TORONTO -- An Ontario man who collected comics as a kid has moved away from the books and into some of the rare -- and highly valuable -- original drawings.

Jeff Singh of Mississauga, Ont. collects original comic drawings from famous artists. These works were typically discarded after they were printed for the masses, but those that remain carry some serious value.

In November, an original cover of a Batman comic sold for US$600,000 at auction, while an original Tintin cover drawing sold for $1.12 million last June.

The walls of Singh’s basement are filled with about 200 of these original drawings encased in frames, while hundreds of others are kept encased in plastic for protection.

The works span from hand-drawn Peanuts comics from cartoonist Charles Schulz, to original Garfield sketches from illustrator Jim Davis, to modern superhero comic drawings.

Singh said the originals can be easy to detect because of their flaws.

“You can see the white-out, you can see tape stains, glue stains,” he told CTV News as he pointed to an original Veronica comic.

Singh collected comic books as a teenager, but in his adult years, he shifted to the original drawings that he discovered for sale on eBay and other sites.

"I bought one kind of as a novelty,” he said. “Then it was two, then it was 10, then it was 100, then it was 1,000. It just grows very quickly."

While most of Singh’s collectables are only worth $10 or $20, he does own an original drawing from comic book writer Frank Miller, best known for his work in the Batman series, that’s worth approximately $50,000.

"It's a work of love," he said.