On May 13-14, 2016 Heritage hosted their Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction, which closed with an impressive total of over $6.55 million in total sales. The near perfect sell through rate auction was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

“The impressive totals from this auction speak as much to the overall strength of the comic and comic art market as they do to the incredible array of great material offered here,” said Barry Sandoval, Director of Operations for Comics and Comic Art at Heritage. “Consider this: we had 20 lots in this auction sell for more than $50,000. That’s enough to impress even the most seasoned collector.”

Bidders drove Frank Frazetta’s original art for The Norseman to a closing price of $454,100, a record for the legendary fantasy artist.

“The early 1970s were a strong and prolific period for this master painter,” said Todd Hignite, Vice President at Heritage, “and this has everything you would expect in a Frazetta barbarian masterpiece and was a personal favorite of the artist.”

Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum’s X-Men #95 original cover art, the earliest cover for the All-New, All-Different X-Men, reached an impressive $155,350. The unused first Black Panther original cover art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott from Fantastic Four #52 was driven to $131,450. Bernie Wrightson’s page 154 illustration original art from Frankenstein brought $95,600.

Another impressive sale was the original Charles Schulz Peanuts Sunday comic strip original art from August 9, 1953, which saw intense bidding, selling for $83,650.

“This strip features a funny and classic final panel in one of the very best Peanuts examples we've ever seen,” said Sandoval. “Every single character that had premiered to that point is in the last panel: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Shermy, Patty, baby Linus, Lucy, Schroeder and Violet, and Lucy. Charlie Brown still looks very young here, Snoopy is still a puppy and the final gag is one that Schulz would return to again and again.”

Additional highlights include George Pérez Justice League of America #200 wraparound original cover art sold for $77,675, Playboy #1 CGC 9.4 newsstand edition closed at $71,700, Pep Comics #34 CGC 9.2 San Francisco Pedigree reached $57,360, Superman #1 CGC 0.5 incomplete still brought $57,360, Richie Rich #1 CGC 9.6 File Copy realized $48,995, and Captain Marvel Adventures #nn CGC 5.0 netted $38,240.