Chicorel Collection of Golden Age Comic Books today

May 21, 2009
Posted by Noah

As we speak I am preparing to go downstairs for the opening of this week’s comic auction, which starts with the amazing Golden Age comic book collection of one Ralph Chicorel. Perhaps you’ve read about it on our home page or comics page at http://www.ha.com/, or maybe you saw the nice story Jamie Stengle of the AP wrote about the trove and its amazing journey.

Ralph’s story is one of those one in a million, suitcase-of-money-falling-from-the-sky things that we all wish could happen to us. Basically it’s this: he collected the original Golden Age comics off the newsstand, kept them carefully and moved on with his life. In 1970 he sold half of the collection to raise money for a family move. He got about $3500, a tremendous sum for comics at the time. He didn’t have time to dig up the other half of the collection before the auction, moved, became a successful businessman and forgot about the books.

Almost 40 year later he dug up the trove and contacted Heritage. It’s expected the amazing collection will bring upwards of $500,000, and I believe it – I’ve seen these things and they are indeed, as Al Milgrom put it, “some of the mintiest books I’ve ever seen.” It helps a lot that Ralph and his family are here, at Heritage for the auction, and that he’s about as nice as you’d want someone with such tremendous foresight and good luck to be. I love this story, am glad to be on the periphery of it and am glad that I get to witness such a thing and see that the word gets out about this collection.

As for the comics themselves, I don’t know where to start, except to say that they are all amazing books. From the Marvel Comics #1 to the Marvel #9 to the Batman #4 and #7 to any number of awesome comics in between, it’s a real treat. The color on many of these is still magnificent, and the prices are relative bargains. There are the sexy ones, mentioned above, that will get the high five and six figure prices, but it is the books that are going to go for $2000-$5000 that will prove the true future boon to their erudite buyers.

Yes, these are the type of comic books that make even the most seasoned veterans of the industry – meaning the guys in the Heritage comics department – sit up and take notice, even betray a little excitement. Barry Sandoval, the Director of comics, put it best when he likened the finding of this collection to the Time machine fantasy of many a comic book geek. All they want is to go back in time and buy the comics off the stand, first issue, put it straight into an air-tight containment device, and bring them back in time to add to their collections. There doesn’t have to be any more destiny tampering than that.

Is it so much to ask? Just a couple teeny tiny comic books?

The good news is that, today, we get the chance to see what those time-pilfered comics would actually bring.

Click on the title of this post to leave a comment.

-Noah Fleisher

"If Colossus Should Fall – Who Shall Stop The Juggernaut?"

Feb. 25, 2009
Posted by Noah

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself that very same question…

The fact is that Dave Cockrum’s original cover artwork for X-Men #102 – a seminal 1976 issue smack dab in the middle of the awesome 1970s Chris Claremont-written run of the X-Men that culminated in the single most popular X-Men storyline ever, The Phoenix Saga – is among several examples of classic original X-Men artwork featured in this weekend’s – Yes, this weekend! – Signature Comics & Original Comic Art Auction.

It’s a classic tableau of Bronze Age comics: Juggernaut and Colossus slug it out, toe to toe. Storm shields herself against a wall, paralyzed by claustrophobia, while Nightcrawler springs from a chandelier into action. The issue featured Storm’s origin story, as well as a side battle with Banshee and Black Tom, as well as some classic X-Mansion soap opera with Jean Grey, Cyclops and Professor X. But it’s the fight between Juggy and Colossus, in the very close confines of an Irish castle – Nightcrawler does cheesily end up in the clutches of some leprechauns at the end, if I recollect correctly – that steals this show. As a kid, I always loved when Juggy showed up, though I wished somebody would have just made a massive bottle opener and popped that creepy helmet off his noggin. Just knowing that the original art for this famous cover is in house as we speak is enough to make me want to go on a secret mission to bask in its glory.

In his run of X-Men #101-107, Cockrum established himself as the king of the Space Opera. In this septuplet of issues, Cockrum introduced probably the biggest, most ambitious scope for the X-Men universe yet with the creation of the Shi’Ar Empire, the JLA-parody Imperial Guard, the Starjammers and the M’Krann Crystal. And that’s just the start of the cast of thousands that populated this exciting slice of X-Men pie. It should be noted that Cockrum left X-Men after #107. John Byrne came on board for #108 and quickly brought the focus of X-Men universe back to earth.

I asked our Director of Comics, Barry Sandoval, about this art work a few weeks ago and he was equally animated – as animated as Barry will get, consummate professional that he is – about its presence.

“This is one of the great X-Men covers of all time,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of great X-Men art and comics in past auctions, but this auction is particularly heavy on great X-Men stuff. You have to count this chief among the grouping.”

I was a little more like: “What?!... Did you see-…. No way! I want it! I want it!”

I’ve looked through this auction catalog a few times now, and am quite impressed by the offerings overall, but for fans of X-men comics this one is special. There’s a ton of great Jack Kirby Art, some original Peanuts artwork, a ton of great pulps and original mint Disney comics, but give me this cover any day! This thing has already met its estimate at $20,000, so I’m probably priced out of the running. It will however, be exciting to see how this lot ultimately comes out. It comes up in the Friday, 5 p.m. session.