Two original Tintin comic strips were expected to break records yesterday when they went under the hammer in Paris.
The first from Explorers on the Moon, widely regarded as one of the two best Tintin adventures, was expected to fetch up to US$1 million. The page, entitled “We walk on the moon,” has the boy reporter, his dog, Snowy, and blundering sidekick Captain Haddock making their first moon walk from their red-and-white rocket.
With the 1954 book viewed as one of the artist Herge’s masterpieces, the Paris auction house Artcurial values it at at least 900,000 euros (US$952,970).
Photo: Reuters
The late Belgian artist already holds the world record for the sale of a comic strip.
A double-page ink drawing that served as the inside cover for all the Tintin adventures published between 1937 and 1958 sold for US$3.7 million to an American fan two years ago.
Yesterday’s sales are expected to break records for single strips.
Rival auction house Christie’s is putting drawings from another rare Herge strip up for sale later in the day in Paris. It said the page from the unfinished story Tintin and the Thermozero — estimated at 250,000 euros — was the first ever to come to market. Why the artist never finished the tale of espionage and a terrifying secret weapon set against the backdrop of the Cold War is one of the great mysteries for “Tintin-ologists.”
Herge wrestled with it for years, “starting it at the end of the 1950s,” said Christie’s, but never got further than eight pages.
Artcurial’s comics expert Eric Leroy described Explorers on the Moon as “a key moment in the history of comic book art.”
“It has become mythic for many lovers and collectors of comic strips... It is one of the most important from Herge’s post-war period,” he said.
The story completes the lunar adventure started in Destination Moon (1953) and features several hilarious episodes, including Haddock getting drunk and floating off into space to briefly become a satellite of the asteroid Adonis.
The Moon drawings are being sold alongside 20 ink sketches Herge created for a series of New Year’s greeting cards known as his “snow cards.”
The cards were expected to sell for between 60,000 and 120,000 euros each, Artcurial estimated.
Prices for cartoon art have multiplied 10-fold in the past decade, according to gallery owner Daniel Maghen, who also works with comic art.
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