Original artwork made for pulp magazines, classic books, calendars and horror covers brought strong prices at Heritage Auctions on 29 October, with three artist records helping push the Illustration Art Signature Auction to $2.6 million. The 366-lot sale drew 1,577 bidders from around the world and finished with a 99.5% sell-through rate.

Laurence Herndon led the three new records. His painting The Land of Hidden Men, made for the May 1931 cover of Blue Book to illustrate an Edgar Rice Burroughs story, sold for $52,500. It came from the collection of noted pulp art collector Robert Lesser and appeared in the Brooklyn Museum's 2003 exhibition Pulp Art: Vamps, Villains and Victors. Robert A. Graef set a record when his Maza of the Moon, painted for the 21 December 1929 issue of Argosy, realised $32,500. Charles Wesley Copeland completed the trio with Miss Society by Day "Any Bed Dolly" by Night, an interior illustration for the May 1960 issue of MEN magazine, which sold for $19,375.

The highest price of the sale went to Frank Earle Schoonover. His 1917 painting Where is the Key, Sola? sold for $175,000. Made for the first book edition of Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, it came from the collection of Burroughs collector and historian Robert Barrett. Vintage pin-up art also delivered a six-figure result: Gil Elvgren's Rare Edition, also known as Hold Everything, a 1962 illustration made for a Brown & Bigelow calendar, sold for $118,750.

Fantasy collectors pushed another familiar image well into five figures. Greg and Tim Hildebrandt's Cirith Ungol, painted for the official 1977 J.R.R. Tolkien calendar, realised $68,750. Don Brautigam's original cover painting for Stephen King's Skeleton Crew, consigned directly from the artist's estate, sold for $13,750, the highest auction price yet paid for a book cover by Brautigam. Heritage's director of illustration art, Sarahjane Blum, said the sale was strong across the board, with deep bidding running from early pulp covers to fantasy imagery.