Your coloring-in assignment for the evening

I looked at this and thought, "there is probably a lawsuit going on somewhere over who owns this art", then began laughing hysterically. Ah, but no! It just sold at auction for $657,250.

Todd McFarlane’s original art for The Amazing Spider-Man #328 (Marvel, 1990) brought a World Record $657,250 on July 26 as part of Heritage Auctions’ Signature® Comics and Comic Art Auction in Beverly Hills. The artwork, showing Spidey demonstrating his awesome new powers on the Hulk, is now the single most valuable piece of American comic ever sold at auction.

“This is an earth-trembling cover illustration and an equally magnificent price,” said Todd Hignite, Vice President of Heritage Auctions. “McFarlane’s art brims with the raw energy that sky-rocketed McFarlane to the top of the industry and, now, the top of the auction world.”

• [Rob Beschizza]

  Scotch and crayola makes for a damned fine evening.

  • [Joseph Francis]

    If you want to use Photoshop -
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KDDnT2aKU0

• [Forkboy]

  Hah I remember this one, it’s the one where Spiderman knocks the Hulk clear into orbit. And people complained that him dancing was ridicilous in the movies.

• [jeligula]

  Just remember that when you break out the Crayolas to leave the greens on the side.  The Hulk was gray during this point in time.

  Personally, I prefer Ernie Chan over McFarlane any day of the week.

• [Andy Dillon]

  McFarlane’s done really good stuff. This ain’t it. From Spidey’s J-Lo butt to the Hulk’s oddly same length toes and same diameter upper arm and forearm, I’m dumbfounded that someone would cough up that kind of money for this. I do like the incorporation of the standard cover elements into the action.  Maybe it was Todd. He has a history of paying extraordinarily stupid sums for fairly meh items at auction.

  • [mccrum]

     Aha!  “This is Todd McFarlane’s last issue of Amazing Spider-Man”
    http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/reviews/spiderman_amazing/328.html

  • [bruceburbank]

    …to Spidey’s elongated head, and Hulk’s eclair eyebrows, and the way Hulk’s mouth is pointing in a different direction than his eyes are looking…

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      But Hulk has a sarlacc on top of his head.  That has to count for something.

    • [JohnQPublic]

      I agree – Spidey has a weird elongated head and his torso+abs are about 1.25 head heights long.  oh yeah, and Spidey is striking the weirdest “throw hip to the side” pose like he’s a girl cheerleader

  • [dahbe]

    “Art that isn’t old being worth money?”
    Has anyone ever actually looked at a Picasso? I can’t be the only one.
    http://www.gearfuse.com/superheroes-as-seen-through-the-eyes-of-picasso/

    • [Martijn]

      Not perfect, but certainly more realistic than McFarlane’s art.

  • [Martijn]

    If you’re going to point out lack of realism in McFarlane’s art, you’ll be here for quite a while. He was a crap artist who was unable to draw anything without serious deformities. I believe his repertoire contained two male faces and one female face.

    He was good at putting lots of intricate lines on paper, though.

• [Gimlet_eye]

  I was curious to know what sort of classic art that sort of money would buy. For about the same amount, the buyer could have had these two things:
  http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/sothebys-and-christies-antiquities-6-15-12_detail.asp?picnum=3
  http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/sothebys-and-christies-antiquities-6-15-12_detail.asp?picnum=4

  • [ryuthrowsstuff]

    Yes but the antiquities market is riddled with fakes and stolen/smuggled artifacts. To say nothing of the incredible damage done to important archaeological sites by the for profit aspects of the business. Say what you will about Mcfarlane’s art, I’d much rather rich asshats wasted their money on that than got involved with the antiquities and fossil markets. 

• [Spieguh]

  World’s most valuable dick punch!

• [Labbit]

  I’m (spider-)sensing a theme here…

• [voiceinthedistance]

  For $657,250, I can only hope that it comes with at least the 84 color crayon set.  

• [Dave McCaig]

  Cock punch cover. Most valuable comic art ever. Guh.

• [Aaron Sugg]

  I sort of hate Todd McFarlane. BUT, I wonder how many of you have ever illustrated a publication of Amazing Spider-Man? Or even have a conscious memory of a single Marvel Comic issue costing $1.00? Yeah, thought so.

  • [s2redux]

    LOL – I’ve never bought a Marvel comic that cost more than a dollar ;-) IIRC, that first Fantastic Four set me back one cool dime. The first Spidey was either 12 or 15 cents. Can’t think about it too much though, or I’ll start to cry… had all the early FF, Spidey, Surfer, Thor, and Cap books, huge numbers of Tales of Suspense, Strange Tales, etc.; mom threw ‘em all out when I went to off to college ::boo-hoo::

  • [Christopher Forsyth]

     I remember when they were 60 cents, actually.

• [Adrian Martin]

  I wish comics still cost a $…imagine how many would sell….sigh

• [Luke Temple Walsh]

  Yay! A stupid person spends a stupid amount of money on a stupid thing! So bad art is recession proof – why isn’t this working for every artist!? Really enjoyed some of the comments here, especially the anatomy deconstructions. “Hip throw”! “Mouth in different direction to eyes”! “Toes in a straight line”! I knew (and reported vociferously on it) in the early 1990′s that mainstream comics (and the likes of McFarlane) were sucking the last dollars they could out of a dying market before it became a bookshelf hobby for middle – aged nostalgia buffs.

  • [harold miller]

    Someone needs a hug.

    • [Luke Temple Walsh]

      A hug? Does that involve close physical contact with another human being? I don’t think so.

  • [Ramone]

    I agreed with you up until the “bookshelf hobby” part. Comics are booming right now. Go to a Free Comic Book Day event in May and you’ll likely see lines around the block of teenagers and families with small kids.

    • [Luke Temple Walsh]

      I suspected I might be speaking from a position of not being informed on the current status of comic book popularity, so thanks for the message of hope. Though I did also deliberately infuse an undercurrent of ‘bitter old man who still lives in the past’ in the post, and I’m not sure parents would be too pleased at me standing in such an event mouthing off about how awful modern comics are and that they’re just corporate accessories to film and video game franchises, in front of their young children – so I’ll just take your word for it. (I am genuinely pleased to hear kids still read comics, honest!)

• [Philip]

  It is Todd MacFarlane drawing both the characters that made him famous. It’s dynamic. It has a certain “revenge of the underdog” quality. Yeah, I can see it. 

• [Lucifer Morningstar]

  Crappy 5 min job by someone with no skill. Me.
  http://i.imgur.com/6OyCi.jpg

• [Flarn Buckholter]

  Todd draws like monkeys drive F1 cars.  There is a lot to see, but not all of it is good.

• [penguinchris]

  Do I have to do all the work around here? I did mine with actual Crayola crayons (and fine-tip markers).

  edit: to any haters, I didn’t have a gray or black crayon, so the hulk is green, deal with it

• [Rotwang]

  Is Spidey punching the Hulk in the nards?  

• [Deidzoeb]

  During McFarlane’s tenure, tufted streams of Spidey’s webs became indistinguishable from the exhaust coming out of the Green Goblin’s glider. Blecch.

• [Deidzoeb]

  Between this story and the abstract painting bought at Goodwill for $9.99 but appraised by Sotheby’s for $15k-$20k, my conclusion is there is no such thing as art, more or less.

  http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/painting-bought-for-9-99-at-goodwill-valued-at-15k.html

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    …I was like, ‘I’m going to paint big cat heads or whatever,’” Feeback, who specializes in pet portraits, said.

    • [Deidzoeb]

      Touché. Like so many things these day, art is made of cats.