Pop Sequentialism: The Art of Comics

01 Jul Pop Sequentialism: The Art of Comics

July 5–29, 2018

The original modern superhero survey exhibition returns! Featuring award-winning collaborations from the greatest artists and writers of the modern era…

Few art forms have gone as unchanged and disrespected for as long as sequential art, and yet none has had as tremendous an impact as the superhero comic book. Veritable templates for inspiration, comic book superheroes are the post-modern mythology, inspiring generations of global youth while reflecting the society that spawned them. More than just dynamic illustrations on a page, the comic book is a medium that tells stories, and Pop Sequentialism celebrates the collaborations of the greatest storytellers while evidencing the importance of this art form.

When the first Pop Sequentialism exhibition opened in 2011, the record price for a piece of comic book art had barely exceeded six figures, but in subsequent years single pages of important, original comic art routinely fetch more than half a million dollars each. And new records are set almost quarterly, with the current record being $3.5 million for a set of Tin Tin endpaper illustrations. But pages from the same era as those in this show have realized hammer prices of over $650,000 and one could argue that Frank Quitely‘s or John Cassaday‘s scarce splash pages and Steve McNiven‘s preliminary cover sketches are already more significant than a Todd McFarlane Spiderman cover. Many of the other incredible artworks in this show have inspired iconic, cinematic moments in films that have grossed billions of dollars, which should put them on the shortlist to potential record-setting pricing as well.

Collectors of sequential production art have been privy to the biggest bargain in contemporary art for decades, making it all but impossible to organize a gallery sale of the absolute best, but this show features a couple dozen important examples of modern comic book art from multiple, award-winning writers and artists, and there isn’t a single piece priced above four figures. This presents a golden point of entry for patrons looking to diversify their Pop-Art collections with some of the most exciting creations from the pride of the genre.

For a printed record of the original exhibition, you can purchase the Pop Sequentialism Catalog.

You can purchase all the available artworks from the Pop Sequentialism collection via our secure shopping cart at www.popsequentialism.com. Call gallery director Matt Kennedy to make other purchase or payment arrangements: (323)547-3227 or info@gallery30south.com

Also on display in this exhibition is a Jerry Robinson preliminary Batman page from the late 1930s that may be actual evidence of his role in creating the Joker.

This controversial artwork, which has been discussed on several episodes of Kevin Smith‘s Fatman on Batman as well as the History of the Batman podcast and elsewhere, features a combination of graphite and ink panels that tell the origin of Robin, and feature the gangsters that killed The Flying Graysons answering to a clown, they refer to as “Boss.” This clown does not appear in the published Robin origin story, and the harlequin fits the bill of Robinson’s description of his original Joker idea, as relayed through the years and for which he was never credited. Any interpretation of this unpublished art has undeniable consequence for the Batman cannon, and its mere existence would seem to point to a connection between the origins of the two most important support characters in the Batman mythos, regardless of how those origins were realized differently in the published comic. Preliminary art from the early Golden Age are extremely rare, as they were generally erased and reused, or donated to WWII paper drives, so the survival of such a page (and the inking of some, but not all panels) is significant.

This double-sided page of unpublished, preliminary art is not for sale, but is being displayed ahead of a documentary film project and an auction which could predict a record-setting hammer price for original comic book art of any era.

Click here to buy the original Pop Sequentialism catalog signed by author, Matt Kennedy.

Purchase Inquiries

Matt Kennedy
Gallery Director
323 547 3227
info@gallery30south.com