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Frank Miller's Third Dark Knight Returns Cover, At Auction Today

Published Thu, 07 Apr 2022 09:57:13 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Today, as part of Heritage Auctions' Platinum Session, the original artwork for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Book Three: Hunt The Dark Knight, by Frank Miller, is up for auction. It currently has bids of $138,000 and goes under the hammer today. It could well go a lot higher. Even previous to the recent boom in original artwork values, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley Dark Knight artwork has generally outperformed all others.

Frank Miller Dark Knight Cover — Frank Miller's Third Dark Knight Returns Cover, At Auction Today

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.