The Heroes of eBay Auctions / R. W. Watkins
The Heroes of eBay Auctions
How various comics creators are stacking up against one another in the Original Art department
(You might be surprised!)
R. W. Watkins
In an age when everything from corn flakes to kotex has been coming up for bids on eBay, it would be interesting to briefly examine how the original art of cartoonists from various eras and genres has been faring on the online auction site.
Recently, I stumbled upon the auctions of one of eBay’s most prominent sellers of comic art, Scott Eder, who lists his items under the username ‘chesslove’. The results of a recent batch of his auctions were intriguing indeed.
For example, on December 1st, this original piece of preliminary art for a Black Hole splash page fetched $660.00:
Around the same time, Burns’s ‘original illustration art’ (“most likely used as a commercial illustration”) fetched $2,225.00:
In comparison, Jack Kirby’s original art for page 12 from Thor No. 154 [see right] fetched only $1,475.00. Similarly, another defining master of Silver Age comics, Steve Ditko, proved no match for Charles Burns, with original art for page 11 of The Creeper No. 4 [see far right] fetching only $1,036.11.
An original placemat drawing included in Waiting For Food No. 2 [below, left] by R. Crumb, a living legend of the underground, fetched $3,195.00. On the other hand, original preliminary art for the Heavy Metal story ‘Sunspot’ [below, right] by Vaughn Bode, a dead legend of the underground, brought in only $282.00, ironically.
At least two other pieces by Charles Burns were auctioned by other sellers even more recently. In March, a piece of preliminary art for Black Hole [see right] brought ‘Mburbey’ over $264 (US), while a Black Hole sketch attached to signed and dated bristol board [see far right] brought ‘Chifton’ over $303 (US).
I decided to contact Mr. Eder and ask him if these recent auction outcomes were in any way typical of comic-art auctions in general on eBay.
“I wouldn’t generalize about prices or genres,” he told me. “Kirby and Ditko both fetch some crazy high prices. A recent Fantastic Four page featuring the Silver Surfer sold for nearly $150k at auction. And it wasn’t a cover or a splash page! Ditko’s Spidey pages always fetch huge amounts. When it comes to the underground comix art, there are fewer collectors. Still, guys like Robert Crumb (living) and Rick Griffin (dead) fetch huge prices. Charles Burns hadn’t sold much of his art until recently, so there’s a bit of a supply issue there to explain the high prices—that and the fact that he’s awesome! The Best Vaughn Bode art goes for a fair amount of money.”
So it appears there are no general rules or guarantees when it comes to comic-art auctions. A seldom-sold alternative artist like Charles Burns can challenge old mainstream masters like Kirby and Ditko, and a living ‘underground’ artist like R. Crumb can outprice his dead counterparts.
At the time of my writing, artwork by Alex Toth ($95 US), Shannon Wheeler ($95 US) and Mark Bode ($475 US) were still unsold as ‘Buy It Now’ items at Eder’s eBay store, Scott Eder’s Original Art (http://stores.ebay.ca/scott-eder-ORIGINAL-ART-chesslove?_trksid=p4340.l2563).