Earlier this month we mentioned the Jules Feiffer collection of original art up for bid at Swann Auction Galleries.
Swann has revealed the results of some of the items.
Some of the items’ estimate were over optimistic, some were grossly underestimated (see the page from the comic book that featured the first time Frank Miller drew Daredevil).
Illustration Art: Featuring Highlights from the Collection of Jules Feiffer
Bonus: Jules Feiffer commenting on some of the featured artists.
“In 1963, Bob Silvers had asked me to be the New York Review of Books staff artist but I could not be involved with them because I was not going to leave the Village Voice. But did they know the work of David Levine? David had these spot drawings in Esquire at the time, along with his oil paintings and watercolors. David started from almost the first issue of the New York Review of Books and… “
“For a few years, before I went into the army, I was the ghostwriter on The Spirit. Not every week, but most of the time. I would write out of The Spirit story, or my idea of one, and lay it out, and then Will [Eisner] would go over it and put his changes and that became that week’s Spirit section. And I wasn’t even 21! I loved working for him…”
“Before Eisner and along with Eisner, Milton Caniff was my hero. Terry in the Pirates was my idea of what a comic strip should be. It was like a movie on paper. He was the first guy to use heavy shading and that realistic look, and he was a good writer. He could tell a story and get you involved with the characters…”
“Ed Sorel has so many different styles and was always working toward another. I love this particular style. I’m sorry he gave it up. Sorel, Levine, and I saw ourselves as a kind of a lefty radical threesome in the cartoon commentary world. I met Ed when I was starting out; I think even before I was in the Voice…”
“What is there to say about Art Spiegelman? He changed the cartoon world, that’s all. He is generous, open, interesting. The only thing I have against him is he should have been doing more books over the years. He’s a genius. Other than being an artist and writer, as an editor and a kind of elder statesman of the present-day-serious cartoon world…”