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Rejected Tintin Cover Art Fetches €3.2m at Auction

In 1936, Tintin creator, Hergé (born Georges Remi), created a piece of art using Indian ink, gouache, and watercolour. He originally intended for it to be used as the cover art for his fifth Tintin book, which sees the titular character travel to China. The art was ultimately rejected but has now set the record for the most expensive comic book artwork, fetching €3.2m/£2.8m/$3.8 at auction.

Hergé’s beautiful cover art was passed on, as the publisher felt it would be too expensive to mass-produce due to the number of colours used. In response, Hergé went back to the drawing board and created what would be the final cover art, which primarily used only back and red. He gave the original artwork to his editor’s seven-year-old son, Jean-Paul Casterman. For many years it was folded up and stored in a drawer, until 1981, when Jean-Paul asked Hergé to autograph it.

As The Guardian reports, Jean-Paul’s children put the painting up for sale at Artcurial auction house in Paris, where it was expected to fetch high bids. Within seconds it passed the €2 million and ultimately sold for €3.2 million. This isn’t the first time comic book art has sold for a high price. In 2014, a pristine copy of the first Superman comic, Action Comics #1, which originally sold for 10 cents in the USA, sold for $3.2m on eBay.

Nick Rodwell, the husband of Hergé’s widow, Fanny Vlamynck, has previously disputed the auction, and Moulinsart SA, the family company, has been known to aggressively targeted fans and academics over alleged copyright violations. However, in 2015, the courts found that the copyright to Tintin belonged to the Casterman’s, and had done since 1942.

Rodwell stated he believes the artwork should’ve been given to the Musée Hergé. “Hergé’s work belongs to his family but it is also part of Belgian heritage,” he said. “It should not be sold. I’m not saying it was stolen by Casterman. It was just not returned by Casterman.”

A lithograph of Le Lotus Bleu, produced decades later in 1981 and signed by the Tintin creator, also went under the hammer, selling for €6,000, double the predicted price.

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