A NEAR-flawless edition of the first comic book featuring Superman, dating back to June 1938, has fetched $3.2-million (about R34-million) at auction, according to eBay.
A NEAR-flawless edition of the first comic book featuring Superman, dating back to June 1938, has fetched $3.2-million (about R34-million) at auction, according to eBay.
The price for Action Comics No 1 set a new record for a single comic book.
The vintage work's seller, Darren Adams, a collector in Washington, US, described it as possibly the "best copy in existence" - the "Holy Grail" of comic books.
Superman's birth in Action Comics is seen widely as kick-starting the multi billion-dollar worldwide comic book superhero phenomenon.
Only 50 to 100 copies of the comic book are believed to still exist, most of them in considerably worse condition. Adams's copy received a nine out of 10 grade, according to independent grader Certified Guaranty Company.
In 2011, another nine-grade copy of the comic book - with faded white pages instead of pristine white ones like Adams's - sold for a then-record $2.1-million.
The buyer, Stephen Fishler of a company that sells vintage comics and memorabilia, has not ruled out reselling it at some point.
But Superman is not the subject of the world's most expensive cartoon art.
A 1937 two-page spread of Tintin, by Belgian artist Hergé, sold this May for $3.58-million, a record in a market in which some prices have risen tenfold in the past 12 years. - AFP
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