It was the first time auction house Sotheby’s dedicated a sale entirely to comic strip albums or the “Bande dessinée” genre. Belgium and France have a long tradition of graphic novels and comic strip albums. The auction featured 100 lots.
Experts estimated that an original artwork from “The Crab with the Golden Claws” would fetch some 240,000 euros, but it didn’t find any buyer.
It was in fact an original artwork for the album “The Shooting Star” that was the most expensive purchase at 234,750 euros. The work was created by the Belgian comic strip author Hergé in 1941 and shows how the soil is melting under Snowy’s feet.
The Belgian “bandes dessinées” were well represented at the auction. An original work for “The Gorilla has done it” of Franquin’s “Robbedoes and Kwabbernoot” series fetched over 70,000 euros.
