An Original Painting by Tintin creator Herge Could set a New Record for a Comic Book Sale
Paris, Jan 13 (AFP/APP): An original painting by Tintin creator Herge could set a new record for a comic book sale when it goes to auction in Paris on Thursday.
The online sale is widely expected to confirm the huge appetite for memorabilia of Tintin, whose adventures have entertained people of all ages since the 1930s.
The previous world record for comic book art was set in 2014, when a double-page ink drawing that served as the inside cover for Tintin volumes published from 1937 to 1958 sold for 2.65 million euros ($3.6 million at the time).
The small painting being offered on Thursday, measuring 34 cm square (13 inches), features Tintin and his dog Snowy emerging from a porcelain jar in front of a menacing depiction of a Chinese dragon.
It was intended for the cover of “The Blue Lotus” from 1936 but was judged too expensive to reproduce by the publisher, which ultimately used a simplified version of the same scene, auction house Artcurial says.
The volume, the fifth in the Tintin series, is considered a milestone in Herge’s development of the character with its more dynamic and realistic storylines alongside his meticulous artwork. The auction house estimates it will sell for 2.2 to 2.8 million euros, despite clear fold marks.
The sale had originally been set for November. In 2016, an original drawing from Tintin’s “Explorers on the Moon” book sold for 1.55 million euros, a record for a single comic book page.
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