Superman Saves Couple From Foreclosure
ABC News is reporting that an American couple in the South, who have asked to remain anonymous, discovered a copy of Action #1 while clearing out their home in preparation for a foreclosure sale.
It’s not clear if the couple immediately knew what that had. They did have the presence of mind to contact an expert, Stephen Fishler, who brokered the record-breaking $1.5 million sale of a copy in March of this year.
Action #1, featuring the first appearance of Superman, is perhaps the most valuable comic in existence, and certainly one of the rarest. It appeared in June 1938, and while millions of copies were printed, only a handful are known to still exist in good condition.
The comic was part of a stash of old magazines and old comics the couple found as they were searching for boxes in the basement and preparing to move. Although Fishler reports he was initially dubious, he quickly became convinced when the couple texted him a photo. He took the comic to the San Diego Comic-con in July for a valuation.
The comic was appraised at “Very Good” (5/10 on the strict comic grading scale), which is exceptionally high for a 72 year-old comic. It is expected to net $250,000 or more when it goes up for auction through ComicConnect on August 27th.
As for the couple, ABC News reports that Fishler had to make a series of calls to the bank to convince them to hold off on the foreclosure while the auction goes forward.
Reports that a house down the street that discovered two dozen copies of Youngblood #1 in the basement was immediately bulldozed, have not yet been confirmed.
From his first appearance in print in the pages of The Story-Teller in October 1912, Sax Rohmer’s criminal mastermind, Dr. Fu Manchu took the world by storm. While Rohmer would complete three novels featuring the character between 1912 and 1917, the Devil Doctor would extend his domain to include film and comics in the fourteen years before Rohmer bowed to commercial demand and revived the series.
Al Williamson, one of the finest science fiction artists of all time, died yesterday in New York City.
After reading the 
I am going to semi-repeat myself in my next two Black Gate posts, going over graphic novel versions of material that I’ve discussed over the past few months.
The comic book superhero was born in the late 1930s, during the time when the dominant form of popular culture reading was the pulp magazine. During the next decade, the pulps would start their slow demise: wartime paper shortages that forced the publishers to cut back on the more risky material to focus on the steady sellers, the paperback influx competed on the genre scene and were popular with soldiers overseas, and the rise of the comic book took away much of the younger readers. That the comic book should play such a large part in the end of the pulp magazine industry is an ironic reversal, since the hero pulps fueled the creation of those first four-color superheroes. No Batman without the Shadow. No Superman without Doc Savage.
Before he became a regular artist for Black Gate, Bernie Mireault was already something of a Renaissance man in the comics industry. He’s been a writer, artist, letterer, and highly acclaimed colorist, and worked with Matt Wagner (Grendel), Joe Matt, Mike Allred, and many others. His comics include Dr. Robot, Bug-eyed Monster, The Blair Witch Chronicles, and his masterpiece, The Jam.
I say “first meeting that we know of” because Bernie and I were born in the exact same (and very small) place — a Canadian Air Force base in Marville, France — only a few years apart in the early 60s. Did we pass briefly as toddlers in the officer’s mess, and maybe compare our love for cartoons and comics while our fathers saluted each other over trays of french bread and beans? Probably not. But hey, man. It’s possible.