Uderzo's Astérix Pages Break $500,000 Mark at Auction

A page from Astérix the Legionary featuring Obélix’s first attempt at courting Falbala topped the Albert Uderzo section at Heritage Auctions’ latest comic art auction, selling for $206,250.

The rare page was one of four by Albert Uderzo from the Astérix series, with the theatrical original Pilote cover introducing Astérix, Le Devin (Asterix and the Soothsayer) making $187,500 and the original painting of Uderzo’s map of France from Astérix le Gaulois reaching $106,250. The production master original art for the image that appeared on all Astérix titles, first published in La Rose et le Glaive (Asterix and the Secret Weapon) in 1991 went for $57,500.

Of the pre-Astérix Uderzo works offered in the sale, a group of two story pages from De Ruige Ridder, De Verwenste Baron - Belloy, Le Baron Maudit were sold for $12,500, while another pair of pages from the same issue made $8,125. A page from the humorous family series Sa Majesté mon mari (His Majesty, My Husband) from 1952 sold for $1,187, bringing the combined total for the seven Uderzo works to $579,312.

Other highlights included:

• Dave Stevens’ splash page from The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine No. 3 and Luis Royo’s Los Hilos de los Sueños (each sold for $112,500)
• Big Baby, Curse of the Molemen, an image of American underground cartoonist Charles Burns, and a 1989 Moebius (Jean Giraud) original illustration of Iron Man (each $81,250)
• Enrico Marini’s fully painted image of Camilla and Drago from the cover of Rapaces II ($50,000 )and his variant cover for Batman: The Long Halloween - The Last Halloween ($40,000)
• Batman/Spawn No. 1 cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams ($46,250)