Blistering barnacles! Two-page Tintin comic strip fetches $1.7 million in Sotheby's auction

[caption id="attachment_2482628" align="alignleft" width="380"] Tintin comics. Image from IBNlive.[/caption]Brussels: A double-page Tintin comic strip by the renowned Belgian cartoonist Herge has fetched a record 1.56 million euros ($1.72 million) at an auction, a media report said.The sale on October 24 by auction house Sotheby's in Paris saw 65 original items from the biggest names in European and American cartoons go under the hammer, Xinhua reported on Sunday.The items belonged to Belgium's biggest comic strip collector Jean-Arnold SchoofsThe auction raised a total of 2.7 million euros ($2.97 million), with five lots breaking world records.The double-page from Herge's Tintin and the Spectre of Ottokar, published in Le Petit Vingtieme in 1939, had a guide price of up to 800,000 euros ($881,400) but was sold for almost double that amount after a bidding war between four potential buyers.An Andre Franquin "Spirou et Fantasio" comic strip from the album "Les Pirates du Silence" sold for 243,000 euros.Two items by Edgar P. Jacobs fetched 62,500 and 147,000 euros.IANS