50 Fun Facts About Hard Comic Book

Action Comics #1 was cover-dated June 1938, but on what date that year was it actually published?

It was a 68-page anthology with eleven features; Superman took up only the first 13 pages. Roughly 100 copies are thought to survive.

What was the print run of Action Comics #1?

It sold out, but it took the publisher a while to work out that the Superman feature was why sales soon approached a million a month.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were paid $10 a page for the first Superman story. What was their total fee?

Contrary to legend, that fee was for the story, not the character; they signed the Superman copyright away for nothing in a separate March 1938 contract.

In what year did a single comic book first sell for $1 million at auction?

A CGC 9.0 copy then sold on eBay in 2014 for just over $3.2 million, the first single comic to clear $3 million.

Which publisher put out Captain Marvel Adventures, the Golden Age's best-selling superhero title?

Fawcett's hero outsold Superman, which is partly why DC sued. Dell's licensed Disney comics outsold all the superheroes anyway.

Captain America Comics #1, showing Cap punching Hitler, went on sale on what date?

That was a full year before Pearl Harbor. It sold nearly a million copies, and a copy fetched $3.12 million at Heritage Auctions in 2022.

Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), the first title from Timely, introduced Namor and which android hero?

Carl Burgos created the android Torch and Bill Everett created Namor. By 1951 the company was generally known as Atlas Comics.

Which psychiatrist's 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent helped trigger the Comics Code?

He argued Superman was fascistic and Wonder Woman's independence made her a lesbian. His research has since been widely disputed.

Which two words did the 1954 Comics Code forbid from appearing in any comic's title?

Publisher William Gaines believed the clause was aimed squarely at his EC titles. Vampires, ghouls and werewolves were banned outright.

Which two big publishers never displayed the Comics Code seal because licensors like Disney set stricter rules?

Distributors were the Code's real enforcers: without the seal, most wholesalers simply refused to carry a comic.

The publisher EC was founded by Max Gaines under what original name?

After his father died in a boating accident in 1947, William Gaines took over and renamed it Entertaining Comics, launching Tales from the Crypt and Mad.

Mad switched from comic book to magazine format with which issue in 1955?

The change was made to keep editor Harvey Kurtzman, and it also took Mad outside the Comics Code's reach. It published 550 regular issues by 2018.

Which comic is generally taken to mark the start of the Silver Age?

It introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash in October 1956, from editor Julius Schwartz, writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino.

Besides Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, which two heroes stayed in print from the Golden Age to the Silver Age?

They survived as back-up features in Adventure Comics. Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy came along for the ride.

Wolverine's first appearance was a single teaser panel in which comic?

His first full appearance came in the next issue. Len Wein wrote it, John Romita Sr. designed the costume and Herb Trimpe drew it.

Which uncredited writer came up with the Giant-Size X-Men #1 idea of Polaris hurling Krakoa into space?

Len Wein and Dave Cockrum got the credits. The 68-page issue reached newsstands in February 1975 and X-Men resumed with #94 that August.

Black Panther, the first Black superhero in mainstream American comics, debuted in which issue?

Lee and Kirby introduced T'Challa in July 1966. Christopher Priest's late-1990s run reframed Wakanda as a technological superpower.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World titles were published by DC between which years?

New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen introduced Darkseid.

Which 1985–86 DC series by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez collapsed the Multiverse into a single universe?

The Monitor had been seeded in The New Teen Titans in 1982. The 12-issue series killed off Barry Allen and the Earth-One Supergirl.

Alan Moore's original Watchmen pitch was built around characters DC had bought from which publisher?

Dick Giordano liked the proposal but did not want Blue Beetle and Captain Atom left dead or dysfunctional, so Moore created look-alikes instead.

Watchmen won a Hugo Award in 1988 in which category?

It was later the only graphic novel on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. Dave Gibbons used a nine-panel grid throughout.

Which colourist painted the watercolours for Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns?

The four issues used square binding, card-stock covers and glossy paper to show off the colour. Bruce Wayne is 55 and a decade retired.

Maus won a Pulitzer in 1992, but in what form did the board give it?

The committee sidestepped the question of whether a comic about mice and cats was fiction or history. Art Spiegelman first serialised it in Raw.

In Maus, Jews are mice and Germans are cats. Which nationality is drawn as pigs?

Spiegelman originally considered a strip about American racism with cats as Klansmen chasing African-American mice.

Superman #75, in which Doomsday kills Superman, sold how many copies?

It was the top seller of 1992. The whole storyline existed because a planned Lois-and-Clark wedding was postponed to line up with the TV series.

Which three artists broke Marvel sales records with Spider-Man #1, X-Force #1 and X-Men #1 before founding Image?

Image launched in 1992 as a home for creator-owned work. McFarlane and Lee resented not being paid when their art was reused on merchandise.

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman ran for how many issues, from 1989 to 1996?

Dream, or Morpheus, is one of the seven Endless. Editor Karen Berger picked Sam Kieth as the first artist.

Which 1954 Mick Anglo character did Alan Moore revive, later renamed Miracleman?

Moore's revival began in Warrior in 1982; Eclipse continued it under the new name in the US, and Marvel has held the licence since 2009.

Judge Dredd first appeared in which issue, or 'prog', of 2000 AD?

John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra created him in 1977. Editor Pat Mills had earlier planned a horror strip called Judge Dread, named after a ska singer.

Which cartoonist popularised the term 'graphic novel' with A Contract with God in 1978?

His newspaper-insert series The Spirit ran from 1940 to 1952. The industry's top awards were named for him and first given in 1988.

The Eisners and Harveys were both created in 1988 after which earlier prize was discontinued?

The Eisner ceremony has been held at San Diego Comic-Con every year since 1991 and now covers 32 categories.

Zap Comix, which premiered in 1968, was launched as a vehicle for which underground cartoonist?

Zap #1 carried the debut of the Keep on Truckin' image and Mr. Natural. Crumb also drew the cover of Big Brother and the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills.

Which 1895 New York World strip character gave a famous term for sensationalist journalism its name?

Richard F. Outcault's Mickey Dugan appeared in Hogan's Alley, and his word balloons shaped how later strips and comics used them.

Tintin first appeared on 10 January 1929 in which publication?

It was the youth supplement of the Catholic Brussels paper Le Vingtième Siècle. The first story sent Tintin to the Land of the Soviets.

Hergé's pen name comes from what?

Georges Remi's initials, said in French, give 'air-ZHAY'. His crisp 'ligne claire' style became a school of its own.

Asterix made his debut on 29 October 1959 in which Franco-Belgian magazine?

René Goscinny wrote and Albert Uderzo drew until Goscinny's death in 1977. Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad took over in 2013.

Osamu Tezuka, 'the god of manga', is often called the Japanese equivalent of which Western figure?

Disney films were his childhood obsession; he reportedly saw Bambi more than 80 times. He created Astro Boy, Black Jack and Phoenix.

One Piece holds a Guinness World Record for what?

Eiichiro Oda has serialised it in Weekly Shōnen Jump since July 1997, and it was the best-selling manga for 11 straight years from 2008.

Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis was originally published in four volumes by which French publisher?

It came out between 2000 and 2003 and follows her childhood in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution.

Hellboy first appeared in 1993 in which unlikely place?

Mike Mignola's half-demon files his horns down to stumps and carries the stone Right Hand of Doom. He was summoned to Earth by Nazi occultists.

Jeff Smith's Bone was serialised in how many issues between 1991 and 2004?

He mostly self-published through Cartoon Books, with a brief stint at Image. Scholastic's colour editions followed, and it won ten Eisners and eleven Harveys.

Robert Kirkman abruptly ended The Walking Dead comic in 2019 with which issue?

Tony Moore drew the first six issues and Charlie Adlard the rest. Image had published it since 2003.

Which prize did Kamala Khan's first collection, Ms. Marvel: No Normal, win?

She debuted in a background cameo in Captain Marvel #14 in 2013. Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona created her.

Which 1993 imprint founded by Dwayne McDuffie published Static and Icon through DC without DC editorial control?

An extensive 'bible' set out the Dakotaverse before a single issue shipped. DC kept only the right to decline material it objected to.

In what year did DC's parent company agree to add Bill Finger's name to Batman's 'created by' credit?

Bob Kane privately admitted Finger did 50 to 75 percent of the creative work but publicly called him a subcontractor for decades. Finger died in obscurity in 1974.

Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston is also credited with an early prototype of what?

He built it with his wife Elizabeth Holloway. Their partner Olive Byrne also shaped the character, and he wrote under the name Charles Moulton.

Who pencilled the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 after Stan Lee rejected Steve Ditko's version?

Lee had Kirby sketch the Spider-Man debut cover, which Ditko then inked.

In 2008 an anonymous donor gave the original 24 pages of Ditko art for Amazing Fantasy #15 to which institution?

The Library of Congress received the pages, which include Spider-Man's debut and three other stories.

Which Detective Comics #1 detective was created by Siegel and Shuster two years before Superman saw print?

Slam Bradley starred in the March 1937 anthology alongside Speed Saunders and the villain Ching Lung.

Batwoman was introduced in Detective Comics #233 (1956) partly to counter whose charges about Batman and Robin?

Editor Jack Schiff wanted a Batman 'family'; a female character was chosen first to offset Wertham's claims that Batman and Robin were gay.