This isn’t news for the faint-hearted. An artist from Sheffield has mistakenly used around £20,000 worth of comics on a sculpture. (Altogether now: ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”)
Andrew Vickers created his Paperboy sculpture using comics that he found in a skip, unknowing that he was about to use rare comics including a first edition of The Avengers as papier-mâché.
The discovery was made by Steve Eyre, owner of World of Superheroes in Sheffield upon a visit to an exhibition at the S1 Artspace also in Sheffield. Mr Eyre spotted the cover of the first edition of The Avengers on the statue’s inside right leg before noticing that there were also other valuable comics covering the art piece.
Mr Eyre is reported as saying “I’ve got a copy of [The Avengers], which was published in 1963, worth over £10,000. Then I started looking and there are six comics on this that together would be worth, even in the edition you can see, £20,000.”
The artist, Andrew Vickers, was surprised but didn’t quite share the pain that I’m sure many comic fans may feel upon this news. “To be honest I’m shocked but money has not got such a value to me. I think it is funny. I really love the idea of me creating something out of such expensive things that’s worth less. I think it’s brilliant.”
The exhibition called ‘Heroes’, which was organised by World of Superheroes, is in the S1 Artspace until the 11th July. So, go quickly if you want to mourn the loss of such sought after comics but I think I’ll just shed a few tears in private.