Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: auction, heritage, sponsored, The Spirit, will eisner
Complete 7 Page 1949 Will Eisner Spirit Original Artwork at Auction
It's Will Eisner Spirit time at the auction from Heritage, which may be their most significant comic book auction to date with some insanely valuable, desirable, and influential examples of original comic book artwork. Including a complete seven-page Will Eisner The Spirit story from 1949. That the original artwork for such exists is amazing, that it is all in one place is fantastic, and that it is up for sale – and we can all read it from the Heritage Auction website is spectacular. The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by Will Eisner who first appeared in 1940 as the main feature of a 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday edition of Register and Tribune Syndicate newspapers, ultimately carried by 20 Sunday newspapers, with a combined circulation of five million copies during the 1940s. The stories were presented in a wide variety of styles, from straightforward crime drama and noir to lighthearted adventure, from mystery and horror to comedy and love stories, often with hybrid elements that twisted genre and reader expectations. The Spirit remains one of the most influential comic books of all time. The auction ends on Thursday, the 17th of June.
Will Eisner The Spirit Complete 7-Page Story Original Art dated 12-18-49 (Register and Tribune Syndicate, 1949). This is the complete 7-page story "Lonesome Cool". Lonesome Cool was the toughest guy there was. But a golden bullet is cool too. These are large pages, produced bigger than even twice-up scale. Created in ink over graphite on Bristol board with image areas of 14" x 20". There are discolored production paste-ups in the top margin, as well as red ink "the Spirit" stamps. There is glue residue in the lower margin, and production tape stains on the side margins. Page 1 has a modern reproduction replacement stat header paste-up. Page 7 is missing a piece from the bottom right corner. There is overall staining and handling wear. There are some bonus sketches on the reverse of Page 3. In Very Good condition.