Calvin & Hobbes Art sold for $100K+

[cutiebunny]

Saw this article on Time.com today - http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/24/cal ... t-auction/

In short, a 13" x 10" watercolor done by creator Bill Waterson sold for $107,550 at auction, beating its pre-auction estimate by $50K.

I never really pay attention to comic book original art sales, but since the style is much different than your average Marvel/DC comic stuff, I thought it was interesting that it sold for as much as it did. I don't know how popular C&H is now, but I would imagine that it has as much of a die-hard audience as many of the more popular, older anime do now. It makes me wonder what the market will be like for more popular anime series, years from now, when those who grew up with the series will want to own a piece of it.

[sensei]

$100K well spent, IMHO. C&H was a life-altering series for many of us, and the watercolor is a top-end example of art.

[Golden Boy]

The difference between C&H art and anime art is that there is almost no merchandise whatsoever for Watterson's work. The only merchandise in existence was way back when the newspaper syndicates had the rights for a brief time, before Watterson was able to negotiate them back. During that period, I bought a 1992 C&H calendar that I still keep to this day. In contrast, just about every high-end anime has merchandise you can purchase. What anime doesn't have a plushie line associated with it?

[kira]

i agree with sensei.

i always liked calvin and hobbes. the comic strips were always so funny, my favorite is still the snowman house of horrors. dear god, i still remember when it came out in the sunday comics.

[Sky Rat]

That doesn't surprise me and there are very very few things I would personally find worth that price bracket, but that would totally be worth it to me if I could afford to be spending that kind of money. It's nearly impossible to attain anthing (that's legit) related to Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson was really good at keeping both himself and his art non-commercialized. And I agree with Sensei, totally a life-changing strip, it's the most memorible thing from my entire childhood. That would totally be a holy grail type of art aquisition for me!!