 1987 Sunday strip that sold last year for $480,000. But this auction saw two of his black-and-white works achieve Technicolor results.
One dates from March 28, 1986, less than a year into the strip's decade-long run, and features Calvin and Hobbes donning sunglasses to look "cooler than we are." Watterson gifted the strip to a colleague upon whom he imparted his "best wishes." That extraordinary rarity sold for $174,000, making it the world's most valuable black-and-white Calvin and Hobbes daily.
Not far behind is a black-and-white daily that appeared in newspapers on Dec. 30, 1987, which ranks among the series' classics — the one in which Calvin and Hobbes build "the strongest snow fort ever made" directly behind the garage, much to Dad's dismay. This strip, too, was a gift from Watterson, who inscribed the work to someone named Ann: "Best wishes with your ‘little Calvin,'" he wrote beside his familiar all-caps signature. It sold for $156,000.
In an auction dominated by grown-ups in tights, the kids ruled the weekend. A Richie Rich No. 1 graded CGC Near Mint+ 9.6 realized $108,000 to set a new record for this coveted 1960 Harvey title. This is the book in which Richie made his solo-title debut after serving as a backup to Little Dot. There are just four copies bearing this grade, none higher, and collectors responded with a bidding war that would have made Alfred Harvey proud. The final price more than doubled the previous high of $48,995 set at Heritage in May 2016.
"I never cease to be amazed and surprised by our Comics & Comic Art auctions," says Heritage Auctions Vice President Barry Sandoval. "We had a feeling the Frazetta would make history; it deserved to. And Bill Watterson's work has become increasingly valuable as fans and followers flock to the few available works that come to auction. But it's a delight to see Richie Rich enter the six-figure pantheon in a sale rich with comics history. And we're also thrilled for our clients, as 10 consignors saw their offerings in this sale hit a hammer price of $250,000 or more."
There was significant comic-book history throughout this auction, as evidenced by the heated back-and-forth between collectors who vied for one of the earliest Timely Comics original pages ever to appear at auction.
One of the auction's centerpieces was a work as striking as it is historic: a Jack Kirby-Joe Simon splash page from just the fifth issue of Captain America Comics to hit newsstands, a work so early in the Sentinel of Liberty's career the United States hadn't yet entered the Second World War. This work, the opening page of the story "The Terror That Was Devil's Island," was a marvel before there was a Marvel. And bidders responded appropriately, driving its final price to $252,000.
The Man Who Broke Batman's Back likewise broke the bank during this auction, as Bane's creator Graham Nolan offered several original works from his archives, among them five pages from his debut appearance in 1993's Batman: Vengeance of Bane No. 1. By auction's end, the pages sold for a combined $300,240. And several sparked prolonged bidding wars, among them the splash image from Vengeance of Bane showcasing the iconic villain's appearance in full costume and mask, which realized $90,000.
Another relatively modern work likewise sparked a protracted battle among bidders: the Bill Sienkiewicz page from 1985's The New Mutants No. 25 that introduced the mutant son of Professor X and Gabrielle Haller known as Legion. The two-season FX series starring Dan Stevens as the title character helped mainstream the characters. But Sienkiewicz's stunning work here does all the heavy lifting, which is why it surpassed all expectations to realize $93,000.
Which brings us back to Frazetta.
As Sandoval says, Dark Kingdom had the potential to set a new record for comic or fantasy art from the moment it first arrived at Heritage. But as this event proved, no Frazetta work is too small to make its mark.
Look no further than the preliminary watercolor that eventually grew into the iconic At the Earth's Core, which appeared on the 1974 cover of the Edgar Rice Burroughs paperback. Seven years ago, Heritage sold that massive painting in the ornate frame for $1,075,500 after it spent years hanging in the Frazetta Museum.
Its early watercolor counterpart is, by comparison, a relatively small sketch — 5 inches by 6 inches. Yet its price realized was deservedly enormous at $52,800.
