For those who came in late, or have been living under a rock the past two decades…

Once upon a time, two gentlemen and comicbook enthusiasts named Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were playing sketch-a-superhero in their fledgling studio. They were broke, they were unemployed and they were completely out of ideas. One of them ( nobody is too sure who) sketched a snarling Turtle in a goofy mask, standing on two legs, and wrote the words “mutant turtle” underneath. The other was amused, and immediately added two nunchucks in the characters’ hands and the word “ninja” to the name of the character. Both of them cracked up – but the idea remained, and morphed itself into a multi-million-dollar industry.

It was 1984, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had arrived.

At the height of the Turtles phenomenon, Eastman, one of the richest people in the comicbook industry, was also a comic art collector, amassing quantities of art by the masters – Bisley, Wrightson, Miller, Windsor-Smith, to name a few. He later became the publisher of the magazine Heavy Metal and went on to collect more art from fantasy artists like Milo Manara, Rich Corben and Luis Royo. Let’s just say that Eastman was a collector who had the money to indulge himself, and he did, in style. ( Eastman also married porn star Julie Strain, by the way)

The artwork to the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the comicbook that launched this empire, and went on to influence the whole independent comic scene of the eighties ( Cerebus came first, of course, but it did not have the same level of pervasive influence as the Turtles) was posted on Eastman’s site, with an asking price of 1 million dollars. Which was another way of saying “Not for sale.” Comic art prices haven’t really crossed 100000$ – the most that was offered was 95 thousand for a Romita Amazing Spider-man cover, just last year. Eastman’s asking price was ludicrous, and quite a few collectors would go and salivate over the pages on display.

But last week, this was put up for sale on eBay, with an initial price of 20000$ and a reserve price of 250000$, which was met some time back. There have been 41 bids so far, and the amount stands at 250000$. Not only is this a high price, it’s also the highest amount ever bid on a zero feedback eBay user. Phew! Four days to go before the auction ends, and prices escalate like mad in the last couple of minutes of an auction. I am betting it will cross 500,000$. I am also betting that this is a publicity stunt for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, which is due to release this year.

And the latest on the 300 hysteria is the Only Piece of Original Frank Miller Art associated with the comic that has been put up for sale. Seems the seller participated in a contest in 1998, the first prize for which was the five issues of 300 signed by Miller and Varley and a piece of original art by Frank Miller, a 11 by 19 inch pin-up of Leonidas. He’s put up all of them for sale now, and the art piece is up to 4202$, with a day to go.

A member of the art mailing list that I frequent posted a message recently about a couple of comics that he wanted to give away to overseas comicbook fans, so long as they covered the postage charges. I wrote in, and he immediately shipped them over. A couple of weeks passed, and today the package arrived at the office. I am now the proud possessor of….

Four Marvel Masterworks. High quality reprints of classic Stan Lee/Jack Kirby work, including the earliest appearances of Thor and the X-men. The Fantastic Four volume is especially dear to me because I read the black and white reprints of the classic stories from issues 51-53 when I was in school. Issue 51 had a story called “This Man, This Monster”, which was possibly the most touching story in which the Thing was featured in. Issue 52 had the introduction of the Black Panther, and today, as I read this volume during lunchtime, I finally found out what happens after the FF manage to defeat the Black Panther. What a total gem of a volume!

The early Stan Lee Marvel comics are like crack, they leave you with your head buzzing when they finish, as your brain struggles to keep pace with the hyper-kinetic storytelling you just read. Stan Lee’s dialogues are INCREDIBLY corny, but the energy that they bring to the printed page is without compare. Brian Bendis mined 15 pages of Amazing Fantasy # 15 into 6 issues of story – in which he establishes the origin of Ultimate Spider-man. Just gives you an idea of how much was happening in those pages.

I love Jack Kirby’s work inked by Joe Sinnott, in the FF volumes. The Thor work and the early X-men work suffers from hackery, the inking seems rushed and details in panels are vague. But who cares, man? These are classic stories, and man, I love my Masterworks.

Thanks, Glen.