50 YEARS OF COMIC BOOK ART
A Gallery of Heroes, Up for Sale
By George Gene Gustines
Published: November 16, 2009, New York Times

Joe Kubert, a comic book artist since 1938, has little interest in the accumulated work of his last seven decades; his focus is on new projects, he said recently. But comic book fans who feel differently about this celebrated illustrator will have a chance to peruse and even own some of that older work this week, when 18 covers and interior pages, published from the 1940s to 1990, are put up for sale.

Pic left - Joe Kubert Collection Librado Romero/The New York Times
A large detail of the original art by Joe Kubert for the cover of “The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told.”

Mr. Kubert, 83, has turned over a large trove of his original work to Heritage Auctions in Dallas, which will hold the first of several auctions, live and online, on Friday.

“Joe’s obviously one of the very small handful of great artists that has worked in comics over the last 50-plus years,” said Todd Hignite, a consignment director for Heritage who specializes in original comic art. Mr. Hignite searched through Mr. Kubert’s home, business office and storage space in northern New Jersey to amass the selection.

For serious fans of the medium it’s a tantalizing collection, though Mr. Kubert himself seems more amused than anything.

“I have no undying love for any of the stuff,” he said during a recent interview at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, N.J., which he founded in 1976 and where he still teaches. “I’m constantly looking toward the next job.”

Mr. Kubert sat near a drawing board bearing pages from a superhero story for DC Comics that he is illustrating with his son Andy. On a conference table sat a galley of a graphic novel, “Dong Xoai, Vietnam 1965.” The book, based on a true story of an American Special Forces team and written and illustrated by Mr. Kubert, will be released by Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics, in May.
More at NYT.