Estimation Comics Strip Valuations

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Comics Strip Valuations

Nowadays, galleries specialising in comics are becoming more and more common with historians also becoming increasingly interested in the medium. Above all, old comics are gaining more and more value, becoming true collector’s items.

If you believe the story, the comic strip was born in Switzerland in 1833 with the story of Monsieur Jabot, a creation by Rodolphe Töpffer. The original comic strip was a little different though from the image we have of the current comic instead consisting of a sequence of images with a change of frame but without the inclusion of text. The inclusion of text would only begin to appear with the Yellow Kid character designed by Outcault, created in the United States in 1896.

Even if the comic book was born in Switzerland, it is in the United States that it would experience a great expansion with the development of the printing press and the increase in the literacy rate amongst the population. To increase sales, large print media companies, in particular Hearst, began to integrate comics in its newspapers with roaring success: this period is considered the beginning of the golden age of comics strips. These comics were often centred on humour. The genre would go on the flourish, giving rise to comics books and the appearance of the first superheroes.

In France and in Europe, the golden age of the comic book was between the 30s and 50s with the appearance of the great Belgian heroes like Lucky Luke, Tintin and Spirou. One of the reasons that Belgium was so important to the European comic book scene is that the publishers in Belgium were more open to printing comic material considered to be more marginal and/or controversial for the times. Comic strips, which have long been seen as a simple expression of popular culture, are now reaching astronomical prices in the auction room, as shown by the example of Tintin’s Black Island whose 1943 edition sold for 37,541 euros.

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