Anti-Communist Comic Books Are A Collector's Find

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Feb 19th 2011 at 2:01PM

When discussing comic books on this website I've mainly mentioned superheroes but that's not the only type of rare comic book that does well at auction. Heritage Auctions' upcoming Vintage Comics and Comic Art auctions feature another shadowy section of the comic book world. The sales include a large selection of esoteric comic books from the collection of Pennsylvania collector Todd Warren. Mr. Warren's collection delves into an intriguing subset of the comic book world, anti-communist comic books.

Blood Is The Harvest, shown at right, is from 1950, and shows a Red Army firing squad on the cover aiming their guns at blindfolded peasants. This comic is a rare book. According to Steve Borock, Consignment Director at Heritage supposedly only 13 copies exist. The auction also includes If The Devil Would Talk, another rare one with only 80 existing copies and The Red Iceberg, with a cover that shows a giant red iceberg (representing communism's spread) with an Uncle Sam figure in a rowboat. Other comics from Mr. Warren's collection include similar themes with titles such as How Stalin Hopes We Will Destroy America, Is This Tomorrow, Double Talk, and Two Faces of Communism. "These are a real time capsule of the Cold War days, from the time period when comics were considered one of the more effective ways to reach a mass audience," Borock said. A same grade copy of Blood Is The Harvest last sold at Heritage for over $3,000 back in 2003. This one should do at least as well.

Tags: Anti-communist, Comic Books, Heritage Auctions, Rare Comic Books