Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

As I understand it Winsor McCay was perhaps the most important comic strip artist of his time--his time being the first few decades of the 20th century.

APPRAISER

Quite early, right, absolutely. So we've got a hand-done illustration here which is really wonderful.

GUEST

The pen-and-ink original...Actually, it's in two pieces. I believe it's standard artist's board.

APPRAISER

Actually, you have three of them. We are just showing one today.

GUEST

Right, I have three complete comic strips. Two others like this one.

APPRAISER

And it's from Little Nemo in Slumberland which is probably thought to be his most famous strip.

GUEST

Right. Well, other than the comic strip I know that he was an important pioneer in the development of animated films. He created a character called Gertie the Dinosaur.

APPRAISER

Exactly. He was actually an actor himself. He was in vaudeville, and...but he started off, actually--you know, one of those stories where the parent didn't want him to be an artist and he was on the side working doing portraits in dime museums which were, they had, you know, the freak shows and the circuses. And then later in Chicago--where you're from--did, illustrated circus posters. So if you think of the freak shows and the circus posters and looking at this work, it makes a little bit of sense.

GUEST

It's perfect for this one particularly because this is supposed to be a zoo on Mars.

APPRAISER

The characters are just so much fun. And, uh, it's signed. If we look in the lower right-hand corner, "Winsor McCay." It's also inscribed. And I don't want to miss this. It's got the original label from the New York Herald and, of course, that was to show that it was actually published in the paper. It's dated 1909. How did you end up coming across these pieces by Winsor McCay? They're quite rare.

GUEST

When I was 20 years old I spent the summer working in a summer stock theater in rural New Hampshire, near Lake Sunapee. The playhouse was an old barn that had been converted into a theater. Now, the farm itself had once been the summer home of an early vaudeville and Broadway comedian named Billy Bevan, and that's the man to whom Winsor McCay has inscribed these.

APPRAISER

Well, that's terrific.

GUEST

One day I was poking around a storage shed in the barn and I found these pieces, not framed-- they were unprotected, loose-leaf--in a pile of other materials that included, uh, Billy Bevan's old Vaudeville arrangements.

APPRAISER

So he had left them there?

GUEST

He had left them there to rot. I went to the producer, the owner of the theater. I said, "I've found something I would like to purchase from you. I think it might be fairly valuable." He said, "Take whatever you want."

APPRAISER

Well, let me just tell you that, um, illustrative art has become very, very collectible and I would estimate your three to bring somewhere in the range of $25,000 to $35,000.

GUEST

That's a nice piece of change, Gary.

APPRAISER

Something nice to find in a barn.

GUEST

Yeah, yeah.