splits: 5
If you’ve visited garage and garage sales in McKinney, TX in the past few months, you might want to leave this story behind. 12-year-old Rasheemah Bartley was doing just that when she found a bunch of black and white sketches she wanted to use as coloring books. Her mother passed her two dollars and the “coloring books” were hers, and it only took a cursory examination by the girl’s stepfather to determine that they were not coloring books. typical coloring, but rather potentially valuable (and copyrighted) comics. Even he had no idea what Rasheemah had actually brought home: extremely rare original works of art, including some by Jack Kirby, universally recognized as the King of Comics.
The Bartley household was then faced with a classic “good news, bad news” scenario – the good news was that Rasheemah’s $ 2 purchase was valued at $ 48,000, while the bad news was that all works. that resulted in this garage sale are listed. in a database as having been reported missing at the Dallas / Fort Worth airport a few months ago. The artwork itself includes various original artwork from EC Comics and Warren Publishing famous for their horror work in the 1950s and 1970s, respectively, but the highlight of the garage sale is without any doubts the original artwork from the front page of the first issue of Marvel The Avengers, designed by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.
The value of any Kirby artwork has skyrocketed in recent years, even on obscure titles the general public has never heard of, so it’s no surprise that his artwork for a title now emblematic as The Avengers would be worth a pretty dime in the collector’s market. But for now, the art is in official custody while a Dallas judge decides who it really belongs to. Hopefully Rasheemah gets a decent fee for purchasing the artwork and not messing it up with pencils.
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