The TinTin comics are a worldwide phenomenon. Just look at the international receipts for Steven Spielberg’s TinTin movie. The film only did in $78million in America, but took in $297million internationally. That’s almost four times as much overseas than in the States.

Is it any wonder then that the rarest of rare TinTin originals took in a staggering 1.6million dollars in auction this weekend? According to Comic Riffs, the cover art to TinTin in America is only one of five surviving original cover pieces by Herge. This auction broke the record for most expensive comic art piece by almost $700,000.

The current record for most expensive comic book auction is $2.16million for an original Action Comics (Superman’s debut) last November. The older the medium gets, the more attention these originals will receive.

It doesn’t hurt that comics are central in the pop culture zeitgeist right now. The Avengers just passed The Dark Knight to be the third highest grossing film of all time. Marvel announced the wedding of two gay X-Men and DC announced that the current Green Lantern is gay.

Everything old is new again and TinTin visiting the Old West is now a million dollar property.

What comic art would you want for your collection? I could go for some X-Men The Dark Phoenix Saga original boards, myself. What about you? Sound off below.