Rare copy of first Superman comic book fetches $3.2 mil at auction

Rare copy of first Superman comic book fetches $3.2 mil at auction

Yeah, that's a lot of money.  I guess.  I've always daydreamed about finding a mint copy of Action Comics #1 in the attic or basement.  Actually, where I find it is the least important part of the daydream.  The having it is the main thing.  Comic book dealers Stephen Fishler and Vincent Zurzolo found their copy in an eBay auction, but they had to pay for it.  Paying for it was never part of my daydreams.  Before the auction, the comic resided comfortably in a cedar chest in West Virginia where it was protected from wear, tear, sunlight and moths.  Comic book-eating moths.  Some of the $3.2 million goes to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which adds a further bit of niceness to this tale.

We're not yet certain how Fishler and Zurzolo will handle their joint ownership.  Early reports suggest Fishler will have the comic Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while Zurzolo will have it Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  For Sundays, possession will be determined by a random number generator.  Zurzolo will take digits 1 through 5 and Fishler will take 6 through 10.  In the unlikely event of a zero, possession will be determined by a rock, paper, scissors competition, best three out of five.

I just bought some old Superman comics for .99 each

Yeah, digital at Comixology.  They're running a Superman sale which I'm sure has a lot to do with a certain Time-Warner flick that's coming out this summer.  Or has already come out; I'm in Japan and our release schedule is different here.  For whatever reason-- call me foolish, call me irresponsible-- but it occurs to me I bought nothing but Action Comics.  Action Comics #1 (I'm relieved I didn't have to pay $175,000 for it, although I could have afforded it quite easily) plus one by Curt Swan and several by John Byrne.

It's fashionable these days to mock Byrne, but I won't hear a bad word said against Curt Swan.  And once I get some time to read these comics, I'm going to spend a little time exploring them here while giving Byrne a fair shake.  I don't mean the kind of shake a shark gives its prey.  I mean a truly fair reading of the four comics I bought, although that's surely too small a sample size to make any kind of accurate assessment of what he accomplished.

I may clown around a lot here but this is a pro-Superman blog.  I've got an incredibly expensive Hot Toys figure of Christopher Reeve back home to prove it.  Superman and Babe Ruth.  That's all I ever think about.

$175,000 buys you a soiled Action Comics #1

If you're the person or people who bid on it, that is.  That Action Comics #1 we talked about a few weeks ago-- the one found in wall insulation-- sold for a nice $175,000.  Not too shabby.  Who wouldn't love to come across one of these key comics in a trunk in an attic or inside a the stomach tiger shark you're cutting open hoping to find the Kintner kid so you can reopen the beaches and salvage the summer?

My mom was born a couple of years before Action Comics #1 hit the newsstands of a grateful nation in need of distraction from the bad news in Europe and the economic travails of the Great Depression.  Keep in mind they didn't have Facebook and Twitter for the endless self-aggrandizement of incredibly boring idiots.  There were no Kardashians.  Even Amanda Bynes had yet to walk the earth.  So what did people do back then besides listen to Little Orphan Annie on the radio or sit around waiting for the Kardasians and Amanda Bynes to arrive?

Well, I don't know.  But it probably had something to do with Action Comics #1 because even banged-up copies sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.  That's how important they are.

Anyway, my mom grew up in a world where Superman existed (when my dad was born in 1929, there was no such thing-- imagine that!), but she wasn't much into comic books.  She read real books from an early age.  A precocious reader of real prose, mostly involving the Bobbsey Twins.  Her best friend, however, did read comics and she kept them all.  On one of our visits to her hometown (Kings Mountain, NC), my mom told me about her friend's collection.  They had been born too late to have the first issues of Action or Detective Comics, but there was a small chance she'd owned Batman #1, which came out in 1940 when they were both four years old.  A very small chance.  In my mind, this morphed into a vivid image of all the most desirable issues in early comics history lined up on a shelf in a sunlit room, each book in mint condition.

I may have drooled a little at the thought.  I tell you this because I definitely am right now as I picture it again.

Action Comics #1: When Superman was tough

Joe Shuster, Action Comics #1 (June 1938)

Yeah, Superman was a pugnacious dude when he first appeared in Action Comics #1 (June 1938).  While artist Joe Shuster gave him a mature, beefy look even in his circus tights, writer Jerry Siegel provided the Man of Steel with an aggressive, roughneck personality.  Superman is a good guy, but he isn't playing around.  He manhandles butlers and wife-beaters with equal aplomb.  But you know who else is tough in Action Comics #1?

Joe Shuster, Action Comics #1 (June 1938)

Lois Lane!  The Daily Star's star reporter takes no guff from anyone, gangsters included.