Alex Raymond, Burne Hogarth, Gottfredson for sale.

Heritage Auctions is having another comic auction the first week of August, selling not only very valuable comic books and priceless magazines in perfect condition, but also, very rare original artwork from various famous artists, work that is very sought after and almost impossible to find. For sure there are also the absolutely amazing pieces of more contemporary comic artists, such as Jack Kirby, Frank Miller and Robert Crumb. But I'm fascinated with classic stuff from the golden age, so have a look at some gorgeous pieces from that era that will be sold. All images: click to enlarge, use the magnifying glass for further enlargement!

A gorgeous cover illustration by Alex Raymond for the 'Beautiful Coed issue' of the University of Missouri Showme Magazine from 1942.

The cover illustration has a personal message from Raymond, saying "You may have something sweeter than this on your campus, but you'll have to show me!"

 Below: 'The Marauders return!' an amazing original Tarzan Sunday page by Burne Hogarth from 5-9-1943. the orginal page is 19,5x26,5 inches, so pretty huge!

Two original Mickey strips by Floyd Gottfredson from 1934 and 1943! The top one is from 'Bobo the Elephant' published between July 30 and October 13, 1934. In the second strip, which is part of the 1943 strips written by Bill Walsh with inks by Dick Moores, you can see Gottfredson had adapted Mickey to look like Fred Moore's updated design, as used in Disney's cartoons and animated features. 

Below: an absolutely great original 'Nancy' page by Ernie Bushmiller from November 24, 1947. Nancy was of course Aunt Fritzi's niece and appeared in a strip called 'Fritzi Ritz', which Bushmiller had taken over from Larry Whittington in 1925. Nancy proved to be a more popular character and the strip was renamed.

An original Sunday page of 'Li'll abner' by Al Capp dated 3-1-1953:

A great Blondie daily by Chick Young dated 12-19-1931:

Below: A 'Captain and the kids' strip from 1939 by Rudolph Dirks! Dirk's newspaper comic strip was formerly known as 'The Katzenjammer Kids' but he had to change it into 'Captain and the kids' when he started working for rival newspapers. After a bunch of lawsuits, Harold Knerr ended up continuing Dirk's orginal strip for Hearst's newspapers, while Dirk worked on his renamed version of the strip for other publishers.

A nice Walt Kelly Pogo strip from 2-6-1961:

Of course there are also some very nice 'Terry and the Pirates' strips by Milton Caniff from 1937 and 1939!

For all items, Heritage says it will take your biddings starting July 12th. For more information about the auction and a better look at all the great artwork go here.