Tintin on the moon drawing sells for £1.3m
AN ORIGINAL 1954 drawing of Tintin the boy reporter, his dog Snowy and the boozing sailor Captain Haddock in spacesuits and walking on the moon has been sold for a record €1.55 million (£1.33 million) at auction.
The page of comic-strip pictures by the cartoonist known as Hergé are from one of the best-known Tintin adventures, Explorers on
the Moon, and fetched almost double the expected price, the Artcurial auction house in Paris said.
The late Belgian artist already holds the world record for the sale of a comic strip. A double-page drawing that was the inside cover for all Tintin adventures published from 1937 to 1958 sold for €2.6 million two years ago.
The work that went under the hammer yesterday was a drawing in Chinese ink showing the three characters making their first moonwalk from their red-andwhite rocket.
Explorers on the Moon was published 15 years before the first moon landing, and is an iconic work for comic-strip lovers.
Eric Leroy, Artcurial’s comics expert, described it as “a key moment in the history of comic-book art… it has become mythic for many lovers and collectors of comic strips”.
It was sold to a European collector who was not identified by the auctioneers.
Hergé, whose real name was George Prosper Remi and whose Tintin series was among the most popular European comics of the 20th century, is currently the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Christie’s yesterday was due to put drawings from another rare Hergé strip, Tintin and the Thermozero, up for sale. It is expected to fetch €250,000.