Action Comics #1 - Sales figures and more

As you know here at Comic Book Hunters and Gatherers we are big fans of the history an overall importance on Action Comics #1, just read all our past blogs in Stories of Action Comics #1.

We haven't posted much recently as our team has been doing some reach into the early history of Action Comics #1. Much has been written in regards to Siegel and Shuster trying to sell their idea and the development of Superman. Not much has been written about the actual original sale of Action Comics #1. Yes we all know it started the superhero comic book genre. We also know it had an initial print run of 202,000 copies. The rest of this blog will contain facts you may not know.

The publishers, Jack Liebowitz and Harry Donenfeld, of Action Comics #1 thought they might have something special on their hands so they printed 20,000 promotional poster to be hung on newsstands, in pharmacies and anywhere else the comic might be sold.

House Ad for Action Comics #1

Liebowitz and Donenfeld also pre-arranged for Action Comics #1 to stay on shelfs for six weeks instead of the standard four weeks.
After the issue went on sale the publishers wanted to get a feel for how the issue was selling so rhey provided retailers with a postcard  where they could record the sales fifteen days and then again at the end of the month. Although this wasn't the mat accurate way it did give a snap shot of the sales figures and the figures were GOOD!

Siegel and Shuster, Liebowitz and Donenfeld were all right they did have a hit on their hands. Of the 220,000 copies that were printed 130,000 copies had sold, that's 64% of the print run. Anything over 50% was considered both a success and made a profit.

Following the success of Action Comics #1 Liebowitz and Donenfeld wanted to verify what they already knew, that being that people were buying Action Comics to read about Superman. So in issue  #4 they put in a short survey asking readers to put their five favorite stories in order. 75% put Superman first (404 of 542) with an additional 11% put him second (59).  

The rest as they have said for many years is history. 

In upcoming blogs we will look at the sales figures of other early issues of Action Comics, you know Superman wasn't on every cover back then.

Hope you enjoyed.

Another Action Comics #1 Sells at Auction

As part of their November auction, Heritage Auction House sold another copy of Action Comics #1, the historic first appearance of Superman. This copy was graded CGC GD/VG 3.0, with Cream to off-white pages. 
As we have discussed as part of our "Stories of Action Comics #1", with the increased prices realized through recent auctions more copies of Action Comics #1 are bound to pop up.
Here is a good example, this 3.0 copy sold for $310,700. Lower grades are what most collectors are interested in as they are more affordable then the high grades. Well at least they are now.

If you happen to see any copies drop us an email, we would love hearing from you. Farleyclan003@yahoo.com

Good Luck on Your Hunt!

Superman #1 - Is it Fourth Most Important Comic?

We recently wrote about Batman #1 and how many believe that it is the fourth most valuable comic. The first three are easy,  Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27 , and Amazing Fantasy #15. Since the Batmen #1 post we have heard from some of our readers about their vote for which comic should be the fourth. ( you can always reach us via email Farleyclan003@yahoo.com.)

Superman #1 came up the most so this addition of "Who's in Fourth?" will be about this iconic Golden Age issue. 

Superman was, as we all know, the first superhero introduced in Action Comics #1. His stories in Action Comics were so popular, regularly selling out a million copies a month, that DC comics, then National Publication, thought it would be a good idea for Superman to have his own title. It is important to note that until Superman #1 hit newsstands no comic title contained the stories of only one character. Titles were basically anthologies of different characters, Superman #1 changed all that.  

Superman #1 appeared on the shelves in the summer of 1939. Superman #1 was written by Robert JerrySiegel   with art by Joe Shuster, the team that created Super for Action Comics.  Superman now became the first superhero to appear in two separate comics each month and both Action Comics and Superman were selling of a million copies a month by 1940. 

It's Value
Superman #1 is valued at $550,000 in mint condition. A CGC 7.0 recently sold for $37,000. This ground breaking issue is highly sought after by collectors and with the comic market increasing steadily its value should continue to increase.

Inside Superman #1

Superman origin as told in Action Comics #1 is retold in Superman #1 with some additional panels not used in Action Comics. There are also stories reprinted from Action Comics #2, one in which Superman saves Lois from gangsters and another in which the two reporters take a trip to South America. There is also a story reprinted from Action Comics #3, Clark Kent disguises himself as a miner to check unsafe working conditions. Action Comics #4 also contributes a story, this one has Superman saving a College Football game.

Along with the five reprinted stories there are also four original stories in Superman #1. Clark Kent looks to get a job at the Daily Star and is turned down until he phones in a story about Superman stopping a lynching. Next, Superman convinces Bea Carroll, Superman first villain, to confess to the murder of Jack Kennedy. The issue also explains Superman's amazing Strength which is attributed to Earth's lighter gravity.

Page from Superman #1

If you have the means this is one of the comics that should be in your collection, if your like me just seeing one would be worth it. But is it worth being the fourth most important comic in history? You tell us, who should be number four and why? Comment below or email us Farleyclan003@yahoo.com

Good Luck in Your Hunt!
#jointhehunt

Action Comics #1 - Ashcan edition

Okay first off many of you may be asking, what the hell is an Ashcan? Back in Golden Age of Comics, companies would have to create a faux comic in order to get the name of the title licensed with the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). The publisher would create the title logo and place it on a piece of cover art, so they would own the trademark rights to the logo. This cover would be affixed to an existing comic book interior or just random pages. This was accepted as an authentic comic and the title rights were secured. There were a couple of these ashcans created for each title, afterwards they were usually thrown away. 

The Action Comics #1 Ashcan was created in 1938 to garner the rights to the title Action Comics.  Superman does not appear on the cover. if you recall from our   Stories of Action Comics #1, Superman was a last minute throw in.
 The Ashcan cover was a gruesome monster done by artist Craig Flessel. It was rare for Ashcans to use or initial cover art, usually recycled images were used. It is believed that only 3 Action Comics Ashcan copies exist, one is in the permanent archives of DC comics, while the other two are in the hands of private collectors. One recently sold for about $20,000.

Even just seeing an ashcan is a rarity, some come up for sale on occasion but that is rare. Keep on the look out for one as you never know where you might find a copy.

You can purchase a copy of the cover, along with Siegel and Shusters Slam Bradley art for only $35, check it out HERE

Good Luck on Your Hunt.
#jointhehunt

Action Comics #1 - McClure File Copy Superman Man of Tomorrow

Before Action Comics #1 contained e first appearance of Superman his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster pitched the character in a couple of different ways, first as a bald supervillian bent on world domination and second as The Superman a daily comic strip which was submitted to McClure news syndicate. 30 days worth of stripes were created. Back before comics became popular the money for artists and writers was in daily newspaper strips. McClure syndicate liked the strip so they used it to help sell Superman to virus papers across the country. This was all done before Action Comics #1 changed the world.

The story of this strips becomes even more historically importsnt whenyou realize that these strips were actually cut and used by DC to create Action Comics #1. Most collectors are not aware that in fact the story of Superman as told in Action Comics #1 was intended to be a daily newspaper strip.

So what is the MCClure file copy?  Well McClure syndicate created a book that they used to sell Superman to the various newspapers across the USA. All 30 Superman strips or a months worth of publication are contained within this book.

Salesmen would carry this book and show it to the newspaper men thus selling Superman before the comic strip went live, which was scheduled for January 16, 1939.

The strips contain the first origin of Superman. Action #1 had limited space so that origin was reduced to a few panels thus cutting it short. The book which is very rare, only a few in existence also contains Shusters cover art that would be used in Action Comics #7

These book sells for about $60,000 in mint condition when they actually come up for sale, which is rare.
There is currently one up for auction on eBay, check it out HERE, your chance to own a piece of history.

Please let us know how you like the "Stories of Action Comics #1"

Good luck on your hunt.

The Comic Book that started it all- Action Comics #1

Along with being a comic book hunter and gatherer, I also consider myself a comic book historian. I have been collecting for over 35 years and have also taught history classes base solely on comic books. Oh,that was a lot of fun.

I have always been interested in the stories of the characters history, their creators and the publishers who made them. One of my favorite stories from the comic book Golden age, is actually the comic book that itself started the Golden Age when it was released. That comic is Action Comics #1.

It has been considered the most valuable comic book, selling for as much as $2 million dollars, we will go into that in another post. It is the first appearance of arguably of the most recognizable super hero ever created, Superman. It literally changed the word by starting e superhero genre. Here is its story.

Published on April 18, 1938 (cover-dated June), by National Allied Publications, DC comics before they were DC comics (could never understand why they didn't name it Action Comics), it is considered by most to be the the first true superhero comic. Like most comics at the time Action comics was an anthology, which means it contained many different unrelated stories, one of them being Superman. The first issue of Action  Comics sold out of its initial print run of 200,000 copes. Sales would quickly approach 1,000,000 a month, in comparison the biggest selling comic of last few years was Walking Dead #100 it sold 335,000 copies. 

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were paid $10 per page, for a total of $130 for their work on this issue.It has been said that selecting Superman to run in Action Comics #1 was "pure accident" based on deadline pressure and that he selected a "thrilling" cover, depicting Superman lifting a car over his head. Prior to Action Comics #1 Siegel and Shuster had pitched Superman for a number of years.

Here is how Superman ended up in Action Comics:

Following the success of Detective Comics Jack Liebowitz, co-owner of National Publications, asked editor Vin Sullivan to create another comic book but he was on a the tight deadline. Sullivan decided to search through old inventory and stockpile pages but he needed a lead for the new title. Sullivan reached out to former coworker Sheldon Mayer for help. Mayer found the rejected Superman comic strips, and Sullivan told Siegel and Shuster that if they could paste them into 13 comic book pages, he would buy them. The rest, as they say, is history.

Seigel and Shuster rewrote and redrew the original pages they had to create the first page of Action Comics #1:

1. Baby Superman is sent to Earth by his scientist father in a "hastily-devised space ship" from "a distant planet" which "was destroyed by old age".
2. After the space ship lands on Earth, "a passing motorist, discovering the sleeping baby within, turned the child over to an orphanage".
3. The baby Superman lifts a large chair overhead with one hand, astounding the orphanage attendants with "his feats of strength".
4. When Superman (now named Clark Kent) reaches maturity, he discovers that he can leap 1/8 of a mile, hurdle 20-story buildings, "raise tremendous weights", outrun a train, and "that nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin".
5. Clark decides that "he must turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind, and so was created 'Superman', champion of the oppressed...."

Two new panels offering a "scientific explanation of Clark Kent's amazing strength" were added. The panels do not identify Superman's home planet by name or explain how he was named Clark Kent.

The next 12 pages showed Superman attempting to save an innocent woman about to be executed while delivering the real murderess, bound and gagged, and leaving her on the lawn of the state Governor's mansion after breaking through the door into his house with a signed confession; coming to the aid of a woman being beaten up by her husband, who faints when his knife shatters on Superman's skin; rescuing Lois Lane (who also debuts in this issue) from a gangster who abducted her after she rebuffed him at a nightclub (and after Clark had refused to stand up to him, earning Lois's ire) which leads to the cover scene with the car; and going to Washington D.C., instead of South America to "stir up news" as his editor wants, to investigate a Senator that he suspects is corrupt, and prompting a confession by leaping around high buildings with the terrified man, which leads into the next issue. All the while, Clark tries to keep Superman out of the papers. All this has become a story for the ages.

 

Current figures suggest that there are fewer then 100 copies still in existence. The highest graded version is 9.0 which sold for over $2,000,000, more on this copy and other copies in future posts.

I am personally on a search to just see a copy of Action Comics #1 in person as sadly I can not currently afford a copy.


Good luck on your hunt!
#jointhehunt

The Importance of New Fun Comics #1

New Fun #1

When comic books first started as inserts in the Sunday paper, they included reprints of  past comic strips no original material. As time passed they began including some original material but still mainly reprinting past works.

That all changed with the release of New Fun #1 in February 1935. Published by National Allied Publications New Fun was a tabloid-sized, 10-inch by 15-inch, 36-page magazine with a card-stock, non-glossy cover, it was an anthology of stories which ranged from humor to Western to adventure. The thing that set New Fun apart from all other comic books at the time is it contained all -original material, no reprinted content.

New Fun was edited by future Funnies, Inc. founder Lloyd Jacquet, it contained 33 original Stan-alone stories.  In a memo dated 1-11-35, editor Lloyd Jacquet wrote this statement: "New FUN - hot off the Daily Eagle press - goes on sale today coast-to-coast." That tells us when this issue went on sale, and was printed on the presses used by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper.

New Fun #6

It is important to note that New Fun went on for six issues, Issue #6 (Oct. 1935) played an important role in it brought the comic-book debuts of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the future creators of Superman, who began their careers with the musketeer swashbuckler "Henri Duval" and, under the pseudonyms "Leger and Reuths", the supernatural adventurer Doctor Occult.

The original cover price of New Fun #1 was a dime. If you can actually find one today it will cost you about $50,000, yes that is a five and five zeros. Issue #6 goes for about half that.

This is truly a piece of comic book history and worth a look if you actually are lucky enough to even see one. If you can purchase one, way to go!

I am currently hunting one down just to take a photo of it. I really enjoy the history of comics.

Enjoy your hunt!
#jointhehunt