ebay auctions
The world’s most expensive comic?
It only counts if someone will actually pay for it, but the asking price for this ashcan edition of Flash #1 is a cool $5,000,000, plus $10 (Canadian) shipping. According to the listing, there are only six copies in existence of this particular comic, and this one is the highest grade (9.6). Of course, a good story helps to sell the product, and here it is:
In late 1939, DC and Fawcett, coveting this title, each raced to get its own ashcan version printed and a copyright secured. Each succeeded in printing an ashcan, but DC beat Fawcett to the punch, ever so barely, and gained the copyright to Flash Comics. The title became one of DC’s mainstay Golden Age series, and, later, in 1956, the prime namesake character, The Flash, was instrumental in launching the Silver Age. This COMIC was acquired from long-time Golden Age DC Editor/Production Manager Sol Harrison, who was an excellent custodian of the rare copy.
If that’s not enough to make you take out a second mortgage, then your nerd cred is due for a checkup.
Of course, the 5 mil is only the Buy It Now price; the seller will consider the best offer. Eli at Comic Attack, who found this listing, did a bit of research and determined that the comic had already been up for sale once, with a winning bid of US $4,950,990, but the sale didn’t go through; apparently (amazingly) the would-be buyer had trouble coming up with the scratch. Or maybe they just woke up the next morning and came to their senses.
- September 9, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Millar auctions off ‘title role’ in Superior for charity
Wizard #228 (Secret Jam Cover)
Like he’s done previously with characters in Kick-Ass and Nemesis, writer Mark Millar is once again auctioning off the opportunity to name one of his characters. This time around Millar is offering the naming rights to the young boy who transforms into Superior, star of the upcoming comic of the same name by Millar and artist Leinil Francis Yu.
The auction will once again benefit a special needs unit in a school where his brother, Dr. Bobby Millar, has been raising money for a new mini-bus.
“It’s amazing how much the Nemesis one made compared to the Kick-Ass one,” MIllar said on his forums. “We made about sixteen hundred bucks on the Dave Lizewski name (which went towards the school itself), but a whopping $17,000 (£10,000) for Nemesis and the first steps towards their mini-bus a few months back. This plus some private donations means they now have £10,000 left to get what they want: Not too shabby considering they only started raising this dough after Easter this year.”
“Stephen King did this a while back and it’s great. A reader gets their name in a book, I get a real name for a realistic wee character and some special needs kids get something they were needing. Perfect.”
You can place your bid on eBay.
- September 7, 2010 @ 05:00 AM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’10 | CBLDF activities
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is bringing parties, auctions, panels and exclusives to San Diego this week. You can find their complete press release after the jump, but a few items of note include …
- Before the show begins the CBLDF is auctioning off lunch with DC’s CCO, Geoff Johns. There are about two days left on bidding, and it’s already over $500.
- The CBLDF’s onsite art auction is scheduled for Saturday night; you can preview the artwork here.
- They’re holding three parties during the con, the details for which can be found after the jump, but I thought it was worth noting that comics retailer Things from Another World has a contest going for tickets to “Scenes of a Graphic Nature,” at the Soda Bar on Saturday, July 24. You can find more details here.
- July 19, 2010 @ 09:15 AM by JK Parkin
Bid now: Web-Comics Auction For The Gulf Coast
Carly Monardo is spearheading an art auction to benefit the people and wildlife affected by the Gulf Coast oil spill:
The idea to organize this auction came from my friend Thomas Bayne – the animatic director on Venture Bros. After selling a number of original Venture production drawings to raise money for the Gulf Coast, Tom expanded his efforts and launched an even bigger auction of artwork from a variety of cartoons. I thought it would be great if we got the same thing going for web-comics.
All proceeds from the Web-Comics Auction will be donated to the Colbert Nation Gulf of America Fund, which is being managed by The Baton Rouge Area Foundation. You can read about this charity here.
Creators who contributed art for the auction include David Malki! (above), Kate Beaton, Stephanie McMillan, Phil & Kaja Foglio, Dean Trippe, Jon Rosenberg and many more. Several auctions have gone live, with more coming later this week. You can find the complete list here, and after the jump, check out Dean Trippe’s contribution to it.
- July 7, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Second “Nemesis” name auction over $4,600
Nemesis #2
Last month Mark Millar and Dynamic Forces auctioned off a “starring role” in Millar and Steve McNiven’s upcoming Marvel Icon comic Nemesis, raising more than $8,000 for the school where Millar’s brother works with handicapped children. The winner of that auction, Blake Morrow, will share his name with the book’s good guy, a cop trying to stop the title character.
Now Millar is auctioning off the real name of the title character and bad guy, Nemesis. If you’d like to face off with Morrow in the book, you’ve still got a little more than a day to place your bid. As I type this, it’s currently up to $4,650.
“Can I just say a huge thank you to everyone who participated in the first auction,” Millar said in a press release on the auction. “The kids and staff at my brother’s school were delighted and the $8,400 raised means a quarter of their target has been reached already. I had chosen a good secret identity for Nemesis himself, but it seems almost selfish not to auction this now too and possibly reach the halfway line the kids need for this bus. I’m amazed how much cash was raised the first time around, but am hoping the auction to name the TITLE character raises even more. Dave Lizewski loves the fact he’s the lead in the Kick-Ass comic, movie and upcoming video-game and I’m hoping whoever wins this new auction is equally delighted. A huge thanks to them for finding the cash in these difficult times.”
- February 10, 2010 @ 07:15 AM by JK Parkin
LOL Cats creator holds Haiti benefit auction
Panel from the strip in question
Laugh Out Loud Cats creator Ape Lad is auctioning off one of his recent comic strips (the 130th to be exact) on eBay, with 100 percent of the profits going to Haiti relief efforts. Free shipping too! You can see a larger version of the comic over here. (via)
- January 29, 2010 @ 09:35 AM by Chris Mautner
Kneel before Zod! (Or at least his clothes and wig)
From the General Zod costume eBay auction
If you’re a Superman fanatic with an extra $15,000 or so lying around, do I have an eBay auction for you: Someone is selling Terence Stamp’s General Zod costume from Superman II.
The wig creeps me out for some reason, but not nearly as much as this line from the auction description: “Now you can kneel to Zod anytime you want! Or perhaps Zod could kneel to you naked to get his famous uniform and wig back??!”
- January 26, 2010 @ 06:26 AM by Kevin Melrose
Help the Hodges charity auction begins today
Help the Hodges cartoon jam
Charity auctions are set to start today to benefit Matthew Hodge, the son of animator Tim Hodge, who was in a serious auto accident last summer:
On August 22, 2009 Matthew Hodge, the 17-year-old son of former Disney story artist and Big Idea productions director Tim Hodge, was in a serious auto accident. A train struck his car at 50mph as he was crossing the tracks. While Matt suffered neither broken bones nor any internal organ damage, he did receive severe head trauma causing him to remain in a state of coma today. Matt is a high school senior, a straight A student, and a drummer in his state championship marching band.
Many animation and comics industry folks have come together to donate items and artwork. The auction will include the above “jam” piece, which includes sketches by Mike Mignola, Stan Sakai, Sergio Aragonès, J. Scott Campbell, Jeff Keane and many more. Other items include a Charles Schulz drawing, a Rocketeer artist proof sculpture and a whole lot of animation art. You can find the complete list here and you can find the eBay listings here.
- January 21, 2010 @ 11:15 AM by JK Parkin
Charity auction features some pretty sweet comics items
The Portland Mercury
Every year at this time the Portland, Oregon, alternative weekly The Mercury gathers goods and services from area businesses and notable figures to auction off, with the proceeds benefiting a local charity.
The 2009 installment of The Mercury Online Charity Auction includes a couple of desirable comics packages — one from Dark Horse, and another from Oni Press, Fantagraphics Books, Top Shelf Productions, Bridge City Comics, Floating World Comics and actress Katee Sackhoff.
The Dark Horse lot contains more than $500 worth of goods, ranging from a retailer-exclusive One-Shot Wonders lithograph signed by Joss Whedon, Mike Mignola and Travis Charest to an original page of Joelle Jones art from Dr. Horrible to trade paperbacks of The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite and The Umbrella Academy: Dallas. (Bidding is up to $362.)
The other comics lot features a place on the Oni Press comp list, which means the winner will receive a copy of every book the publisher releases next year, plus select titles from Fantagraphics, a collected edition of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County trilogy, numerous graphic novels and trade paperbacks including Finder, Watchmen and Criminal, and an autographed photo of Sackhoff. (Bidding is up to $152.50.)
Follow the links to see the complete contents of each package. Bidding ends at 5 p.m. PST Dec. 11. Proceeds this year benefit Outside In, a Portland-based charity that helps homeless youths and disadvantaged adults.
- December 9, 2009 @ 11:06 AM by Kevin Melrose
Wolverine: Weapon X 100 covers up for bid at eBay
by Josh Medors
Several pieces of original art from The Hero Initiative’s Wolverine: Weapon X 100 Project are available for bidding on eBay … including this one by Josh Medors, which just looks absolutely incredible. Also pieces from Chris Bachalo, Colleen Coover, Art Adams, John McCrea and several others can be found as well.
Go check’em out and place a bid; it’s for a good cause.
- November 4, 2009 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
Cartoonists band together for health care art auction
Hornschemeier's Beasts art
Anders Nilsen (Big Questions, Dogs and Water) has organized an impressive array of big-name cartoonists to participate in an ongoing art auction and fundraiser designed to promote universal health care. Entitled the “46 Million Art Auction and Benefit,” it features contributions from folks like Chris Ware, Ivan Brunetti, Dan Clowes, Kevin Huizenga, John Porcellino, Jeffrey Brown, Lynda Barry, Paul Hornschemeier and many, many more.
The auction runs until September 6th, in 10-minute increments. All proceeds will go to Democracy for America Now, a national advocacy group pushing for the Public Option in democratic swing districts and offering support to congressional members who take a stand for the policy. To see the art, go to ebay and do a search for “46 million.”
For more details, check out Jeffrey Brown’s blog, which has detailed info on the what, when and why, or go to Hornschemeier’s blog.
- August 28, 2009 @ 08:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Monsters & Dames charity art auction
by Joe Jusko
Earlier this year the folks at the Emerald City ComiCon put together a benefit book called Monsters & Dames that featured pin-ups by many of the artists who attended the con. The original artwork by Joe Jusko (above), David Petersen, Bruce Timm, Mark Brooks and many others is being auctioned off to benefit the Seattle Children’s Hospital; you can find the available pieces up on eBay right here.
- June 29, 2009 @ 10:02 AM by JK Parkin
Kitty Pryde charity artwork available on eBay
Kitty vs. a Sentinel
Jason at Floating World Comics sent over a link to pictures from the opening of the Full of Pryde charity art exhibit that kicked off last week. So far they’ve raised about $500 for the Oregon Hemophilia Treatment Center.
Also, artwork from the show is now available for purchase on eBay. Check out the full list of available pieces here, by artists like K Thor Jensen, Jeffrey Brown, Nikki Cook, Rick Lacy, Dan Hipp, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Chuck BB, Hope Larson and many more. And finally, you can also check out the show’s official blog for more details and additional artwork that’ll be up on eBay soon.
- May 11, 2009 @ 06:45 AM by JK Parkin
Auction winner shares unpublished Big Numbers #3
from Big Numbers #3
If Chris Mautner’s “Collect This Now!” series was called “Finish This Now!” then he probably would have already covered writer Alan Moore and artist Bill Sienkiewicz’s Big Numbers. Two issues saw publication in 1990, with the other ten issues never seeing the light of day (as detailed on the book’s Wikipedia page).
Well, now lettered artwork of the third issue has surfaced thanks to the magic of the internet and eBay. Pádraig O Méalóid, aka LiveJournal user glycon, details how he came to possess Xeroxed copies of the third issue, which were listed on the auction site earlier this year. Glycon checked with Alan Moore before publishing the pages on the web:
In any case, everything I know leads me to believe that this is a copy of the unpublished third issue of Big Numbers, and I genuinely didn’t believe it existed, and certainly never expected to actually see a copy, led alone own one. Even Alan Moore doesn’t have a copy, to the very best of my knowledge, which in this case is considerable, as I decided to specifically ask his permission before I posted this here. He is happy for it to be made available to the world, so here it is.
I know I have the first two issues somewhere in my collection … time to start digging!
via Kevin Church and The Beat
Related: Eddie Campbell talks about Big Numbers
- March 26, 2009 @ 03:17 PM by JK Parkin
Attention fans of The Winter Men: Bid on this
The Winter Men Case Files
Knowing my love for The Winter Men, the Wildstorm miniseries by Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon, artist Cliff Chiang sends word of an eBay benefit auction that has me trying to wring some money out of my bank account.
It’s “The Winter Men Case Files,” a one-of-a-kind collection of character designs and descriptions, project proposal, story notes, and an Issue 1 script, collected in a custom-made cloth-bound binder signed by Lewis, Leon and editor Will Dennis. There’s also a complete set of Winter Men comics, signed by Lewis and Leon.
The auction is part of an effort by several creators to help with a friend’s medical bills. Any money raised beyond what’s required for those expenses will be donated to The Hero Initiative.
The auction for The Winter Men piece ends on March 8.
- March 2, 2009 @ 08:56 AM by Kevin Melrose