A rare ink drawing of the French comic character Tintin has been sold for €505,000 ($600,000) at auction in Paris.
505 000 € for this original drawing from #LeSceptredOttokar by #Hergé published in #LePetitVingtième pic.twitter.com/k8yOsuLJox
— ARTCURIAL (@Artcurial) 18 ноября 2017 г.
The picture of Tintin and his dog Snowy was created by Herge and printed in the 1939 comic album King Ottokar's Scepter.
Friday's auction was dedicated to "the universe of the creator of Tintin," and included rare comic books, memorabilia and original drawings by Tintin's creator Herge. An original comic strip from Le Soir was sold for €381,000 ($449,256).
An original strips from #LeSoir by #Hergé announcing #Tintin adventure #LEtoileMysterieuse fetched 381 000 € (above estimate) pic.twitter.com/l1Md6mCXMJ
— ARTCURIAL (@Artcurial) 18 ноября 2017 г.
Herge was the pseudonym of Belgian cartoonist Georges Prosper Remi, who first published The Adventures of Tintin in the January 10 1929 issue of Le Petit Vingtieme (The Little Twentieth), the youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtieme Siecle (The Twentieth Century).
Several of Herge's illustrations have sold for over one million dollars. In May 2014, the Artcurial auction house in Paris sold a double-page cover illustration for €2.6 million ($3.1 million) and in November 2016 a comic strip from the book "Explorers on the Moon" sold for €1.55 million ($1.83 million).
The exploits of Tintin, a young newspaper reporter, and his constant companion, fox terrier Snowy, remain popular to this day. The cartoons have been translated into more than 70 languages and more than 230 million copies of the comics have been sold.