José Delbo, an artist who illustrated the comic book series Wonder Woman during the late 1970s, has made $1.85 million in an auction selling non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, depicting the popular heroine.
The 87-year-old Argentian, who also worked on Batman, Transformers, and The Beatles' Yellow Submarine comic book, collaborated with Milan-based crypto art duo Hackatao to produce the NFT drop, dubbed "Heroines."
In total, 914 individual NFTs were auctioned, with the tokens each featuring one of seven illustrations or animated gifs depicting Wonder Woman in scenes invoking themes relating to the empowerment of women.
The tokens auctioned included two one-of-a-kind editions, four "open limited editions" — where an unlimited amount of NFTs can be minted only while the auction is ongoing, and one edition for which no more than 10 copies could be sold.
The most expensive piece sold was “Heroines - Weight of the World,” an animated gif that illustrates Wonder Woman holding the world against a backdrop invoking themes of empowerment. The bidder “888” got their hands on the piece for a total of 88.888 Ether, worth approximately $136,000.
The open edition, “Heroines - Stand Out” , spanned 10 copies in total, with two being reserved for the artists, seven given away to raffle winners. The last remaining copy was auctioned for 15 Ether, or roughly $23,000. All proceeds from the sale were donated to Girls Who Code, an organization that works to closi the gender gap in the tech industry.
“Heroines - Shine Bright” was the highest performing open limited edition, with a total of 151 copies selling for a combined total of $450,000.
José Delbo illustrated the Wonder Woman comics between 1976-1981 and is no stranger to the crypto world, holding a week-long exhibition of his comic book art in the Ethereum-based virtual reality world Decentraland during July 2020.
Comic book characters are increasing in popularity in the crypto art markets, with Marvel officially launching a Spiderman NFT that sold for $25,000 in February of this year.