Publisher Denis Kitchen Original Comic Art Collection Goes Under the Hammer
Heritage Auction
Will Eisner's SNARF 3 cover original art
Denis Kitchen will bring 275 works of original comic art to Heritage Auction’s April 4-7 Comics & Comic Art sale including work ranging from Li’l Abner originals by Al Capp to Spirit offerings from Will Eisner.
“They are reminders of friendships and relationships, reminders of projects and the people I admired," said Kitchen, founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and his long-running Kitchen Sink Press. "They’re the works of artists I appreciate aesthetically. I was just lucky to be in the position to know a fair number of them.”
Other highlights include work by Maus author Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead, Nancy creator Ernie Bushmiller, MAD founders Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis, Robert Crumb, satirist and original MAD artist Will Elder and Kitchen’s own artwork.
The sale also includes one of the world’s finest copies of Action Comics No. 1 and the original artwork for the Tales of Suspense No. 39 page showing Tony Stark becoming Iron Man for the very first time.
“As a collector, Denis Kitchen was always in a uniquely envious position, as he’s been long respected and successful as a cartoonist, publisher, editor, writer, historian, exhibition curator, and agent to some of the all-time greats,” said Heritage Executive Vice President Todd Hignite. “The resulting range and depth of his collection is simply without peer. The artwork we all dream about bringing to auction is immediately recognizable as the very best by a given artist and hasn’t ever been available on the market."
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Heritage Auction
Don Heck, Tales of Suspense #39, Iron Man origin story
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Heritage Auction
Art Spiegelman, Famous Cartoonist Series Buttons #45 Pinback Button
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Heritage Auction
Robert Crumb, SNARF #6 cover original art
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Heritage Auction
Will Eisner, Jules Feiffer, and Jerry Grandenetti, The Spirit complete seven page story
Kitchen added: “I was in the right place at the right time. But as Neil Gaiman says, we’re just temporary custodians. I love collecting. I feel deeply connected to a lot of this material. But my family doesn’t collect, at least, not the same way I do."
Kitchen Sink counted among its titlesfferings such as Snarf and Death Rattle. The contributors included Peter Poplaski, Jay Lynch, Cruse and Eisner, whose cover of Snarf No. 3 is among the auction’s highlights.
“I thought twice about including that cover in this auction,” Kitchen says. “It comes down to I’ve had it since 1972, and it hung on my wall for a long time. I think it’s time for somebody else to look at it every day."
Other highlights include splash-page panels from 1962’s HELP! featuring Elder and Kurtzman’s Goodman Beaver in a sequence that comes from the parody story Goodman Meets S*perm*n, and Robert Crumb’s dueling self-portraits titled Who’s Afraid of Robert Crumb?
