A few weeks ago, I was bemoaning the fact that the world seemed to have forgotten EC Comics artist Bernard Krigstein, a thought brought about by two (then ongoing) Heritage original art auctions of complete comics adaptations of Ray Bradbury short stories.

“Mars is Heaven!” illustrated by Wally Wood was expected to bring in between $30,000 and $50,000, while “The Flying Machine” by Krigstein was estimated to go for anywhere from $7,000 to $9,000. This imbalance seemed odd to me, not only because Krigstein was once held in such high regard, but also because Bradbury considered “The Flying Machine” to be “the single finest piece of art-drawing I’ve seen in years.” Not that I have anything against Wally Wood, you understand, it’s just that until I saw those predictions, I’d assumed the two artists were held in equal regard.

Now that the auctions are over, though, I’m feeling a little better about it all.

So how’d those auctions turn out?

“Mars is Heaven!” sold for $54,687.50, and “The Flying Machine” went for $27,500. Which means that while Heritage, at least based on its initial estimates, predicted that the world would value Wood over Krigstein by a ratio of approximately 5-1, the actual ratio turned out to be 2-1.

Because of that, and taking into account that Bradbury’s “Mars is Heaven!” is a far more beloved story (even though I always preferred “The Flying Machine”), I’m much less miffed on behalf of Krigstein.

(And if all this now piques your interest in his unique style, and you’d like to see more, check out this post-EC tale “The Desert Rat,” which manages to cram 73 panels into a single 4 page Stan Lee-scripted story!)

I’m on the mailing list for Heritage Auctions due to the fact that I’d hired them to sell a few items for me back in 2010, sales which paid for my trip to that year’s Melbourne Worldcon. I love getting those emails from them, because it’s always fun to see what others are selling that I could never possibly afford. And what makes me salivate the most is always the original art rather than the comics.

This week I was alerted to a couple of auctions, still ongoing, of the complete originals to two EC Comics stories which, in a sad coincidence, may be more interesting to some than they would have been a couple of weeks ago—because they’re both based on stories written by the late Ray Bradbury.

The first, ““Mars is Heaven!” was drawn by Wally Wood. It currently has a bid of $19,000 and is expected to bring in between $30,000 and $50,000.

The other Bradbury-inspired story is “The Flying Machine,” drawn by Bernard Krigstein, which has a current bid of $9,500 and an expected final price of from $7,000 to $9,000. (more…)