Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: dark knight, frank miller

Frank Miller Dark Knight Cover Sells For Over a Quarter of a Million

Published Fri, 08 Apr 2022 08:59:11 -0500

We mentioned this auction piece earlier in the week on Bleeding Cool. Frank Miller and Lynne Varley's cover art for Book Three The Dark Knight Returns. When we noted its presence in Heritage's April 7-10 Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction it had high bids of $138,000. But after heavy bidding, it instead sold for $264,000.

It is not a record for a Dark Knight original art page that would be the almost-half-a-million dollars for a splash page or for a previous cover. But it is definitely the record for a Frank Miller Dark Knight page that doesn't have Batman on it. And given the amount of Frank Miller art actually on the cover, it is definitely the most per square inch.

Frank Miller Dark Knight Cover — Frank Miller's Third Dark Knight Cover Sells For Over A Quarter Of A Million

Frank Miller Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #3 "Hunt the Dark Knight" Cover Original Art (DC, 1986). An incredibly iconic cover from perhaps the single most important series of the last 35 years! Frank Miller's Dark Knight art is indisputably the tops in the entire comic art collecting world, with panel pages closely guarded (we haven't even offered a panel page in two years). Splash pages even more so (we can't recall the last time a published splash was offered either at auction or privately). And the scant four covers are impossible! The only example to ever be offered at auction is #2 — which we sold nearly 10 years ago! With strong panel pages easily in the six-figure range currently, the sky is the limit on this classic cover, the only DK cover that features Carrie Kelley, the Robin who Frank Miller created and introduced in the series. The artwork is all pencil and ink by Frank Miller, on a section of DC Bristol board measuring 10.25" x 12.75". That piece of board has been professionally stripped-in and affixed to another larger piece of Bristol to match the size of DC DK pages. The larger board measures 14.25" x 20.5", and a new overlay featuring part of the Lynn Varley portion of the cover (made from a scan of her hand-painted color guide) has been added. The board sections are toned and in Very Good condition.