Andrew Vickers Unwittingly Destroys Rare Comic Books to Make Papier Mache Sculpture

7/10/2013
"Oops: Andrew Vickers pictured with his sculpture called Paperboy which he created using £20,000 of comics."

"Oops: Andrew Vickers pictured with his sculpture called Paperboy which he created using £20,000 of comics."

As aspect of the digital revolution that continues to fascinate me is the very high prices paid for rare comic books, which were, incidentally, usually printed on poor quality paper, and read out of existence, so that even if their initial printing was large, their survival rate in fine condition is very low.  Nevertheless, not everyone appreciates their value. On July 10, 2013 www.web.orange.col.uk reported  that English artist Andew Vickers used discarded comic books to make a life-sized sculpture of a man that he called Paperboy.

"However, after the piece went on display at a gallery in Sheffield it was spotted by comic book expert Steve Eyre.

"It was while examining the piece that he realised the pasted sections were from classic Marvel Comics books.

"Indeed, one of the comics used was a rare 1963 first edition of The Avengers, a copy of which Mr Eyre also owns, worth around £10,000.

"It means that it would have been cheaper for Mr Vickers to create the sculpture out of Italian marble rather than the comic books.

"The artist says he never imagined the comics had any value when he retrived them from the skip and added: 'There's no point crying over spilt milk' (http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Artist_turned_rare_comics_into_papier_mache, accessed 07-11-2013).

Timeline Themes