DALLAS, TX.- Heritage's latest Comics & Comic Art event was one heck of an auction.
Don Heck, to be more specific, the co-creator of Iron Man who set an auction record during the four-day event when his original artwork for Page 10 from Tales of Suspense No. 39 realized $336,000 – a new auction record for the Silver Age artist whose work is now worth its weight in gold. That page, written by Stan Lee, was the first to feature Tony Stark doing battle as Iron Man, and after a prolonged tussle between bidders, it shattered the previous auction record for original Heck art set in September 2022, when Heritage sold Page 12 from Tales of Suspense No. 39 for $228,000.
"We were all thrilled by the flurry of live bidding and the final record price for one of the greatest first-appearance pages that has ever come to market," says Heritage Executive Vice President Todd Hignite.
The Nov. 16-19 event realized $11,298,075, with every one of its 1,160 offerings finding new homes among the more than 4,800 bidders participating worldwide. Among the top lots were historic original works and more recent pieces, including some incredibly iconic offerings from the 1980s and record-setters from the 1990s, a decade finally getting its rightful turn in the spotlight.
They included one of Frank Miller's most famous renderings of Batman as The Dark Knight and Carrie Kelley as his new Robin – which didn't appear in 1986's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. That historic, genre-redefining book had yet to debut when issue No. 31 of Comics Interview hit in 1986, bearing this early look at Miller's hardboiled makeover of the Dynamic Duo. It realized $210,000.
No one was surprised when Rob Liefeld's super-swole Super Soldier – the Captain America drawn by the Deadpool creator to promote Marvel's "Heroes Reborn" event in 1996 – sparked a bidding war during the auction's second day. The original rendering opened live bidding Friday afternoon at $21,000. Things then quickly escalated as bidders fought over the polarizing piece that's the most memed and most misunderstood piece in comic-book history – and it never appeared in a single comic book.After four minutes of bidding, Cap finally sold for $132,000, exceeding everyone's expectations – and setting a new record for a Liefeld original. The auction room broke out in applause. And Liefeld tweeted: "Congratulations to the seller and buyer! So happy for both of you!"
Liefeld's old Image-making pal Jim Lee, the president of DC Comics, wasn't far behind when his original cover for 1993's Deathblow No. 1 realized $102,000. That ties the previous highwater mark for one of Lee's works dating back to his tenure at Image Comics, which he co-founded in 1992 with Liefeld and Todd McFarlane.
Another 1990s work flirted with a six-figure result, as Whilce Portacio and Art Thibert's double-page spread from The Uncanny X-Men No. 283 realized $99,000. That, too, set a new auction record for Portacio, another of Image's co-founders.
There were 27 works in this auction by Robert Crumb, a legend in underground comix circles well before director Terry Zwigoff's award-winning 1995 documentary Crumbmade the cartoonist a household name. But his top lot in this auction wasn't a two-dimensional page. It was, in fact, the very three-dimensional life-sized sculpture Vulture Goddess (Vulture Demoness).This sculpture, made by Crumb around 1990, is well-traveled and well-documented in exhibitions and literature, including The R. Crumb Handbook. It stands – or sits – about 54 inches tall, and to stand beside the piece feels like having been drawn into a Crumb comic, specifically 1969's Big Ass Comics, in which the Vulture Demonesses made their debut. This work's new owner paid $180,000 for the piece made of clay, cured epoxy molecular-binding adhesive resin, wood, enamel and Robert Crumb's sexual fantasies commingled with some acid.
The funny pages also sparked serious bidding during the four-day event, led by Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim Sunday comic strips, which appeared in newspapers in the fall of 1935. The two strips sold as a single lot for $132,000.
Heritage, which already holds the auction records for Bill Watterson's original Calvin and Hobbes strips, offered something unique in this event: a single-panel cartoon created for one little girl named Laura, featuring that beloved 6-year-old boy and his talking (stuffed) tiger tucked into bed and wide awake, Calvin armed with a baseball bat while Hobbes pulls the covers over his mouth. Watterson, who personalized the piece, titled it "10 pm MONSTER VIGIL," and it has never been offered – or seen publicly – since its creation.Hailing from the estate of Lee Salem, for 40 years the editor or president at Universal Press Syndicate and the man who discovered Bill Watterson, this remarkable piece sparked a bidding war that drove the final price to $102,000.
There were, as always, hundreds of comic books of significance throughout this event, among them 1939's Marvel Comics No. 1, which ranks among the most sought-after comics in the hobby. But this copy, with an October cover date rather than November, is rare and even more prized, which is why this restored copy realized $144,000. It was joined in this auction by a copy of 1942's All Star Comics No. 8 graded CGC VF 8.0, which realized $180,000, a record for the grade.
