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Drawing of Tintin on the Moon Fetches $1.65m

The original drawing from ‘Explorers on the Moon’ of the Adventures of Tintin broke the record for a single cartoon drawing, selling for $1.65 million.
The original drawing from ‘Explorers on the Moon’ of the Adventures of Tintin broke the record for a single cartoon drawing, selling for $1.65 million.

An original drawing from ‘Explorers on the Moon’, widely regarded as one of the two best Tintin adventures, sold for a record $1.65 million at a Paris auction on Saturday.

The 50 cm x 35 cm drawing in Chinese ink by the Belgian cartoonist known as Hergé shows the boy reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy and crusty sailor Captain Haddock wearing spacesuits and walking on the moon while looking at Earth.

It had been expected to sell for between $740,000 and $950,000, AFP reported.

The 1954 book is viewed as one of Hergé’s masterpieces. Saturday’s sale was a record for a single cartoon drawing.

Herge already holds the world record for the sale of a comic strip. A double-page ink drawing that served as the inside cover for all the Tintin adventures published between 1937 and 1958, sold for $3.7 million to an American fan two years ago.

Original Tintin comic book drawings have been fetching millions at auctions over the last few years.

Back in May, the original artwork for the last two pages of the ‘King Ottokar’s Sceptre’ book sold for $1.2 million while in October of last year a double page slate from the same Tintin book fetched more than $1.6 million.

The 1954 ‘Explorers on the Moon’ completes the lunar adventure started in ‘Destination Moon’ (1953) and features several hilarious episodes including Haddock floating off into space to briefly become a satellite of the asteroid Adonis.

The moon drawings are being sold alongside 20 ink sketches Herge created for a series of New Year’s greeting cards known as his “snow cards”.

 

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