Zeck's WR.. Have you Seen Manga Art Prices? Original Comic Art Tips #224

Welcome to #224 of the Original Comic Art Tips Newsletter!

I’ll do a complete report on this weekend’s Heritage Signature Auction next week after the auction is done, but let’s see the record-breaking $3,36 Million paid Thursday for the Spider-Man black costume origin page by Mike Zeck! There are two covers that went higher, as we all know, the -unpublished- Tintin cover by Hergé was sold for $3,9M and the Eerie Magazine cover by Frank Frazetta sold for $5,4M, so this is a record for interior/panel art only.

Let’s see some past (panel pages) record highlights, dominated by Tintin and Asterix original art: $1,77M for a Tintin on the Moon page, $1,786M for two Ottokar pages (so $893k per page) $688k for this TT on the Moon page.

The $650k paid for the first appearance of Wolverine by Herb Trimpe seemed a lot but that was 2014, the Stone Age compared to today’s market. $512k for the first Flash Gordon strip by Alex Raymond, $491k for this Asterix page by Uderzo, Another Ottokar two-page lot, sold for $937k ($468k per page), then Tintin again, a page went for $450K, another page sold for $425k.

$448k for the DKR splash by Frank Miller, $364k for another Asterix page, a Peanuts Sunday by Schulz sold for $360k, the X-Men cover by Cockrum for $360k and the Spidey splash by Ditko (both sold 2 days ago too) for $336k, then several other Tintin and Asterix pages went between $330k/$300k. And I stop going down at $300k…

Also notice that only two pages ever went over $1 Million at auction, and the Zeck page doubled the existing Hergé record. By the way, if I forgot a piece please reply to this email and let me know, I may do a blog post out of this chart if time permits.

eBay: a Gwen Stacy bust commission by J. Scott Campbell was sold for $3,3k, the SCUD cover by Rob Schrab went for $2,5k, Schrab is selling most of his vintage original art week after week, and it’s all going for high prices.

A Secret Wars splash by Esad Ribic went for $1,7k, a Wolverine commission by Dale Keown for $1,5k, a Mary Perkins Sunday for $1,3k, a Conan page by John Buscema for $1,2k, Infinity Inc. pages by Todd McFarlane for $1,2k and $1k.

A printed proof for a Sunday Peanuts strip was sold for $1k…

Best Offers: a Weird Fantasy splash by Will Elder for less than $8,5k, less than $4k for Sam and Max statue designs by Purcell, $3k for two Green Lantern/Green Arrow pages by Mike Grell, a Batman page by Breyfogle for $1,5k, a beautiful Tarzan splash by Tom Yeates for $1,3k.

Heritage Weekly Auction: A Superman cover recreation by Fred Ray went for $8,4k, an Archie cover by Bob White for $5,3k, a Vampirella commission by Pepe Gonzalez for $2,2k.

Catawiki: a Corto Maltese strip by Hugo Pratt went for €2,7k, a Tintin prelim by Hergé studio for €1,5k, the Dany illustration for €500, the Moebius prelim for €500.

A very quick (and a bit faded) Gwen Stacy sketch by John Romita was sold for €750, a 100 Bullets page by Risso for €320, a Tex illustration by Ticci for €850, the Galep/Muzzi page for €400.

Very rare to find a published page from a succesful manga for sale, a page from Attack N°1 was sold for a pretty affordable €550, and speaking of manga original art…

Mandarake Auctions: as usual I only show here the exceptional results from Mandarake, this time there were four, two of which for very rare published pieces. A cover by Shigeru Mizuki was sold for 8 Million Yen ($70k), a small illustration of Tetsujin 28 for 2,8 Million Yen ($25k), an animation drawing by Hayao Miyazaki for 6,2 Million Yen ($54k) and a sketch of Goku by Akira Toriyama for 3 Million Yen ($26k).