Collector and historian Roger Hill’s Pre-Code comic art collection is being offered at Heritage. Hill was well known in the comic collecting community for his passion and dogged searches to find new art and comics for his collection, particularly for EC material. He passed away at 75 in December 2023.
Heritage will start offering key pieces of original art and ephemera from the Roger Hill Collection in their Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction on June 20-23, 2024.
“What an incredible thrill and honor it’s been to work with Roger’s family on this collection of a lifetime,” Heritage Executive Vice President Todd Hignite said. “Much of this material is either the absolute best of the best or rarities that only Roger could have acquired due to his seemingly endless personal connections to the artists and publishers, not to mention the earliest collectors.”
The auction will contain over 270 lots, including a pair of striking and grotesque covers by Lee Elias. His Black Cat Mystery #50 cover features a shocking and memorable image of a man’s face and hands melting. Elias’ Chamber of Chills #23 cover shows a decaying corpse assaulting a terrified woman. Both covers are often considered among the most infamous pre-Code comic covers.
Johnny Craig’s The Haunt of Fear #15 cover features EC’s the Old Witch making her debut, which served as the first issue after the title replaced Gunfighter. Graham Ingles’ Gunfighter #12 cover is also offered, showcasing EC’s earlier work before turning to more horror, science fiction, and war titles.
There are multiple Haunt of Fear covers in the auction. Al Feldstein’s “Living Mummy” art on issue 4 shows the bandaged figure ready to strike an unsuspecting tomb raider. Ingles’ ghastly imagery is featured on the cover of issue 14 for the book that told the Old Witch’s origin story.
Hill’s impressive collection even included covers that were never produced. Before The Vault of Horror ended after just 40 issues, Craig had already created a cover for issue 41, featuring a group of rotting skeletal figures attacking a woman.
An important ephemera offering is Fredric Wertham’s EC Fan-Addict Club Membership Kit that Hill received in 1955. It contains the membership card, the certificate, patch, and pin all in the Entertaining Comics Group envelope.
Hill was also a collector of the Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and had acquired original covers from the magazine. One of which is Basil Gogos’ first cover for the publication, showing Vincent Price as Roderick Usher in Roger Croman’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
Additional items offered in this auction are The Crypt of Terror house ad, Tales from the Crypt cover title/logo original illustration designed by Feldstein, a Crypt Keeper house ad by Jack Davis, a MAD #30 Elvis Presley spoof illustration by Davis, and a Wally Wood MAD #31 illustration of Marilyn Monroe.
