DALLAS – Charles Burns’ original art that graced the front of 1982’s Raw No. 4, an unsettling black and white die-cut piece meant to reveal bits of Burns’ second color cover behind it, drew 30 bids and soared past estimates to sell for $87,500, finishing as the top lot in Heritage Auctions’ March 13-14 International Comic & Animation Art event. Long before Black Hole, and Iggy Pop and MTV and Coca-Cola came calling, Burns made his bones as one of the earliest contributors to Raw, Art Spiegelman and wife Francoise Mouly’s international comics anthology. That short-lived publication – of which there were only 11 issues published between 1980 and 1991 – unearthed unheard-of underground American and European (and African and Spanish-language) sensations on their way to mainstream success, among them Ben Katchor, Gary Panter, Lynda Barry, Kaz, Bill Griffith, Chris Ware, even Alan Moore.

Watch for a more comprehensive sale review in a future issue.