Specialist examining a vintage comic with a jeweller’s loupe

The house

A dealer with a cottage and a climate-controlled rack.

demeritvivo started as a private collection that outgrew the spare room and then the barn. The name is a private joke that stuck. The work is not a joke: we buy slowly, describe in full, and keep the fire on the other side of the wall from the paper.

Why East Layton

Richmond and the Dales are a long way from the London auction rooms, which is the point. Collectors who make the drive tend to stay for an hour, not five minutes. The cottage gives us north light, a viewing table that is actually a table, and neighbours who do not mind a courier van on a Thursday.

The archive sits in a converted outbuilding with a hygrometer on the wall and no direct sun. Stock that is not on the public list still lives here — British weeklies in long boxes, a short American run in slabs, boards in solander boxes on the top rack.

2018 First public list
NY North Yorkshire
Honey-coloured sandstone gallery cottage in East Layton

The people who handle the stock

Two dealers and a conservator. We do not outsource the grading paragraph to a marketing desk.

Portrait of the principal dealer examining a comic

Principal dealer

Buys the pamphlets and weeklies, writes the catalogue sentences, and sits with visitors in the viewing room. Twenty years of UK marts before the cottage had a sign.

Dealer standing in the gallery aisle with a stack of issues

Objects and provenance

Handles statues, film-adjacent pieces, and the paperwork that must travel with them. Previously in museum registration; allergic to a story that cannot be footnoted.

Conservator photographing a slabbed comic

Paper conservator

Treats tears, failing tape, and rusty staples. Photographs every board and every slab. Will not press a book to chase a number.

What we collect for the house

British weeklies that never quite became canonical, artists who drew for two publishers and then went back to illustration, objects with a letter in the box. The house collection is not for sale; it keeps us honest about price.

What we will not buy

Stolen stock, recasts, and restored copies offered as raw. If a run has been through a notorious auction with a cloudy title, we wait until the title is clear.

Who we sell to

Private collectors in the UK first, then the rest of the world where export is lawful. We also place pieces with a small number of public collections when a board belongs in a reading room, not a spare bedroom.

Visit the cottage

Thursday to Saturday, by appointment. East Layton, Richmond DL11 7PW. Write to [email protected] and tell us what you want to see.

Make an appointment
Interior of the East Layton comic gallery