1939 Action comics cover art sells for $286,800

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I like how the inexplicably-fedora’d submarine pilot gawping at Superman couldn’t possibly actually see him from that angle.

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And is that Cooper Black as the typeface for the word 'Superman?" Couldn’t have been very old at that time.

I showed up just to comment on the fedora.

Fedoras are overrated and last century.

So are everything else.

O, Comics, how I love thee and wish my former collection were with me still, but they are not, and I appear to be bereft because of theft, and actually, I am.

Fuckin’ doucheitalism.

Cooper Black dates back to 1922, so it was fairly common by the time this cover was drawn. I am pretty sure the “No. 15” and “AUGUST 1939” type at top is not original, as it looks to be set in Impact, which wasn’t drawn until the mid 60s.

More propaganda?

Fuckin’ doucheitalisms.

Now that you mention it, those two bits of text are uniform white where the rest of the page is mottled, faded tan. Hmmm…

I found a gallery of Action Comics covers. It looks like this was only the fifth cover solely dedicated to Superman.

Oh my God, this guy:

Brown jacket, blue-and-white-striped shirt, red bow tie, green fedora. He looks like a Dick Tracy villain, except instead of his head being deformed, it’s his wardrobe. No wonder he was forced to turn to a life of crime–he’d clearly never find acceptance in civilized society.

So did any of these have actual, like, plots? The covers at least all suggest one of those terrible, terrible Stardust the Super Wizard plots which go like “bad guys plot evil plan, chortle maniacally, superhero shows up and utterly pwns them with no difficulty whatsoever, The End.”

I don’s understand “collectible world” anymore. I’m a car enthusiast so I basically understand why some rare car might valuable. A rare car just cannot be reproduced so that nobody could identify from the original. But an original cover art?

I’m not a cover art enthusiast but I guess there are those too. I understand that an unique cover art is basically same as an unique car when regarded as a collectible item. But still I cannot understand why someone would pay such an amount.

I’m also a classic car enthusiast, but playing devil’s advocate (or my fiancee) often people can’t comprehend why an old car might be worth $1M.

A new car is better in every technical aspect than some old 50’s technology that is slow, unreliable, high-maintenance and uncomfortable.

Yet, people will pay multiple millions for one. My 2012 Jetta is more comfortable and cheaper to drive than my '69 Torino, yet I still own and drive it all the time.

I was curious if there was any trace of color that could be amplified to suggest the original colorings. Took a screenshot into Photoshop, LAB color space, ramped up the A and B channels and discovered the shark outline in the lower left. You can see the outline in the original, but I did not notice it until making the mod. The image I’m showing contains only the A and B channels (the colors), the L channel (luminance) is turned off to allow the shark to be more easily seen.

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