bluechip

Okay, would you choose this -- for $4400? Or this -- for $4300? Depending on your choice, you could be governor. The back has a little color touch (tattoo), but the interior is very supple and off-white to creme-colored. Can I see a scan of the back first? The back has a little color touch (tattoo) but the interior is very supple (off-white to creme-colored)

Okay, would you choose this -- for $4400? Or this -- for $4300? Depending on your choice, you could be governor.

Me too! Hey, let me know if you want to sell your #15 cover separately. I hear that's all the rage these days... Hey, I've got a front cover only. Actually, it's just the superman figure cut from an action 15. I figure that's worth even more than just the front cover. (less being more)

Not sure if I am doing this right but here is a link to my CAF page. We'll see how web-savvy I am. http://cafurl.com?i=7401

Thanks for posting these. Early Archies are extraorindarily undeervalued,compared to other esoteric books. With the early Peps especially, you have great art,stories, pretty women,superheroes, humor, funny animals and WW 2 era nostalgia -- all still selling for tiny percentages of books that have much less going for them, and which outside the hobby would not be recognized,let alone understood,by even a small fraction of one percent of the people who would know about Archie and gang.

I'd love to see some inside pages of this. Does Elie Wiesel get the full hero treatment?

Great cover. A while back I had a chance to buy the original art.

WOW never seen this page before , , which title/issue is it from ? That's from FF1.... Cool piece! Do you think it's actually from 1961, or do you think it is a stat that might have been used to do one of the many reprints of FF1 at some point since the original art may not have been available? of course you can never know for sure unless you were there but what I understand is that this piece came from a collection of 1960s Marvel production art once owned by Marvel staffer. Since the only part of FF1 reprinted by marvel in the 1960s was the origin story, it would indicate this was used in 1961. Marvel stats were apparently used to reprint the golden record reprint, as well as the Lancer books in 1966, but those were altered during the process (cut up as in the case of the Lancer books), and I would expect any copies of those to be in the hands of golden records or lancer instead of Marvel. Aside from the above, I have also checked some of the marvel reprints from the 70s onward and found that alterations were made to the pages -- to darken lines which were apparently considered too light in the original. That was not done here. Marvl and other publishers made a number of copies of pages for inner office use, including publishing, approval, etc. But this and the other accompanying pages I've seen were pasted up on larger boards -- much like other marvel production art I've seen from the period. All of which leads me to believe these were not only made directly from the original art in 1961 but most likely used in printing the original book as well. Of course, as mentioned above, no matter what an original owner says or how reliable you think they may be, you can never swear on a stack of bibles as to how something was used unless you were actually there. They could have lied and gone to an awful lot of trouble to fake it, along with the other pieces they had. But the money they got for it wouldn't have been worth the trouble and would have been far better spent in some other way. So it measures up about as well as anything like it reasonably can.

Here's a unique FFitem, a production stat page from 1961. Since nobody knows where the actual original art went from that issue, this is the next best thing. A first generation stat used in the production. A few of these pages turned some years ago, I was told, in the possession of a former Marvel staffer, along with other material that would not have been easy to fake (and some that would not have been worth the trouble). I have compared them to other production art from the period, and am convinced they are the real thing.

I have to agree (and was just going to post the same thing). Very, very tough book in grade - and difficult to find at all unrestored - but oh man that price range just makes me cringe. I'm perfectly happy with the A-Man 6 (which does retell our hero's origin...) STEVE C'mon Steve ... you know you want it. C'mon Ryan. That book is screaming out to you....BUY ME...BUY ME. I see that Comiclinks Unrestored 5.5 Superman # 1 is in the Heritage auction. I will talk out both sides of my mouth here and say it still surprises me and sometimes shocks me when I see an obscure book with an obscure character gor go for something like 75K and even more. It feels as if people who love all comics equally feel that just because an action 1 is worth six or even seven figures then other unknown books should be, too, which feels to me a bit like saying a mint book on gardening that happens to be rare and old should go for the same as a first edition steinbeck. Just doesn't make sense. But then maybe some die-hard book lovers feel that way and we just never hear about it. So folloiwng that train, no, if there is even one copy of action 1 considered to be worth less than 75K, then there's no way that any copy of amazing man 5 is worth 75K no matter what condition. Now, to reverse my tone completely, I will say it is extremely rare and because it actually predates the publication of Marvel Comics 1, it is arguably the first newsstand Marvel superhero comic. Therefore, IF a mile high Wambi the Junhle Boy is worth hundreds and IF any copy Dagar, Tiop-Notch, what have you is worth five figures and IF any copy of Tough Kid Squad or pre-hero More Fun or New Adventure is worth mid five figures or even more -- THEN a 9.4 copy of Amazing Man 5 may well be worth 75K.

According to Bob B. a little while ago, he stated that: "Real Life Comics 27 (Jan, Nedor) Science Comics #1 (Jan) (above two tied for the first A-Bomb explosion cover?)" Both of the books are dated Jan 1946 - If I had my pick, it'd be Science Comics # 1. P.S.: The bottom of Science Comics got cropped. It reads: "The Exciting Story of the Atomic Bomb" Thanks. I think the Science 1 gets the prize for having an actual mushroom cloud. I had both those issues already but didn't know if there was an earlier one, or if the publication dates were consistent. (sometimes a february and january appear on the stands at the same time -- in November)

Just curious. Does anybody know what is the actual first atomic bomb explosion cover (with the mushroom cloud and all?)

I think this is only one of numerous pencilled covers out there which have inked punlished counterparts. I wish I'd bought to ASM 201 when the pencilled version came available. Only later, when I saw the finished cover, did I realize it was not a a prelim but romita's finished pencils that were lightboxed. I would not be surprised if such covers end up rising in value as people become more aware. And, hey, while I may have some pencilled covers, I also have some inked pages that may also have been lightboxed, so it cuts both ways. FYI, if the prelims are the first stage and the published version is the ifnal stage, there are apparently several stages in-between that may need to be classified as production techniques evolve. Those stages include additional prelims, rough unfinished covers, and completely finished but unused covers that were abandoned for another take, Some of those can be very interesting, esxpecially if you're interested in seeing a peek into the creative process. Here is an example of a prelim -- or perhaps it is a "concept" piece -- and the final of a classic Superman cover by Curt Swan. While it seems very similar at a glance, if you look closer there are subtle style changes indicating the two may have been done years apart from one another. In notes on the page (which are hard to read in the scan) Swan writes to the editor that in this "original version" he did things differently (different from what is not not clear, since the differences he refers to are all reflected in the final version), and there is a little picture at the bottom indicating in the "original" version superman was holding a globe of the world with the Americas front and center.

Intesting thoughts. Myself I would say a cover is a prelim when it's a rough version that is not meant to be the final. In the case of the one I've listed (and others I've seen, like the ASM 201, it's clearly the pencils that were used to make the final cover. The lines are precisely the same , as much as if -- if not more so -- than it would be if the inker had gone over the actual pencils on the same paper. Prelims are where you test out ideas and rough the images. And a prelim supposes that an additional finished version will be created. That is different from a finished pencil piece that was clearly lightboxed for the final.

The best indicator would be that there is a separate pencilled page. Some would say that a lightboxed page would be lacking in pencils underneath, but so are some pages that once had pencils that were simply erased very well. I think if the original pencils are completely gone it may not matter that much if there once were pencils on the page. So in that case it would be interchangeable with a lightboxed page because essentially the inker did the same thing in both cases. BUT -- if you have an inked published page that was lightboxed and you know the original pencils are out there, it would have to give you pause about whether your inked page is worth as much it would be if that were not the case. I have a page that someone suggested might have been lightboxed and it made me wonder if the original pencils were going to show up someday and outclass my inked page. While on topic, I am going to upload an example I posted in another thread because it illustrates the question here. I have seen the inked published page of Spider-man 201 sell for a decent price even though it was clearly lightboxed. I know because I later saw the original pencils on a separate sheet. The original pencils by Romita failed to sell at auction even though thre reserve was less than the cover which was lightboxed by someone else of lesser stature. Proving, I suppose there will always be some cachet attached to the fact something was the actual art used in the printing process. Makes me wonder if more value might accrue to production art pieces a/o to covers that are made largely or even entirely of production stats. Anyway, here for your perusal is a pair of pics from a spider-man cover, one the original pencils by Romita and the other the published cover, which was injked by someone else and undoutedly is out there in the OA market somewhere. I don't have a picture of the inked art itself, so you'll have to imagine it from the published cover. Which iwould be greater value to you?

what shuster auction>

chips out of edges of GA books were often caused by the way street vendors displayed magazines in the 30s and 40s. They had clip holders all along the kiosk and would line the entire thing with comics held in those clips. When they would take down the display copy it would often be damaged in that spot. If you look at newsstand kiosks today you';ll see some of them still doing this but usually not with comics.

This is in the character as fish cover category. Second only to the Batman Barracuda cover.

I have heard Jerry speak of this book, too. He seemed to enjoy doing it very much and was disappointed that the publisher ran out of money while they were drawing issue 3. I guess the sales were decent but the publisher just couldn't keep going.

My first Mile High purchase I am not one to seek out pedigrees generally but this book is hard to find in nice shape and underrated and undervalued. Made just a few months after we learned we'd actually discovered a real method (and not just a mythical one) in which mankind could destroy itself in a matter of days.... comics embraced it as a new way to create superhero origins.

Here's a new addition. This one looks like a more obscure addition to an "atomic" collection but it fits in the anti-commie realm as well because it's foreign mad scientist is clearly modelled after Nikita Kruschev -- who was well known at the time, 1950, even though he would not take over the USSR until he finally managed to kill Stalin a few years later. Story ends up with the weapon overloading and causing an atomic explosion. kir Durango throws the weapon into a pool of quick sand saying he just hopes we never develop something like this again in the future.

"America's No. 1 Family" -- HAW! 'Bones, maybe you can paint a parody, "Elsie Borden took an axe" -- crazed Elsie approaching bound hubbie Elmer, with the classic meat-cutting chart drawn on him. (Did you know that they have 3 kids -- calves, that is -- Beauregard, Larabee and Lobelia?) "Fantastic Brain Destroyers" could be the slogan of this thread. Jack I don't know where the Zip cover came from. As for Elsie... I did flip througth the story when I got this, but I did not recall the names of the hamburgers-in-waiting.