Who Is Comic Art & Graffix Gallery
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Comic Art & Graffix Gallery
was founded in 1986 by comic art collector and dealer Richard Halegua. Born in
New York City, Rich started collecting comic books in 1961, at the tender age
of five years old. When he was nine, so that he could afford to buy comics for
his collection, he began selling comic books, movie posters & other
collectibles to his friends. For some books he got as much as $5.00 !!!!
Then in 1967, high school teacher
Phil Seuling sponsored the first major comic book convention in New York.
Called the Comic Art Convention, there were tables and tables full of golden
age and silver age comics, big little books, newspaper strips, pin-ups, movie
posters and original artwork. There were also great guests like Hal Foster and
others.
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| the items above
are all original artwork, including art by Al Feldstein, Alex Raymond, Wayne
Boring, Frank Frazetta, Russ Heath, Rolf Armstrong, Joe Jusko, Hal Foster,
Berni Wrightson, Burne Hogarth, Dick Calkins, Phil Davis, Walt Kelly, Kurt
Schaffenberger, Vaughn Bode, E.C. Segar, H.J. Ward, Basil Wolverton and others.
They are just a small number of 1000's of originals I have sold or collected
over the years. |
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By the time Rich was 18 he had
become a full time comic & collectable dealer in everything from comics to
movie posters to baseball cards, monster mags, rock & roll posters and
related stuff. He began dealing in Original Comic Book & Comic Strip Art,
Pulp Cover Paintings & Pin-Up Art a few years later. |
Click the image to see a cool video
spot about this website from a CNN broadcast in 1998 |
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During the middle eighties he
was part of a crew of dealers who found large amounts of collectables,
including finding the old warehouses of comics publishers Fawcett and Standard.
In these warehouses were everything from comics, pulps, premiums, artwork,
movie magazines, etcetera, etcetera. In the interim he had moved out of NYC and
relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he opened an art gallery in 1986 and
called it, you guessed it, Comic Art & Graffix Gallery.
Over the next several years he
became the pre-eminent dealer of classic original comic art from 1890-1970,
buying and selling thousands of pieces of art by such artists as Hal Foster,
Joe Shuster, Jack Kirby, Alex Raymond, Frank Frazetta, Berni Wrightson, Steve
Ditko, George Herriman and loads of others. He became known as a major
collector of classic strips and in particular a major collector of silver age
DC comic art and covers, acquiring many choice pieces including the Joe Kubert
"Hawkman" cover to Brave & Bold #36, the Hawkman splash page to Brave &
Bold #34 , several Carmine Infantino "Flash Covers" and many other great
pieces. |
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Beginning in 1991 Rich was asked by
several different magazine publishers to write articles on comic artwork which
were published in a wide assortment of titles. His writing has appeared in
Collectors Showcase, Original Art Collector, Comics Buyers Guide, Inside
Comics, Wizard Magazine & others. Many of these articles are available
online in his web resource " Comic Art & Graffix Gallery Virtual Museum
& Encyclopedia" where you can read biographies of artists & writers and
also about the history of comics. You can find the link for it below
More recently Rich has become heavily
involved in buying-selling-trading Movie Posters & Movie Memorabilia and
has from 100-300 or more movie items listed for auction each week on both
MoviePosterBid.com
& ComicBidZ.com as well
as from this website.
In 1993, Rich moved to Las Vegas,
Nevada and has been there ever since enjoying the sunny playground city.
It sure has changed here in the 10 years since I took up residence & the
change is even more dramitic since the first time I came here in 1976 but what
stays the same I ask?? |
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What I Collect & What I
WANT |
- Comic Books and Related
items
- Original Comic Book & Comic Strip
Art
- Pulp, Paperback & Magazine Cover
Paintings
- EC, DC & Marvel Comic
Art
- Golden Age & Silver Age Comic
Art
- Newspaper Libraries
1885-1960
- Big Little Books & other
Whitmans
- Baseball & Non-Sports
Cards
- Pulps & Magazines & Paperback
books
- Movie Posters, Lobby Cards Stills &
more
- Collectible Toys, Tin Toys, Robots
etc
- Movie Magazines 1900-1960
- Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett &
Spillane
- Hardcover Photoplay Editions
- Pin-Up Paintings by Elvgren, Mozert,
Armstrong
- Foreign Movie Posters
- Art by Herriman, Segar, Frazetta, Raymond,
Foster, Lou Fine, Ditko, Kirby, Byrne, Eisner
- All Kinds of Collectibles...one item or
THOUSANDS...
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