Speak of the Devil. Just as the DCnU juggernaut continues on the back of the Superman copyright lawsuits, an online auction starts today that is auctioning off the cheque from DC Comics to Siegel and Shuster that bought the character Superman. For my earlier post on that story, go here. Bleeding Cool (source of the image above) reports:
For some other weird memorabilia in that auction, go here. I occasionally talk about auctions as examples of opened time capsules, and opportunities to buy historical artifacts, for more of my auctions posts, see the link below the jump.It has long been part of the record of comic book history that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sold the rights for Superman to Detective Comics, Inc (the company which was to become DC Comics, of course) for $130.
Here is the March 1, 1938 check that DC Comics publisher and accountant Jack Liebowitz issued to Siegel and Shuster to complete that transaction:
Note the Superman line item next to the amount $130.
Also note the total $412, with other line items including “D.C”, ”Adv”, and “Fun”. This would probably correspond to payments for work in Detective Comics, New Adventure Comics, and More Fun Comics, where Siegel and Shuster had strips such as Doctor Occult, Federal Men, and Slam Bradley published just prior to the debut of Superman.
Adding to this already rather stellar bit of comic book history, the back includes not only the endorsements of both men (spelled both incorrectly and correctly to account for Liebowitz’s misspelling of both names on the front), but also an April 6, 1939 stamp for the U.S. District Court of New York, where it was presumably used to prove DC’s ownership of the character in Detective Comics, Inc. v. Bruns Publications, Inc. ...
These items just surfaced with Comic Connect and Metropolis Collectibles founder Stephen Fishler, whose auction house has a number of items from Jerry Siegel’s personal archive in an auction running November 14-30.
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