The auction site Heritage Auctions put a ton of interesting works on the block in early November, in a sale called “European Comic Art Also Featuring Comics and Animation.” The listings featured works by a lot of artists strongly identified with Heavy Metal, including Milo Manara, Moebius, Paulo Eleuteri Serpieri, Tanino Liberatore, Philippe Druillet, Enki Bilal, Bernie Wrightson, Simon Bisley and others. Additionally, pieces by noted artists including Eduardo Risso, Jamie Hewlett, Charles Vess, Manuel Sanjulian were up for sale, as were many by more mainstream comics artists and feature animators.
What does it cost to buy an original piece by these familiar names? Here’s a look at a sampling from the large catalog, with prices:
One of the marquee items in the sale was this rejected cover for Spider-Woman by Milo Manara. You can read a little bit of the saga here.
Tanino Liberatore’s Ranxerox character invaded Heavy Metal in the ’80s and became an audience favorite – in fact we’ll be publishing Ranx: The Complete Collection in https://datingranking.net/escort-directory/sioux-falls/ December.
Charles Vess is a noted fantasy artist who contributed the back cover of the September 1978 issue of Heavy Metal.
Moebius needs no introduction, but this piece is obscure to Americans. At the end of the ’70s, the shoe brand Eram invested heavily in advertising, and contracted Moebius to draw several pieces.
Georges Pichard was famous for his racy Paulette stories. We didn’t happen to print any of those in our pages, but in 1978 we did print the version of Ulysses he created with Jacques Lob. (It’s still available as a graphic novel in the Heavy Metal Shop.)
We published Serpieri’s “Morbus Gravis” in Heavy Metal in the 1980s; those issues are sold out in our shop but you can get other issues containing Druuna stories, such as September 1997 (“Druuna: Aphrodisia”) and (“Druuna: Clone”).
This portrait by Simon Bisley, a frequent Heavy Metal cover artist, was a little much for U.S. newsstands, so a toned-down version adorned the issue:
This, called “Meeting with the Big Red Riding Hood,” is the most memorable
The late Bernie Wrightson was one of the great illustrators in comics and publishing in the late 20th century, and many of his stunning works were featured in a set of trading cards.
Luis Royo is the most frequent Heavy Metal cover artists; you can see a lot of his cover paintings in this gallery.
Philippe Druillet was one of the four founders of Metal Hurlant (les Humanoides Associes) and a ubiquitous presence in Heavy Metal in the ’70s and early ’80s
Sergio Toppi was one of the great Italian illustrators we never managed to publish in Heavy Metal. If you’re not familiar with Toppi, check out samples from his Universal Tarot Deck.
Massimiliano Frezzato is a Heavy Metal fan favorite artist of the ’90s and ’00s, and you can find several Frezzato issues and graphic novels in the Heavy Metal shop.
This cover for the French magazine VSD has no connection to Heavy Metal, but its angular and architecture-based style is in line with a lot of French artists we published in the ’80s.
Alfonso Azpiri was a major contributor to Heavy Metal, with a promiscuous Barbarella-esque heroine named Lorna. You can find numerous Frezzato Lorna books in the Heavy Metal shop.
Jamie Hewlett’s Tank Girl is one of the all-time underground comics success stories, and he’s also the artist of Gorillaz. Makes a good tarot card deck as well.
Manuel Sanjulian is mainly associated with Warren magazines such as Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. He contributed two Heavy Metal covers, for our February 1983 issue and the Spring 1998 Sci-Fi Special.