Superheroes
Growing up in the 1940s, I collected comic books and never threw anything away. My collection of old Batman and Superman comics in the storage room of our apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood where we lived in Chicago survived my four-year stay at Carleton College, but not the two years after that I spent in the US Army. When I returned home in the fall of 1956, alas, I found our storage room bare. My mother had thrown every comic book out!
Of course, if other mothers had not been doing the same to their sons' comic book collections, mint copies of those old comic books would not fetch five-figure bids at auctions.
Several of my Pop Art paintings have featured the superheroes of my youth, including the two mentioned above and pictured below. COM and ACT are partial recreations of old covers from Detective Comics and Action Comics. I enjoy taking segments of already-published art and manipulating it into a new and different version. The two paintings currently hang on both sides of the skylight in my office. The positioning is quite dramatic, since the paintings are about a dozen feet above the floor. As I look overhead, The Batman glares down at me, including his second eye, which wraps around the canvas. By the way, that's The Batman. When Bob Kane first created the character, the name always included the article "the." Later, as the character lost some of its dark origins and evolved into a camp figure, he became, simply, Batman. As in Robin saying,"Holy Pop Art, Batman. That Higdon guy knows how to draw!"
COM: Acrylic on canvas; 4 feet by 5 feet; wraparound canvas with art (including The Batman's other eye) and artist's signature on the side. This is a large work of art. Ironically, its origin was from a small booklet of Batman in Detective Comics that barely measures 4 by 4 inches. The painting is based on issue number 31 (September, 1939) of Detective Comics, which features a much fuller view of The Batman looming over a castle and mountain scene with clouds drifting in front of him and a bat outlined against a full Moon. I selectively retained only part of the picture as well as part of the title: COM having its own special meaning in this era of dot-com firms. $1,500. Both paintings: $2,000
ACT: Acrylic on canvas; 4 feet by 5 feet; wraparound canvas with artist's signature on the side. ACT too has mixed origins, one of them being the original cover for Action Comics number 1 (June, 1938) in which Superman made his debut. A drawing of Superman bursting chains binding him by artist Joe Shuster served as base for the figure. The cover of the January, 1970 (issue number 233) Superman offered a Neil Adams replay of the chain-breaking picture. My replay of Shuster/Adams probably stretches the definition of "Fair Use" to its furthest edge, but my attorney tells me that I am probably in the clear. The word ACT also has a meaning beyond being a part of Action Comics. This also hangs in my skylight facing the COM painting, although I cannot see it entirely from where I work unless I get up and move to the other side of the room. I am tempted to do that several times a day, since the paintings work very well hung together. $1,000. Both paintings: $2,000
TRIBUTE TO SPARKY: Acrylic on canvas; each 16 by 20 inches; wraparound canvas with art. Shortly before his death, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz sent me the original art for a single panel daily strip: October 16, 1999. It was in "trade" for a Vaughn Shoemaker editorial cartoon from 1945 I owned that Sparky wanted for a World War II museum dedicated to Bill Mauldin that he was backing. The Shoemaker cartoon was gorgeous, but I really wanted a Peanuts drawing for my collection and knew I could never afford one given current prices. (Several Sunday pages recently sold at auction at Sotheby's for $20-25,000.) The strip included a poignant comment by Charlie Brown about putting his "faithful ol' glove" away. Also pictured in the strip are Charlie's sister Suzy and Snoopy, making the original quite valuable. After Sparky died, I decided to do two tribute paintings--one of Charlie Brown and one of Snoopy--based on the strip he sent me. I planned these two "Tribute to Sparky" paintings partly to exhibit them and partly to hang in the second bedroom in Ponte Vedra Beach, used by our two Jacksonville grandkids when they come to stay. But everything on my walls is for sale, if someone makes the right offer, so I'm willing to auction these paintings. Let's start at $250 each for one or both. Best bid over that sum by November 1 claims the paintings. If someone wants to offer $1,000 each for one or both (total: $2,000) before August 1, you can claim the paintings right now. Otherwise, let the bidding begin. You can contact me at: halhigdon@home.com or by phone at 219/879-0133. No, the original Peanuts strip Sparky gave me is not for sale! AUCTION PRICED
THE CITY BEACHES: Acrylic on canvas; 2 feet by 3 feet; wraparound canvas with art and artist's signature on the side. This poster/painting was created as the signature painting for "The City Beaches" exhibit of my work at Michigan City Hall in January, 1999. It is a spoof of the well known 1925 poster by Urgelles titled "The Dunes Beaches By the South Shore Line" featuring a flapper in bathing suit sitting on the beach. My take was to replace the flapper with Wonder Woman and place in the background a variation of the Nipsco painting (with cooling tower) seen in the section on Cityscapes. This is an original acrylic painting, not a poster, although maybe some day I'll produce one. $750