Comics Lowdown: ‘Charley’s War’ original art soars at auction

Plus: Dilraj Mann’s cover for ‘Island’ #15 examined, Mike Richardson, Gilbert Hernandez, ‘The Mundane Kid’ and more.

Auction Action: A piece of original art by Joe Colquhoun from the British comic Charley’s War fetched an unexpected price of £1,320 at auction, soaring past the pre-sale estimate of £250-300. A lot of three consecutive pages, plus a cover layout, went for £2,450, triple the pre-sale estimate. Some other original art as well as vintage comics also did better than expected at the Compalcomics auction. Charley’s War, a World War I action comic written by Pat Mills, is enjoying something of a revival; Titan is publishing a collected edition, and some of the original art is currently on display at the Tank Museum in Bovington, UK.

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Smash Pages Q&A: ‘Benny and Penny’ creator Geoffrey Hayes

Brigid Alverson shares a previously unpublished interview with the creator, who passed away last weekend.

Geoffrey Hayes, the creator of TOON Books’ Benny and Penny series, died last weekend at the age of 69. I met him just once, at the American Library Association midsummer meeting in 2010.

I was actually a longtime fan of his work, because my children loved his Otto and Uncle Tooth picture books. Geoffrey came to comics fairly late, after an artistic dry spell—Francoise Mouly somehow knew to call him and have him create the Benny and Penny comics for TOON Books. But he had always lived a creative life; while I was doing research to write an appreciation, I ran across this essay in which he talks about how he and his brother, Rory Hayes (who was known as an underground cartoonist) spent their childhood creating stories together.

When I heard about Geoffrey’s death, I went through my files looking for a photo of him, and I was surprised to find an interview that I had done in 2010 but never published anywhere. So here it is, seven years later. As delightful as it was to relive that moment, I was also saddened when I got to the end, where he talks about the graphic novel he was working on. That book, Lovo and the Firewolf, was to be his magnum opus, and Fantagraphics was going to publish it next year. His death leaves it incomplete.

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