At the beginning of April we reported that four pages of original Watchmen artwork by artist Dave Gibbons that had just sold on eBay, selling for between £4,058 and £5,600. Since then, three more pages have been sold.
The first went for only £1825.81, but then it was page 28 of Chapter 9. (To save you digging out the graphic novel that particular page is simply three panels of space with the Sun, Earth and Mars reducing in size as the view pulls out, not the most riveting subject matter. Still, it was signed by both Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore and came with John Higgins’ colourist page).
Next came the page before it. Chapter 9 page 27 shows the smiley face in a crater on Mars – a much more striking image. Again signed by Gibbons and Moore, with its colourist page it went for £2422.13.
The best is left for last however – the original art from Chapter 5 page 4 which is the chapter title page, Fearful Symmetry, showing Rorschach’s encounter with Molock. Remember that the most expensive page from the recent batch of sales up to this point was £5600. This one however, just blew the rest of them out of the water.
The final price? After over 1300 page views and 36 bids from thirteen different bidders, three new people bid on it within the last six seconds of the sale, their bids pushing the price up by £1100. The single page of art sold for… £12,601.
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Comic Art