The 1966 cover of Spider-man #43, drawn by John Romita Sr set an auction record, selling for $101,700 at a multi-estate sale held October 20–21 by Philip Weiss Auctions.
It was a new auction record for original artwork from the Spiderman comic books. It was also one of dozens of lots that were sold from the estate of Marvin Channing, the noted comic book storywriter. The original cover art, Sunday pages and comic books were fresh to the market, having been in Channing’s possession for more than 40 years.
Original Charles Schulz pages and a Jack Kirby Captain America cover for TALES OF SUSPENSE sold for more than $40k each. Not as much as Audrey Hepburn’s dress, but still pretty pricey. More results in the link.
Guess I’ll be holding on to my Mignola Hellboy page.
–Pete
WOW!! I resist the temptation to equate “greater societal recognition” with “somebody just paid a bucket of money for it,” but there’s no doubt that recent auction highs for Gustav Klimt and de Koonig certainly raised their status in the art world. Like it or not, the market sometimes determines what’s (artistically) good, and I hope this brings wider recognition for the works of comic artists.
From an art angle, I’m not sure why that particular cover went for so high. I don’t recall it being a particularly key issue, and I certainly think that Kirby ToS cover is more awesome. But, then again, you never know which comic was somebody’s first . . . I know I once nearly put myself out on the street trying to buy a beautiful Frenz/Palmer page from Star Wars #71 (my first comic book).
I wonder how much the last page of the previous issue of Amazing Spider-Man would have sold for….
Whenever I see someone spell his name as “Spiderman” it makes me want to kill somebody. Jeebers, the art’s right there with the name “Spider-Man” on the cover. Sorry, it’s just the copywriter in me that this drives me nuts.
P.S. I’m referring to story Heidi linked to, not that she did anything wrong by just cutting-and-pasting the mistake.
That spelling always makes me think of the discussion on Friends:
Phoebe: Hey! Why isn’t it “Spidermun?” Ya know, like Goldman, or Silverman?
Chandler: It’s not his last name.
Phoebe: It isn’t?
Chandler: No. It’s not like… like “Phil Spidermun”. He’s a spider-man. You know, like, uh, like Goldman is a last name, but there’s no Gold-Man.
Phoebe: Oh, okay! There should be a “Gold-Man!”
(copy-and-pasted from friends-tv.org)
Otto Preminger essentially pronounced Batman the way Phoebe suggests when he played Mr. Freeze.
The greatest movie superhero pronunciation of all time was Marlon Brando and “KRYP-tun”.