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In One Week, Comics Art Auction Wars Break Out In France – For Around $7.5 Million

Published Fri, 11 Nov 2016 14:00:01 -0600

Last updated Tue, 22 Nov 2016 06:58:04 -0600

You wait for an insanely huge auction of original Franco-Belgian comic book art in France – and then three come along at once.

From the 16th to the 19th November, around seven hundred pieces of original comic art will be sold through three competing public auctions. At an expected average of over $10,000 each, that's a total of over $7.5 million.They are signed by Hergé, Franquin, Jacobs, Bilal, Uderzo, Moebius, Druillet, Hugo Pratt, Manara also Gibrat, Ledroit, Wolinski … There's something for everyone, but for all prices.

The big competing auction houses are Artcurial on Friday 18th and Christie's on Saturday 19th. And they are both trying to steal custom from the other.

Artcurial has 232 items from creators including Hergé, Franquin, Jacobs, Bilal, Moebius, Uderzo, Hugo Pratt, David B, Dubout and more. The best known will be a page from Tintin: Explorers on the Moon, but of most interest will be a page from The Long March of Antoninus by Colman Cohen, never sold publically before. But the biggest fuss will be over original art for a set of 20 greeting cards signed by Hergé from the 1940s, expected to go for between $65,000 and $130,000… each.

Of Christie's' 210 lots, they also have a page from Herge's Tintin: Explorers On the Moon, albeit without the main characters. It is beaten though by Hergé art of "Tintin and the Thermo-Zero" estimated between $220,000 and $300,000 euros. There's also a page from the comic Totor, Hergé's first comic book series ahead of Tintin as well as pages from Peyo, Tillieux, Bilal, Blake and Mortimer, and Asterix And The Great Divide.

The third auction house running their auction on the 16th is the lower profile Fauve, supported by Jacques Glénat which instantly propels them into the big league, with 188 lots from the famous publisher over fifty years, including Cuvelier, Bud (for whom there is no original art on the market at all) Gillon, Yslaire, Boucq, Druillet, Greenhouse, Masse, Manara, Don Rosa, Loisel, Alexis, Pratt, Franquin, Swarte, Herr Seele, Lecroart … all with commentary on the art from Glénat himself. And, uniquely, there's even the comic book manuscript from writer Jean Dufaux.

Anyone spare a Euro?

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