Heritage Auction Galleries is offering “The Zoltan M. Szenics” collection in its Nov. 13-15 Comic and Comic Art auction, in Dallas, Texas.

Zoltan Szenics and his wife Theresa were both artists and letterers who worked in the comic book industry beginning in the formative years of the 1930s, including employment at the renowned Eisner & Iger Studio and DC Comics, among others. During this early period Szenics became close to various luminaries, particularly Lou Fine and Gill Fox, acquiring examples of friends and collaborators’ work at a time when comic art was routinely destroyed by publishers after publication or casually discarded by the creators themselves.

Lou Fine’s over-the-top patriotic covers for World War II-themed National Comics must count among the most exciting comic art finds of recent history. Also included in the collection are more magnificent pages by the great Fine, classic early All-Flash splash pages, original Archie strip artwork from the first six months of the feature, and astonishing pre-Spirit art by the legendary Will Eisner. That this collection survived at all is miraculous given the way the art was treated seven decades ago, but to surface with such a singular provenance is exceptional. The very fact that the collection includes such blue-chip examples truly makes this a landmark event.

Lou Fine National Comics #5, Uncle Sam Cover Original Art (Quality, 1940).
Lou Fine National Comics #9, Uncle Sam Cover Original Art (Quality, 1941).
Lou Fine National Comics #11 Uncle Sam Cover Original Art (Quality, 1941).
Lou Fine (as E. Lectron) Smash Comics #21, The Ray page 7 Original Art (Quality, 1941).
Will Eisner and Dan Zolnerowich Smash Comics #14, Espionage Half-Page 1 Original Art (Quality, 1940).
Harry Tschida All-Flash #7 “The House of Horrors” Flash Splash Page 1 Original Art (DC, 1942).
Bob Montana Archie Daily Comic Strip Original Art, dated 7-12-46 (McClure Newspaper Syndicate, 1946).

Auction info www.HA.com

Posted: 10|15|08 at 3:03 pm. Filed under: US News.