APNewsBreak: Superman's debut sells for $1M

NEW YORK – A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman has sold for $1 million, smashing a record set just last year.

The issue sold Monday morning is a 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1, widely considered the Holy Grail of comic books. It features Superman lifting a car on its cover and originally cost 10 cents.

It was sold by a private seller to a private buyer, neither of whom released their names. The sale was conducted by the auction site ComicConnect.com.

The previous comic book record was set last year when $317,000 was paid for the same Action Comics No. 1 issue. This copy fetched a much higher price because it's in better condition.

NEW YORK (AFP) – Superman became the 1.5 million dollar man Monday, when a rare copy of the first comic to feature the superhero smashed all previous auction records for a comic book.

The 1938 copy of Action Comics, in which Superman debuted, easily bested the 1.075 million dollars record set at auction in February for a comic book giving Batman's first outing, online auctioneers ComicConnect.com said.

The same issue of Superman's Action Comics debut sold for one million dollars in February, but that was not in as good condition as the copy sold Monday, said ComicConnect.com.

Back in 1938 the Superman comic, boasting a cover picture of the red-caped hero lifting a green car, cost just 10 cents.

"This new record will be hard to break," said ComicConnect.com co-owner Vincent Zurzolo, "because this particular Action Comics Number One is literally the single most valuable comic book on the planet."

Incredibly, the comic book's existence was unknown for 50 years as it lay unnoticed tucked inside an old movie magazine, ComicConnect.com said.

"One minute, no one knew it existed. The next minute, everyone was dying to own it," Stepher Fishler, founder of ComicConnect said.

In 1973, at a Con in Dallas, Texas, I watched as Harlan Ellison tried vainly to auction off a copy of Action #1 for $85. Eighty-five bucks, and nobody took it!

Superman Comic Saves Family From Foreclosure!
by Tom Gordon III

Three times over the last six months, an old, 10 cent comic book has sold for $1 million or more. And that has a whole bunch of people frantically rummaging through their attics and basements, treasure hunting.

However, the biggest recent find—in the basement of a home on the verge of foreclosure—wasn’t the result of a methodical hunt, but rather “a very happy accident,” says New York’s Stephen Fishler, co-owner of ComicConnect.com and Metropolis Collectibles, the world’s largest vintage comic book dealer.

Fishler and his business partner, Vincent Zurzolo, will be displaying their new find at Comic-Con in San Diego. They already brokered two of the three record-breaking sales, including the unprecedented $1.5 million sale of an Action Comic #1, the legendary comic that introduced Superman to the world. That particular copy was unearthed in true, buried-treasure style, hidden in a stack of old movie magazines.

The newly discovered comic is also an Action Comic #1, and it’s also in very good condition. But in this case, Superman really did save the day.

The comic was found by a couple facing eviction from the home that had been in their family since the 1950s. After her father passed away, his daughter and her family moved in. To pay off some business expenses, they took out a second mortgage, but once the recession hit, they couldn’t make the payments.

The bank began foreclosure proceedings, and tearfully, they started packing. When, low and behold, in the basement, they found some old comic books, including a well-preserved Action Comic #1. Online research led them to ComicConnect.com, and the rest is the stuff of fairy tales.

Although it hasn’t yet been graded, Fishler guarantees that the comic, to be auctioned after Comic-Con, will bring in more than enough to pay off the mortgage. (Of course, the bank didn’t believe this real-life fairytale until Fishler personally confirmed it. Now, the foreclosure is on hold.)