Artist rips apart rare comics for sculpture
A UK artist accidentally destroyed rare first editions of comics worth £50,000 after he used them to create a papier-mache sculpture without realising their value. The sculpture, called Paperboy, was created by Andrew Vickers, 49, from Sheffield, who found the stash of valuable comics in a skip.
One of the Marvel comics — pasted to the right leg — was a 1963 first edition of the Avengers, alone worth £10,000, the Sun reported.
“I thought they were worthless — they were in a skip,” Vickers said. He found the comics near his home and reckoned they were ideal for a statue he was making for a local art gallery superhero exhibition.
He had already made the chickenwire frame for his crimefighter character Paperboy.
“When I saw the cover of Avengers No. 1 on the inside right leg I did a double take. Then I saw others. I’ve told him to call me first if he finds anything else in a skip,” said Comics dealer Steve Eyre, 52. Vickers works under the name Stoneface and usually carves out of boulders.
“There’s no use crying over spilt milk — the comics now have no value at all,” Vickers said. “It would have been cheaper for him to have made the sculpture out of Italian marble,” Eyre said.
Post new comment