It’s pretty unfortunate that sometimes people get their hands on valuable things and turn them into kitschy creations, but that is just what happened with $30,000 worth of comics magazines that were turned into a horrible looking paper mache sculpture.
Andrew Vickers is the “artist” who made this “masterpiece” out of comics magazines that he found in a dumpster. Besides valuable comic books, Andrew used chicken wire to put Paperboy together.
Comic book store owner Steve Eyre described the reaction he had after first seeing the sculpture: “First of all I thought ‘Fantastic’ as, visually, it is a beautiful thing, but then as I walked round it, certainly on the inside right leg, there was a cover of Avengers number one. I’ve got a copy of that, which was published in 1963, that is worth well over £10,000. Then I started looking and there are six comics on this that together would be worth, even in the condition you can see, £20,000.”
To anyone who is not familiar with the current exchange rates, the value of these vintage comic books is somewhere around $46,000. I bet that many collectors of comics magazines are scratching their eyes in disbelief right now.
In his defense, Andrew Vickers stated: “If somebody chucks things out in the skip they don’t generally throw things out that are worth anything. 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.”
It’s great to hear that money doesn’t mean much to Andrew, since the survival of pretty much everyone else depends on it. Even leaving the financial aspect aside, the person who collected the comic books Andrew ended up using for his “piece of art” must have invested a lot of time, not to mention the sentimental value such a collection must have had. After all, these were from 50 years ago.
I will simply assume that the person who threw them away had no idea how much these magazines are worth. Unfortunately, they were found by an equally unaware guy in the person of Andrew Vickers. I’m not sure what will happen to this sculpture, but I wish Andrew was forbidden to go anywhere near comic books.
If you liked this post, please check these paintings of 3D toys coming out of comic books and these 9 comic books we wished existed.
