Frank Frazetta’s ‘Famous Funnies’ Buck Rogers Cover Art Soars Above $1 Million in Heritage’s $22.6 Million Comic & Comic Art Auction

Action Comics No. 1 wrap smashes auction record for stand-alone cover DOWNLOAD DIGITAL PRESS KIT DALLAS, Texas (June 30, 2025) — When the hammer fell after the sale of Frank Frazetta’s Famous Funnies No. 214 Buck Rogers Cover Original Artin Heritage’s Comic & Comic Art Signature® Auction, the result was out of this world. This magnificent pen-and-ink work, which portrays Buck Rogers sailing through space, sold for $1,035,000 to lead the June 26-29 event to $22,653,352. “Frank Frazetta is universally acknowledged as one of the premier artists in the comic world, and his work has been eagerly collected for decades,” says Barry Sandoval, Vice President at Heritage Auctions. “This piece is widely regarded as one of the greatest comic covers of all time, and the final result certainly validates that.” This magnificent page of original art is the seventh work by Frazetta to bring more than $1 million at Heritage Auctions; previous works by the artist that reached seven figures included the Egyptian Queen Painting Original Art (1969) that brought $5.4 million in 2019 and Frazetta’s Dark Kingdom Painting Original Art (1976), which soared to $6 million in 2023. Another Frazetta work, “The Dancer from Atlantis” Painting Original Art (1987), achieved $360,000. “I knew our comic art selection was pretty special, but it’s always gratifying when the bidders agree,” says Sandoval. “The first 30 lots in the comic art section averaged $168,000 per lot, and it seemed like every one of those brought a furious bidding war. Between comic art and comic books, we had 27 lots over $100,000.” A copy of CGC Near Mint 9.2 issue of The Incredible Hulk No. 1 (Marvel, 1962), which is tied for the highest-graded copy ever offered at Heritage, drew 36 bids on its way to $780,000. The issue, which marks the Hulk’s debut, ranks second on Overstreet's list of Top 50 Silver Age Comics. Another impressive result came in for Fantastic Four No. 1 White Mountain Pedigree (Marvel, 1961) CGC NM- 9.2 White pages, which climbed to $600,000. This issue presents Marvel’s first superhero team and the first appearances of Mister Fantastic, Invisible Girl, the Thing and a re-imagined Human Torch, as well as the Moleman and other characters, and it ranks No. 3 on Overstreet’s list of Top 50 Silver Age Comics. Comic art doesn’t have to be big in size to make a big impact at the auction block. Consider Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes First Appearance of Spaceman Spiff Hand-Colored Daily Comic Strip Original Art dated 11-29-85 (Universal Press Syndicate, 1985), a 4-by-12-inch mini-masterpiece that tied the record for the most ever paid for a piece of comic strip art at $480,000 — a result that equaled the sum paid for another Calvin and Hobbes strip by Watterson that was sold at Heritage in 2022and an Alex Raymond original Sunday comic strip artwork for Flash Gordon No. 1 in 2020. The strip in this auction is the earliest known to hit the collecting market. Watterson has held on to nearly all of his original drawings from the strip’s 10-year run, with exceptions made for occasional gifts to people close to him; this one was given to Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman and his family. Another lot that soared past pre-auction expectations was Todd McFarlane’s The- Amazing Spider-Man No. 311 Mysterio Cover Original Art (Marvel, 1989), which drew 48 bids on its way to $456,000. The first McFarlane Amazing Spider-Man cover art offered at Heritage Auctions in nearly a decade, it portrays the Webbed Wall-Crawler as he is reflected in Mysterio’s “fishbowl” helmet, and is one of the reasons McFarlane’s ASM work is so coveted by collectors. The cover wrap of Action Comics No. 1 shattered the auction record for a stand-alone cover Thursday when it sold for $408,000. Per the independent tracking site GPAnalysis.com, the previous record for a loose cover was $20,000 for a Flash Comics No. 1 cover that sold in January. The image, drawn by Joe Shuster, has been called the most famous image in comic book history, and adorns the issue that launched Superman, the superhero genre and, in many ways, the entire comics collecting hobby. Thursday’s auction marks what is believed to be the first public sale of just the cover wrap of what Overstreet once called “the most important comic book ever published.” Action Comics No. 1 is ranked first on Overstreet’s Top 100 Golden Age Comics list. Jock Detective Comics No. 880 Joker Cover Original Art (DC, 2011) sold for $288,000, a remarkable sum for such a recent work. Easily one of the most iconic covers from the Modern Age of comics, the image is immediately recognizable, showing that Batman always is on the Joker’s mind through bats swarming to create his “hair” and even Batman’s symbol in the pupils of his eyes. “We have been working with Heritage for decades, and like the Martin Shamus collection, Heritage was able to get record prices for some of these modern masterworks,” said Stephen Shamus, who consigned the Detective Comics No. 880 cover art. “The record price realized for the cover, which is considered one of the most important 21st-century covers, is a testament to Heritage’s leadership position in the marketplace. Bottom line, if you have Original Art to sell, there is only one choice: Heritage Auctions!” Other top results include, but are not limited to:   • Whiz Comics No. 2 (No. 1) (Fawcett Publications, 1940) CGC FN/VF 7.0 Off-white to white pages: $288,000   • Steve Ditko The Amazing Spider-Man No. 25 Splash Page 1 Original Art (Marvel, 1965): $288,000   • Mike Zeck Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars No. 3 Spider-Man vs. X-Men Cover Original Art (Marvel, 1984): $264,000   • Todd McFarlane and Rick Magyar Spider-Man #11 Story Page 20 Original Art (Marvel, 1991): $216,000 Complete results can be found at HA.com/7418. Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the United States, and the world's largest collectibles auctioneer. Heritage maintains offices in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Heritage also enjoys the highest Online traffic and dollar volume of any auction house on earth (source: SimilarWeb and Hiscox Report). The Internet's most popular auction-house website, HA.com, has more than 2 million registered bidder-members and searchable free archives of 7,000,000 past auction records with prices realized, descriptions and enlargeable photos. Reproduction rights routinely granted to media for photo credit. For breaking stories, follow us: HA.com/Facebook and HA.com/Twitter . Link to this release or view prior press releases . Hi-Res images available: Steve Lansdale, Public Relations Specialist 214-409-1699 or SteveL@HA.com