Frank Miller’s Sin City hits the auction block

Heritage Auctions announced it will soon put several original pages of art from Frank Miller’s Sin City on the auction block for some lucky bidder to take home.

There are four images from the original Sin City run that are hitting the auction block between November 17-20, 2022.

From 1992’s Dark Horse Presents No. 62, “Sin City: Chapter 13,” comes the striking image of Marv holding in one hand the head of bespectacled serial killer Kevin and in the other the saw he used to do the gruesome deed.

“The main thing I’m doing when drawing a page like is trying to live in the moment as thoroughly as possible,” Miller said in a press release from Heritage Auctions. “I do complete, often very complex, pencil drawings, then as I apply the brushwork, I will put all these crinkles and wrinkles to show Marv as weathered as possible, then pull out the blessed white paint and remove a great deal, especially of the outline. It excites the eye a great deal, drawing a lot more in white than in black. Before the white paint, that was an extremely murky piece because I had taken it way too far.”

The rendering of Kadie’s Bar stripper Nancy Callahan from Dark Horse Presents No. 54, otherwise known as “Sin City: Episode Five,” is the opposite. Her hair, her fringes, her lasso – it’s all a dizzying tempest of white lines that pops out of the inky black that renders the Bristol board almost rigid.

Says Miller, “That’s one of the thickest originals you’ll ever come across.”

Here, too, are the original works made for trade paperbacks: Goldie, packing a smoking pistol, as seen on the cover of the fourth printing of 1994’s Sin City; and this stoic and heroic rendering of Marv from the trade splash page. The latter, from “The Hard Goodbye,” is a summation of all Sin City has to offer – what Jim Lee called “a stark, brilliant chiaroscuro [that]remains a defiantly timeless, handcrafted love letter to the days of old in an increasingly slick and digital world.”

So… how much will each of these images go for? I’m betting the Nancy image will bring in the most money. Use the comment section below to share your reactions. This is the second big artist auction Heritage Auctions announced. Earlier this week, the auction company announced Jim Lee is putting some of his work up for sale.

via Heritage Auctions