But Bookshelf can confirm that it’s not the highest price ever paid for a comic book, an honour that goes to Action Comics No. 1 with Superman on the cover, which went for $US1.5 million. But ComicConnect.com chief executive Stephen Fishler says the price paid is the most for a book from the mid-1950s to about 1970. “The fact that a 1962 comic has sold for $1.1 million is a bit of a record-shattering event,” he said. “That something that recent can sell for that much and be that valuable is awe-inspiring.”
Usually, it has been comics from the late 1930s to the early 50s – that draw seven-figure sums. In March 2010, a copy of the 1938 edition of Action Comics No.1 sold for $US1.5 million ($A1.49 million) on ComicConnect’s website. That issue features the debut of Superman and originally sold for 10 US cents. In February 2010, Heritage Auctions in Dallas sold a rare copy of Detective Comics No.27, which featured the debut of Batman, for $US1,075,500. Fishler said the same issue had initially sold for just $US2500 in 1985 and for $US140,000 in 2000.
“Over the last decade it has become a rather legendary copy because it was in the hands of a collector and no one thought he would sell,” Fishler said. “The owner came up with a figure that he didn’t think anyone would pay, and it was paid.”
“Amazing Fantasy” No.15 has long been prized by collectors because of Spider-Man’s debut. It has been reprinted and made available as a hard-cover, too. The cover, drawn by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, shows Spider-Man clutching a villain in one arm and swinging from his web with the other. It originally sold for 12 cents.
Writer Stan Lee and Ditko co-created the web-slinger and his alter ego, the awkward but educationally gifted Peter Parker, who was bitten by a radioactive spider. “Spider-Man is one of Marvel’s flagship characters so, yeah, I’d say ‘Amazing Fantasy’ is very important,” said Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso. It also helped pave the way for Spider-Man adventures on the radio, television and the movie screen.