• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

1965 Astro Boy splash? cover? sold @ approx 250k

30 posts in this topic

Thought some of you might be interested to see that a vintage Astro Boy splash(?) from Japan sold at auction for around a quarter mil USD (25m yen)

 

Here's a link to the sale and the images. The auction variously describes it as a cover and a frontispiece so I am not sure which it is. The site uses machine translation so its difficult in english to quite understand and I don't know the material well enough to comment. I don't think it would affect the price either way though as he did not have his own book but appeared instead in the Shonen anthology

 

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/auction/item/itemInfoEn.html?index=414925

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Impressive for sure but it's the Japanese version of a silver age Kirby cover/splash, so I get the price personally. The artist is at or near the top of the heap for Japanese comics

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought some of you might be interested to see that a vintage Astro Boy splash(?) from Japan sold at auction for around a quarter mil USD (25m yen)

 

Don't forget the 10% buyer's premium

 

interesting hm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought some of you might be interested to see that a vintage Astro Boy splash(?) from Japan sold at auction for around a quarter mil USD (25m yen)

 

Don't forget the 10% buyer's premium

 

Sean,

 

Is the artwork a cover, splash, or frontispiece?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a good question. The auction says cover, but it doesn't necessarily mean "the" cover.

 

I've been looking everywhere to find a copy of the actual issue to double check. Most of the issues from that time period have a montage cover or a photo of a kid doing something, and then there are usually some full color pages inside for some of the individual stories (see this auction for an example from the same time period: Boy Magazine

So my guess is that it is an inside cover.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice art. Nice price, for both the buyer and the seller. Japanese trophies always go way over the top (imo), so while $250k plus juice may seem really high, I don't find the number shocking at all for a true Tezuka Astro piece - in color too. A lot of the story art is "studio" not Tezuka, and even so it's not like published Astro Boy art is just laying all about. I've seen the same thing happen with the rarest of the Jumbo Machinders...very big numbers for trophies. Shocking at first, but not really in context.

 

So $275k all in...wonder where that puts my cut panel, of Astro Boy flying, that's also actual hand of Tezuka ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought some of you might be interested to see that a vintage Astro Boy splash(?) from Japan sold at auction for around a quarter mil USD (25m yen)

 

Don't forget the 10% buyer's premium

 

Sean,

 

Is the artwork a cover, splash, or frontispiece?

Astro Boy was serialized in Shonen, so – unless the story was in a supplement – the stories had alternatively a color splash page or an inside cover.

This one (Crowzilla guessed right) is an inside cover – de facto a cover – for a late story (1965).

 

If you want to know precisely the issue I believe I can dig it out…

 

Supplements had dedicated covers, this is the only one I have (and I never get tired to show it as I love it!) from 1957 and features the second part of the "Yellow Horse" drug story, titled "Duel on the Alps".

The Alps, of course, are the japanese Alps. Thankfully we have a global perspective now… :D

 

PoizhU6h.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here, the details. (thumbs u

The piece is the inside cover for episode 61, serialized in Shonen from May to September 1965. The last Astro Boy episode which ran in Shonen is #73, from 1968.

details of the USA publication below (although I don’t know whether the story published is the original, or a redrawn version, as Tezuka redrew, and often rewrote, most of the early stories when they did reprints. Being a late story it should be the same version).

 

61. ロビオとロビエット / "Robio and Robiet"

1965.5 - 1965.9

[ENG] “Robio and Robiette” (Astro Boy Dark Horse #16)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

PoizhU6h.jpg

 

Geez, that is really beautiful :cloud9:

Thanks much – I love it!

That story is also particularly touching because:

– Astro's parents are kidnapped;

– We are around Christmas so even more sad;

– Astro gives away his clothes to poor people;

– A church bell rangs "Silent Night".

 

Also, imagine my surprise as when I received it and confronted it with the Dark Horse edition (which translates a later version) is almost completely different.

In the original story there is also Dr. Tenma, which is gone in the redone later versions.

Also, Astro not only gives away his clothes in the story, but also his artificial skin, to poor kids and a starving mom with a kid which is out in the cold…

Truly heartbreaking! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Japanese trophies always go way over the top (imo),

 

Well, why do you think that? As you know, the artists there have a different cultural mindset about the sale of their art. I can't even get americans of japanese descent to sell me anything let alone actual Japanese :tonofbricks:

 

The prices may be a reaction to the scarcity of the material? I don't think this price is any more silly than long underwear american art prices or Euro OA prices, so I'm curious as to why you would consider this (or other sales like it) to be over the top. I look at some of the stuff that gets big money here and think its totally coo-coo

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

PoizU6h.jpg

 

Geez, that is really beautiful :cloud9:

Thanks much – I love it!

That story is also particularly touching because:

– Astro's parents are kidnapped;

– We are around Christmas so even more sad;

– Astro gives away his clothes to poor people;

– A church bell rangs "Silent Night".

 

Also, imagine my surprise as when I received it and confronted it with the Dark Horse edition (which translates a later version) is almost completely different.

In the original story there is also Dr. Tenma, which is gone in the redone later versions.

Also, Astro not only gives away his clothes in the story, but also his artificial skin, to poor kids and a starving mom with a kid which is out in the cold…

Truly heartbreaking! :)

 

Hmm. kind of reminds me of a xmas in shacktown the way you describe it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the little I know, the japanese market for antiquary comics is pretty narrow, and earlier books (post-war, which would correspond to your golden age, or our pre-war/wartime) are scarce and very sought after, maybe not so costly as US comics or early french editions but definitely scarcer.

 

Maybe a similar situation applies to original art.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the little I know, the japanese market for antiquary comics is pretty narrow, and earlier books (post-war, which would correspond to your golden age, or our pre-war/wartime) are scarce and very sought after, maybe not so costly as US comics or early french editions but definitely scarcer.

 

Maybe a similar situation applies to original art.

 

They just don't sell the published stuff. Lone Wolf and Cub - 6000 pages exist, 6000 pages owned by the family.

 

You end up with little sketches like this selling for five figure amounts. This one sold around 50k:

 

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/auction/item/itemInfoEn.html?index=311573

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm. kind of reminds me of a xmas in shacktown the way you describe it

Early Astro stories – with all due differences – heavily show the impact of Walt Disney’s universal poetics on young Tezuka. He daydreamed watching the early movies and reading early Mickey Mouse strips.

All Astro stories also show his sensibility towards christianity: although not formally religious Tezuka had strong moral elements in his stories which mixed his japanese background with christian values.

In "MW" the story asks a question about the extreme consequences of evil. Tezuka told in an interview that wished to investigate the most wicked aspects of human behavior, but he believed he did not succeed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the little I know, the japanese market for antiquary comics is pretty narrow, and earlier books (post-war, which would correspond to your golden age, or our pre-war/wartime) are scarce and very sought after, maybe not so costly as US comics or early french editions but definitely scarcer.

 

Maybe a similar situation applies to original art.

 

They just don't sell the published stuff. Lone Wolf and Cub - 6000 pages exist, 6000 pages owned by the family.

 

You end up with little sketches like this selling for five figure amounts. This one sold around 50k:

 

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/auction/item/itemInfoEn.html?index=311573

Gosh!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Japanese trophies always go way over the top (imo),

 

Well, why do you think that? ... ...so I'm curious as to why you would consider this (or other sales like it) to be over the top. I look at some of the stuff that gets big money here and think its totally coo-coo

 

Bronty, you're working it too hard, reading too much in. I meant "over the top" as simply "big number" relative to non-trophies. No more. No less. :)

 

On this specific piece, I think $275k all in is about the right number. Over 300 and I'd be "hmmm, people be gettin' silly" and under 200 and I would imagine that the local market knows something we don't over here (such as condition issues, many hands, etc.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites