Heritage Auctions will sell a page of original artwork by Alex Raymond (1909-1956) for the wildly popular Flash Gordon series in its February 23-25 comic auction in Dallas.

Bidding opens at $36,000.

The lot has been dated to October 27, 1935 and is from a long-running story titled At War With Ming!

Flash Gordon was first published in 1934 

It shows several main characters; including Ming the Merciless, Dr Zarkov and the eponymous Flash.

Flash Gordon was first published in 1934 and was originally created as a competitor to the Buck Rogers comic series.

It proved a huge influence on the development of the science-fiction genre - inspiring figures like George Lucas, who only wrote Star Wars after his bid to create a Flash Gordon movie was turned down.

It would finally be made into a cult movie in the 1980s, featuring a scenery-chewing turn from Brian Blessed.

In 2015, an Alex Raymond strip featuring Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim realised a record $155,350 at Heritage.

Bernie Wrightson’s original cover for Swamp Thing #6 (1973) will start at $32,000.

Wrightson co-created the character of Swamp Thing, an animate organism of plants and organic matter, with writer Len Wein in 1971.

It first appeared in House of Secrets #92 and got its own series a year later.

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