Near-mint copy of infamous Nazi torture bondage comic book cover (1944) estimated to fetch $200k at auction

[frauenfelder]

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/27/near-mint-copy-of-infamous-naz.html

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[Spiderling]

When I was a kid my dad showed me a Shock Suspenstories reprint (originally published in the early '50s). Most the stories were silly gory fun, but there was one anti-red scare comic about a parade to honor military veterans that was powerful stuff.

[anon24181555]

The ad on the back cover!

[Brainspore]

@frauenfelder

This is the type of comic book that led to the moral panic resulting in a senate hearing on the rampant sexual perversion and violence in comics and the collapse of the comic book publishing industry, as chronicled in David Hadju’s excellent book, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America.

One of the rules imposed by the Comic Code Authority in the wake of this panic banned so-called “Illicit sex relations as well as sexual abnormalities,” which for decades was interpreted to mean “no depictions of interracial relationships or homosexuality allowed.”

So in at least one sense the Nazi Klansmen won that fight.

[GulliverFoyle]

Wow! Check it out. Steve Bannon had washboard abs back then!

[RickMycroft]

“In almost mint condition. Some pages are a bit sticky.”

[Mister44]

Man, back when I started collecting Action #1 and Detective #26 were the only two to command $100k. Now several books do.

9.2 is an amazing condition for the age. That guy who started Mile High Comics by gobbling up some huge, rare collections early on is like a comic nerds dream.

[markfrauenfelder]

I was working at Mile High Comics when Chuck Rozanski bought the Edgar Church Collection. I was 16. Exciting times.

[Mister44]

Daaaammmmmnnn - lucky you! I have only got too handle directly maybe a few dozen books older than the 60s.

[euansmith]

The combination of the back cover ad and the inside front cover add shows everything that a young man needs to know

[Richard_Kirk]

Why are they selling now? Is the market demand for this sort of thing peaking? Or are canned food and ammo a better investment these days?

[codinghorror]

Wow that’s awesome Mark! Talk about being in the right place at the right time… someone ought to edit your Wikipedia bio to include this incredible moment.

I’m still reading the long fascinating tale of the Church collection… I sure do remember all the Mile High comics ads in the comics I read in the late 70s and 80s.