The book with a new original sketch by Bill Watterson sold at the charity auction for $11,000 to comic book artist Tony Harris.
above: Shelton Drum, Tony Harris, and Mr. Harris’ son
Details about the highlight of the auction, and more about Team Cul de Sac, at Mike Rhode’s interview with Chris Sparks.
Mike Rhode: You’ve mentioned in the past that you and Richard [Thompson] had sent a goal for TCDS fundraising of a quarter of a million dollars…
Chris Sparks: The real truth of that is that I was swapping emails with Michael Cavna of The Washington Post when I first started the project and Richard and I had talked about how much money we could raise. I was very happy with $25,000 as a goal, but when I was writing back to Mr. Cavna, I put $250,000 and that’s what he published. Richard and I had a good laugh about that. By mistake, I added one zero in an email I didn’t check, and went from $25,000 to $250,000.
This weekend, before the [Heroes Con Dine & Draw] we had around $241,000. The D&D brought in about $5100 so we were about $4000 away. We broke the goal!
original June 4 post:
Comic strip superstar Bill Watterson has contributed a signed copy of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes with an original sketch for a charitable Team Cul de Sac auction.
From Chris Sparks:
Bill Watterson contributes a signed with a doodle in a hardcover of the Complete Calvin and Hobbes to Team Cul de Sac for our Heroescon Drink and Draw auction. A sketch from Bill is beyond very rare.
update: John Glynn brings it to my attention that:
I’ve seen signed Watterson items (with no original art) go for $10K. Wonder what this first new calvin and hobbes art in two decades will go for?
One of my main reasons for trying to get syndicated with my comic strip is so I can maybe get a chance to meet my heroes Bill Watterson and Berkley Breathed. That and of course the groupies.
Bill is by far the most inspiring cartoonists of my generation. I owe so much to Bill and his work on Calvin and Hobbes. As a kid, I would clip each strip out every day and put them in photo albums. I recall us not getting the paper one day so I rode my bike through town until I found someone’s paper to steal. I returned it a few hours later with a rectangular hole in the comics page.
To also have a print of one of the strips Pastis and Watterson collaborated on for Pearls Before Swine. I have Stephen’s signature on it. On my bucket list I have, “get Bill to sign the Pearls print next to Stephen’s signature”. I am sure that’ll never happen. I have about as much chance of getting my comic strip syndicated as I do getting Bill’s autograph on my print… lolol….
– Davy
Bargain!