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Comic strips

Rare Calvin and Hobbes painting auctioned for $107k

1 minute 11 comments

That rare Bill Watterson watercolor of Calvin and Hobbes created for a 1989-90 calendar cover fetched a handsome $107,550.00 at auction (requires sign-in to see results).

The art received 34,745 page views and was bid on 22 times.

UPDATE: For confidentiality reasons, my contact at Heritage Auction couldn’t disclose the winning bidder, but he noted that when the auction opened a month ago, the starting bid was only $25,000. The night before the auction closing, the bid had got up to $85,000 which quickly incremented to $90k. With the Buyer?s Premium the final tally was $107,550. The Buyers Premium is the auction house’s costs. The only other known Watterson piece that is available (or will be) for auction is the oil painting he donated to the Team Cul de Sac. I’ll keep you posted on that. Save your pennies. I’m sure this auction just boosted the value of the oil painting a bit.

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Comments 11

  1. Hopefully the guy who bought it happened to also be named “Rick Marschall”, not to be confused with the Rick Marschall who will soon be seen driving about in a brand new Lexus.

  2. That painting is beautiful. Congratulations to the owner.

  3. The one-percenters dropped the ball on this one. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see it go for double that amount, given the rarity of Calvin and Hobbes originals on the open market.

  4. I guess that’s the difference between me and Rick Marschall. I’d rather own the Calvin and Hobbes original than a new Lexus. But I can imagine the fun conversation that it would cause between me and my wife.

  5. Hopefully, the person who purchased this will invite us over to their treehouse someday for a special meeting of G.R.O.S.S. to admire it.

  6. That comes framed, right? (Framing is SO expensive…)

  7. rghvbj gkvhbjqwdbhj … Sorry, just wiping the drool off my keyboard.

  8. I wonder if those are Doc Martins dyes that Watterson used? So bright and expressive… I assume that would still count as a watercolor, though.

  9. They were dyes and very brilliant. Watterson has a mastery of watercolor that is really impressive. Stunning in person.

  10. The new owner had better hope it wasn’t created with Dr. Martin Dyes. Even in perfect lighting conditions, they fade faster than anything I’ve ever worked with.

    In a room with normal lighting I’d predict before ten years major fading will be more than readily apparent… and then investment, “Adios, baby!”

    Of course, it sadly might be safely stored in a dark container where it can only be rarely enjoyed. I imagine Watterson would hate that.

  11. I’m saving my pennies for the cover art to “Billy and the Boingers” by B. Breathed. Now THAT is art at it’s finest!

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