FLY
ING HIGH: Superman, in an Action Comics #1 from 1938, sold for a record $1 million and a Batman from 1939, sold for more than a million.By Michael Cavna
Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, February 27, 2010
Even through his shaded glasses, Tim Burton clearly was wide-eyed.
The director who once begat a new legion of "Batman" fans was motioning toward the crowd at San Diego Comic-Con as he said, "I can't believe just how big it's gotten." He was referring not just to the physical size of the most recent convention, but also to the existential sense of this comics world itself: The scene shone a white-hot Bat light on just how massive comics have become as a financial force.
Comics can flex such monetary muscle, even the insiders sometimes flinch. This week, it happened again, at the hands of Superman and Burton's beloved Batman.
The comics world delivered a symbolic one-two punch when the Man of Steel and, just three days later, the Caped Crusader fetched record-setting million-dollar prices at comic-book sales.
Holy Sotheby's, Batman. Suddenly, by tripling the record sale price, comics as a collectible were being mentioned in the same breath as gemstones and paintings. The twin sales garnered headlines and Google searches worldwide. And all the while, longtime comics scholars and non-geeks alike mouthed the question with dropped jaws:
Why are people suddenly paying seven-figures for comic books? (Comic books that retailed for 10 cents when they hit the stalls, by the way, and even just a few decades ago sold for $100.)
Yes, these are extremely rare, "very fine"-condition comics that are freighted with history: Superman debuted in Action Comics No. 1 issue from 1938 (record price Monday: $1 million) and "The Batman" first swooped into a comic book in the Detective Comics No. 27 issue from 1939 (new-record price Thursday: $1,075,500). But really? One. million. dollars? (The previous record was $317,000.)
The full story at The Washington Post online.
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