Another comic book illustration has topped the million dollar mark, with a Tintin drawing by Georges Remi, pen name Hergé, fetching HK $9.6 million ($1.2 million) at Artcurial’s first Hong Kong auction.

The page is from Hergé’s 1936 comic The Blue Lotus, in which Tintin and his faithful dog, Snowy, take a trip to Shanghai.

“‘The Blue Lotus’ is considered by specialists as the masterpiece album of Hergé,” Eric Leroy, Artcurial’s comic strip expert, told AFP. “It was also unusual to talk about China in the thirties in Europe.”

HERGÉ Georges REMI dit
1907 – 1983
PAGES DE GARDE BLEU FONCÉ
Courtesy Artcurial.

According to Artcurial, the rest of the book’s original drawings are owned by museums, making this the only example in a private collection. It was reportedly purchased by an anonymous Asian buyer.

The record for comic book art was set by another Tintin drawing, auctioned by Artcurial this past May for an impressive €2,519,000 ($3,434,908). The two page spread featured a number of drawings of the boy detective and Snowy, including one where Tintin is wearing a warm fur coat, an outfit that never appeared in Hergé’s finished comics.

Hergé’s “Tintin et L’etoile Mysterieuse” (Tintin And The Shooting Star) that sold for €2.5 million. Photo: Courtesy of Moulinsart.

Hergé comics are consistently among the top lots at comic book auctions. At the 2014 Brussels Antiques and Art Fair, Shooting Star, the cover image for the 1942 comic Tintin and the Shooting Star, sold for €2.5 million ($2,854,250).

The beloved comic series has also made headlines for copyright issues, as a Dutch court recently found that Hergé’s heirs do not actually have the rights to his iconic characters. The artist’s family’s company, Moulinsart SA, has tightly controlled reproduction rights for Tintin artwork for decades.