GUEST: Well, in the mid-'80s, I lived in Los Angeles, and I worked with Matt Groening and his girlfriend, Deborah Caplan, marketing his first cartoon strip called "Life in Hell."
APPRAISER: Wow.
GUEST: And we, um, published books and had merchandise that we marketed.
APPRAISER: Well, this is very early on, obviously.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: This is pre-"The Simpsons" that we all were introduced to on "The Tracey Ullman Show," that then went on for decades and decades. "The Simpsons" continues today, but it's, I think, one of the most famous cartoon characters at this point-- the entire Simpsons family. And it's wonderful that you were kind of a part of the very beginning of, of his story.
GUEST: It was very exciting.
APPRAISER: Well, I guess the main piece I want to talk about here is the "Life in Hell." This is the first issue of his self-created comic book.
GUEST: I think it is. I moved to Texas after I had worked with him. And so years later, I was looking through my things, and I found that. And I looked at the date, and it said, "1977, number one." I think that is his original first issue.
APPRAISER: And he signed it for you here.
GUEST: And he signed it for me.
APPRAISER: Which is really cool. And then the other pieces we have are actually original pieces of artwork that he also signed and dated.
GUEST: When I had my baby, that was a card that Deborah brought to my baby shower that Matt had done especially for me.
APPRAISER: Very cool. Well, they're obviously very to you because you had a personal relationship with the family. So looking at the market for them and what they might sell for today, we have to kind of take apart all of the personal connection. And if they were on the market, it's a kind of a developing market. Obviously, he's hugely popular, but the show is still running, so things continue to go up in price. Right now, sketches of his routinely sell in the $300 to $500 range at auction, However, these are particularly early. So the original artworks that you have here on either side, I would say are more in the $600 to $800 range, if not more, at auction. And for insurance, I wouldn't put anything less than at least $1,000 to $1,500 apiece on them.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: For the original comic, it's difficult because there are very few that have come up for sale.
GUEST: I haven't seen them at all.
APPRAISER: They're, they're rare-- he didn't make that many. He was making them himself. They're, they're Xeroxed copies, but he did sign it. Some of them that we've found that are later issues sell in the $100 range. So this one being the first, it's really difficult to say. I think being conservative, we'd say at least $200 to $300 at auction. But who knows what would happen on the day? Because so few have ever come up, and he signed it, which is really great.
GUEST: All right, thank you.
APPRAISER: Thank you.
