Action Comics #1, considered to be the first superhero comic, was published in April 1938 (although the cover date is June) by National Allied Publications, a corporate predecessor of DC Comics.
The issue was an anthology of comics, but featured the first appearance of the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster creation Superman. The inside front cover had a house ad for a Color-Page Contest which required contestants to color a black-and-white page and mail it in to enter. Unfortunately for collectors, the page that the contestants had to tear out of the book was on the back of the last page of the Superman story.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were paid $10 per page, for a total of $130 for their work on this issue.
The first issue had a print run of 200,000 copies of the 68 page comic.
There are only about 100 copies of Action Comics # 1 believed to be in existence, and only a handful are in collectible condition.
John Dolmayan, owner of Torpedo Comics and the drummer for System of a Down paid $317,000 for an Action Comics #1. Others have sold for more than $400,000.
An un-restored issue graded Very Fine – 8.0 was put for sale today and within minutes was sold for $1,000,000.
The fact that this book is completely un-restored and still has an 8.0 grade, it’s kind of like a diamond or a precious stone. It’s very rare, Dolmayan said.
