An original story page from a 1967 Asterix adventure has sold for $206,250 at Heritage Auctions, outdrawing even the debut of Spider-Man. The page, drawn by Albert Uderzo for Astérix Légionnaire #10 and featuring Asterix the Gaul, was offered in Heritage's International Comic Art Signature Auction in Dallas on 24-25 October, where it attracted the kind of attention usually reserved for the most famous American comics.

The result stood out even within a strong sale. Two more Uderzo pages from the same auction also reached six figures, a 1972 piece at $187,500 and another 1967 page at $106,250, while original artwork featuring Iron Man, Batman and Star Wars characters all sold for less than half the price of most of the Asterix pieces. The comparison that caught the eye was with Amazing Stories #15, the 1962 debut of Spider-Man, which the top Asterix page is reported to have beaten.

Asterix first appeared in print in 1959, written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Uderzo, introducing a Gaulish village that resists Julius Caesar's armies with the help of a magic potion. The series went on to span more than 40 volumes and sell over 393 million copies, making it one of the biggest-selling comic series in the world, and by 1967 new Asterix books were selling more than a million copies within days of publication.

Uderzo took over the writing as well as the drawing after Goscinny's death in 1977, and continued until 2009, retiring from Asterix illustration in 2011 before his death in 2020. Original artwork from the series rarely reaches the market, since most of it remains in institutional collections or with the artist's estate, which is part of why the Dallas result drew notice. The sale underlines how far European comic art has moved into the top tier of the collectibles market, ahead of some of the most celebrated American superhero material.